Washington’s working men and women are proud of their work and proud of their country. Every day they get up and put in a fair day’s work so that they can support their families, contribute to their communities and be productive citizens. This year, Labor Day has had to be celebrated in the shadow of the awful anniversary of September 11th.

That outrageous assault on our country last year brought into clear focus the values of America’s “everyday heroes.” The thousands of innocent civilians working that September morning in the World Trade Center, and the hundreds of emergency personnel who responded to the attack and put their lives on the line showed the courage, conviction and compassion of our nation’s “everyday heroes.” It is only right that we honor them, on Labor Day, on September 11 and every day.

But something is wrong when we honor the workers who keep our nation secure in thousands of ways every day, even as the Bush Administration tries to keep workers from having even the basic right to join a union, or threatens to intervene when workers with a union try to exercise their rights.  The Administration is opposed to allowing workers to even have a union in the proposed Homeland Security Department. It has stalled on allowing bargaining rights for airport screeners. It has threatened to deploy the military on our West Coast docks to stop any Longshore strike. 

I cannot help but wonder what is going on here. Have those 9/11 terrorists succeeded by the back door—by giving our government an excuse to restrict our basic civil liberties, including our right to organize, join the union of our choice and engage in free collective bargaining with the right to strike if necessary? As the song goes, “Something’s happening here, what it is isn’t exactly clear…”  

These are unusual, disturbing times. Yet working people continue to hold dear their individual rights. New research finds that 54 percent of working Americans who could form a union say they would do so, if given a chance. That’s an increase of eight points in the last six years. At the same time, new surveys show American workers are losing faith in their employers, with a full sixty-six percent reporting they have little or no trust that employers will treat workers fairly.

One can hardly blame them. The litany of corporate larceny over the last year has been without precedent. From Enron to Worldcom and everyone in between, we have suffered a huge loss in our pension funds, personal investments, jobs and economic vitality. Labor has been pointing out the problem of corporate greed for years. In the past decade, while rank-and-file wages rose just 36%, CEO salaries climbed 340%, and that doesn’t count their stock options! The corporate boards that looked the other way when CEOs cooked the accounting reports are just as guilty of misfeasance.

Corporate wrongdoing hasn’t been limited to Wall Street. It has become too easy for companies to cut health coverage, retirement benefits, slash pay or shut down operations altogether. Many companies have undertaken a conscious and determined “cost shift.” A prime example of this tactic can be found at Wal-Mart. That giant retailer doesn’t provide health care insurance to two-thirds of its employees and actually gives classes on how their employees can get on a government health care program.

These kinds of companies are shifting their traditional responsibilities for on-the-job training, health care and pensions to the government. Then they complain about government budgets and taxes! In some ways, these “modern” companies are acting more like the indifferent ruling nobility of 17th Century Europe… with a “let them eat cake” attitude towards hard-working American families.

Americans’ growing loss of faith in corporations is fueling a new level of activity in our unions. All kinds of workers are forming and joining unions, from doctors and nurses to janitors and teachers, hotel workers to graphic designers. It’s not the nature of the work, it is the conditions of the work that is driving this new effort. Just last month, in the largest such election in state history, 26,000 home care workers voted to join the Service Employees International Union. 

Last month, President Bush convened a “summit” in Waco, Texas, to reassure the country that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. But here in Washington, we are not at all reassured.  Layoffs continue, unemployment is too high, and the state’s budget is in real trouble. The “economic fundamentals” for our families are not adding up to a secure, prosperous future.

So let’s return to some fundamental values we know will stand us in good stead during the uncertain times ahead. Those are the values of our “everyday heroes” from 9/11—courage, convictions and compassion. It’s high time for America’s corporate and political elite to treat our “heroes” with more than lip service, and to begin to act with the same conviction, courage and compassion so evident to us all. 

Rick Bender is President of the Washington State Labor Council, the largest labor organization in the state.