Source: Eyewitness News
Date: Sept. 2, 2025
BOONE COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — Cecil Roberts has served as the UMWA president for decades and he knows how important labor unions across the country are. Unions have played a large role in gaining rights for many different professions.
“If you’re a worker and you’re making decent wages, that’s because of a union, even though you may not belong to a union,” Roberts said. “If you’ve got health care, pension, time off, or any of those things, you should thank a union for that because the union’s made all of that.”
A Gallup poll from 2022 recorded 71% of the public support labor unions; the highest number since 1965.
“Today, the truth of the matter is most workers who don’t have a union want one. If they could vote in the morning to have a union, they’d do it by about 65%,” Roberts said.
UMWA vice president Brian Lacy said the Labor Day celebration in Racine honors the changes unions have fought for over the years and persists into the future.
“We’re here to recognize the sacrifices that people that came before us made to garner better working conditions, safer working conditions, better wages and benefits,” Lacy said. “It’s also to remind people that there’s work still to yet to be done out there in this country for workers.”
He believes unions are as important as they have ever been today.
“The only way that working class has a voice is when you stand together and you belong to a union. We’re stronger together,” he said. “The old saying, ‘Divided we beg. Together we bargain.’ It’s true. We’re stronger together.”
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Written By: Bailee Tucker
