Apprentices work on a bridge pier and deck project outside the Anchorage Carpenters Training Center on King Street in Anchorage on March 24, 2025. (Marc Lester / ADN)
For generations, Alaskans have celebrated Labor Day by getting in one last weekend of summer fun before the leaves turn and temperatures drop.
These get-togethers are the perfect opportunity for workers and families to come together, enjoy good food, spend time with their community and relax.
They are perfect opportunities to reflect on the power and promise labor unions hold to improve the lives of working people across our state. A time to re-commit to upholding these ideals so more people can enjoy the better pay, benefits, and working conditions that come with being a union member.
Those benefits have been hard-earned over decades of organizing and solidarity. Similarly, Labor Day wasn’t born in a vacuum — it was won by working people fighting for the promise of a better life in often dangerous conditions with few rights. It is a day that marks what we’ve accomplished together, the sacrifices made by those who came before us, and a day that reminds us of the work that remains.
Above all, Labor Day is about celebrating the dignity, creativity and power of workers in all of our communities. And year after year, that power shows up in a number of ways that help build Alaska.
We built the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, we plow the roads and keep our highways clear. We keep our supply chains running and the lights on through the toughest of conditions. We care for patients at Alaska’s largest hospitals, and so much more. Alaska works because we do.
At the heart of the labor movement is organizing. For decades, workers across the state have joined together to advocate for strong local economies and a meaningful voice on the job that protects their rights at work and freedom to bargain for a fair contract. And that story continues today as workers across Alaska use their voices to improve the lives of working families.
But the challenges working people face today are significant. Attacks on collective bargaining rights at the federal level make it more difficult for workers to deliver the services Americans expect. In the last few months, over 1 million Americans have had their right to collective bargaining stripped with the stroke of a pen. This malicious attack on a worker’s fundamental right to join a union must be treated as a call to action. While federal workers are on the chopping block today, your contract could be next in line. These attacks do not end with federal employees, as we saw in the early 1980s when President Reagan declared open season on all unions after busting the National Air Traffic Controllers’ union.
As the rights of more and more workers come under attack, the time is now for Alaskans to stand up and fight back. We urge our congressional delegation to support the Protect America’s Workforce Act that will enshrine the right of federal workers to collectively bargain in law. And we urge them to stand firmly on the side of all working Alaskans and their unions in their fight for economic justice and a voice on the job.
Now, more than ever, we must ask, whose side are you on?
Joelle Hall is president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, Alaska’s largest federation of labor unions.
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