Unions are working people who believe in something better and who fight for a better way of life with dignity, respect, security, safety, wages and benefits. Essentially, people who fight for a change for the better.
As we get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July, it’s worth remembering something we don’t often hear: America didn’t begin with a declaration. It began with ordinary people demanding change.
There is a famous painting showing Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin presenting the Declaration of Independence to the Second Continental Congress in 1776. These Founders are often credited with launching the revolution.
But here’s what gets left out: they weren’t the ones leading the way. They were heeding public demand.
Before the Declaration, before the Congresses, before the fireworks — there was a pamphlet. Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine and published in January of 1776, spoke directly to working people. It called out monarchy, privilege and inequality. It also painted a vision of a new country where people, not kings or elites, would call the shots.
Paine didn’t write for the lawyers or the landowners. He wrote for farmers, shoemakers, carpenters and tradespeople… and they responded. The pamphlet spread like wildfire. It was read aloud in taverns, passed around at work sites and even copied by hand.
It lit a fire under a movement which was already building. It was a movement that pushed the colonies toward full independence. The Founders didn’t create that momentum. They stepped into it.
By the time Congress voted to declare independence, regular people had already enlisted in General Washington’s ragtag army. They were risking everything for the chance to build a new kind of country. One where decisions wouldn’t be made by the rich and powerful alone, but by the people.
This spirit is still alive today. And union members are a big part of it.
The fight for dignity at work, for fair pay and for a voice on the job is part of the same tradition. It’s about standing up to systems that put profit over people. It’s about ordinary Americans demanding what we’ve always deserved: respect and a say in our own future.
Our nation’s name is the United States of America: a union of states and citizens. And when we talk about our unions, we’re talking about the same idea: people coming together and united for a common cause.
This Independence Day let’s remember where our country really came from: Not just from declarations and signatures, but from working people who believed in something better and who were ready to fight for it.
