Honoring Labor Organizers

Labor Day is coming up this Monday, Sept. 7, 2026! The Midweek Mission Message would like to recognize labor organizers and movements. Below are some people and organizations that have paved the way for more human rights for all:

• Dorothy Day – cofounded the Catholic Worker Movement
• Eugene Debs – founded the American Railway Union
• Dolores Huerta – cofounded the United Farm Workers Union
• Industrial Workers of the World – led the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike
• Mary Harris (Mother) Jones – child labor organizer; led a children’s march from Philadelphia to New York
• John L. Lewis – led the United Mine Workers of America and founded the Congress of Industrial Organizations
• A. Philip Randolph – helped create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
• And many more!

Loretto stands in solidarity with labor organizers this Labor Day and always. As Dorothy Day once said, “You can spend your own time agonizing or organizing.” How will you be spending your time this Labor Day? Maybe you will research some of the movements listed above or listen to Joan Baez singing “Bread and Roses” in honor of the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike.

(Photo credit: Dolores Huerta (center), receiving the Mary Rhodes Award from the Loretto Women’s Network, is flanked by longtime farm worker ministry supporters Virginia Nesmith, at left, former executive director of the National Farm Workers Ministry and former Loretto development director, and Mary Jean Friel CoL. Photo courtesy of Mary Jean Friel)