A Message from Business Manager Chris Erikson Jr.
This past weekend we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This is a major milestone. I hope you took time to celebrate responsibly and reflect on who we are, where we have come from, and where we hope to go as a country. Amazingly, our Union has been a part of our country’s history for half of its life as well: 250 years of the United States of America and 126 years of Local 3.
Together as Americans, we gathered at parades and fireworks shows, backyard barbecues and cookouts in the park. That is where you truly see what matters most to our great country: the mosaic of the American people living the values we hold dear – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – along with the freedoms to speak, protest, worship any god we choose, love anyone you want, and be a member of a union like ours. No matter your ethnicity, race, religion, gender, or age, whether you were born here or found your way here as a first-generation American, you live in the greatest country in the world.
No doubt the past few years have been challenging, and many of the reasons why our country is indeed the greatest are being stressed and tested like never before. Institutions and norms continue to be attacked and undermined. The rich keep getting richer, and working people are used as props and given lip service by elected officials with little done to meaningfully improve our livelihoods. Unless you are a union member, of course, as we know a collective bargaining agreement is the best way into the middle class.
Like our country and our Union, nothing is perfect, yet we strive everyday to make it better, for ourselves and for our children, so that America will continue to be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, which still looks to us as the greatest nation, albeit a 250-year-old work in progress.
God bless America and God bless Local 3!
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress: “Evacuation of New York by the British, November 25, 1783,” November 30, 1883, wood engraving, hand-colored.
