Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation and National Right to Work Committee, issued the following statement on the occasion of Labor Day 2026:

Labor Day exists to honor the hardworking men and women who build and sustain the most prosperous and innovative country in the world. Yet every year as we celebrate them, union officials hijack this holiday to push a coercive agenda that most workers oppose.

Polling clearly shows that Americans at large, and union members in particular, reject Big Labor’s agenda of coercion and forced dues. Celebrating workers must include protecting their Right to Work: trusting each worker to decide for themselves whether to join and financially support a union.

That freedom is too often threatened by those in the halls of power in Washington, D.C. For four years, the Biden Labor Board used one-sided decisions and rule changes to make it harder for workers to vote out unwanted unions, and easier for union officials to organize workplaces without workers ever casting a ballot at all.

Only in recent weeks has the NLRB gained a Trump-appointed majority with the votes to reverse those precedents. Much work remains, including in dozens of cases brought by National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, to undo the damage the Biden Board did to employee freedom.

The fight is also playing out in Congress as Big Labor funnels billions in forced dues to advance the so-called ‘PRO Act,’ which would wipe out all 26 state Right to Work laws and force millions more workers to pay up or be fired. The one-page National Right to Work Act, by contrast, would make union membership and dues strictly voluntary nationwide.

That’s what this Labor Day should be about: not forced dues and coerced representation, but the freedom to choose. On behalf of the 8 in 10 Americans who support the Right to Work, we’ll keep fighting until workers everywhere have that fundamental freedom secured.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.