Labor Day was born from voluntary association, but the state made union association required

While Labor Day was first recognized in New York in 1882 to demonstrate the strength of organized labor, it is important to remember that labor comes from individual workers. Many of those workers continue the fight for the right to choose who represents them in the workplace — a decision Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took away from them.

The first Labor Day celebration was held in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882.

Peter J. McGuire, one of the men credited with originating the holiday, described its purpose as publicly demonstrating the “strength and esprit de corps” of trade and labor organizations.

Workers would voluntarily join together to negotiate collectively for better wages and working conditions, which they might have had difficulty obtaining on their own.

But the key word is “voluntarily.”

Over the past 100 years, labor unions have grown in political and lobbying power.

As a result, some laws force workers to pay a union to represent them as a condition of employment, even if they would otherwise prefer to negotiate their own wages and benefits.

Workers, especially in states that lack a right-to-work law, such as Michigan, must by law pay unions at least an agency fee, even if they do not want to join the bargaining organization at their workplace.

Laborers who once sought protection from the concentrated power of employers have found their rights usurped by the government and political will of unions.

The same labor organizations once declared they would protect employees from abusive power.

Samuel Gompers, founder and former president of the American Federation of Labor, promoted freedom of choice and rejected compulsory participation.

“No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which, united, is invincible,” Gompers said in 1924, as reported by the Foundation for Economic Education.

But the sentiment did not last long.

Workers who objected to compulsory unionism became a counterforce, with states enacting right-to-work laws. The battle to protect workers from being forced to pay unions that engage in political actions many of their members oppose was won in 2012 in Michigan when then-Gov. Rick Snyder signed right-to-work legislation into law.

Unions could still serve their members, thanks to the law, but each worker had the option to choose whether to pay a union for representation.

But Whitmer took away that choice by signing a repeal of the state’s right-to-work law in 2023.

Public sector employees still have that right, thanks to a 2018 Supreme Court decision. The court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that they could not be compelled to pay a union.