Labor Day is more than a holiday or a long weekend. It is an opportunity to reflect on the history of working people who organized, sacrificed, and fought to create a better future for themselves, their families, and generations that followed.

Many of the rights we consider fundamental to modern working life were once demands that required extraordinary courage and collective action. The eight-hour workday was born from the fight for a simple principle: people should not have to spend nearly their entire lives at work just to survive. The five-day workweek helped establish the idea that workers deserve time to rest, spend time with their families, participate in their communities, and enjoy their lives outside of work. The right to organize and collectively bargain gave workers something that individual employees often lack: collective power and a meaningful voice in the workplace. Workers also fought for safer working conditions, fair wages, overtime protections, benefits, and the right to rest. These were not gifts from employers or government. They were victories won through organizing, solidarity, perseverance, and generations of workers willing to stand together.

That history continues today.

I am proud that my campaign has earned the support of labor organizations including 32BJ SEIU, CWA, the Essex County Education Association, and the Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, among others. I am grateful for these endorsements not simply because they strengthen my campaign, but because they represent organizations with deep roots in the fight for working people.

Union members are teachers and educators. They are transportation and service workers. They are public employees, skilled tradespeople, and workers across the industries that keep our communities functioning. They understand what it means to work hard, provide for a family, and still face the rising costs of housing, food, transportation, healthcare, and education. Their advocacy reminds us that economic opportunity must mean more than simply having a job. It should mean having a good job that provides dignity, stability, fair compensation, and a real opportunity to build a better life.

As I campaign to serve as Essex County Commissioner, I believe county government has an important role to play in creating an economy where working families can thrive. That means supporting responsible economic development and job creation. It means investing in infrastructure and our communities. It means supporting workforce development and creating pathways into good-paying careers. And it means ensuring that public policy recognizes the dignity of work.

This Labor Day, I am thinking about the generations who came before us and fought for the rights that workers have today. The eight-hour workday. The five-day workweek. The right to rest. The right to organize.These were victories. Today, our responsibility is to make sure that the next generation of workers inherits not only those victories, but an even stronger economy and a stronger voice in the workplace.

Happy Labor Day to every worker, union member, organizer, and working family across Essex County and beyond. When working people stand together, we move forward together.