Most Americans realize that Labor Day is about celebrating workers and their contribution to our free society, but that won’t stop union bosses from stealing the spotlight to push their own agenda.

Despite this, there is still much to celebrate this Labor Day. Workers from across the country have made substantial gains for workplace freedom.

In America’s newest Right to Work state, a growing number of workers from across Michigan are joining the fight to protect their right to work from union bosses. In Wisconsin, the state supreme court upheld in entirety Governor Scott Walker’s public-sector unionism reforms, commonly known as “Act 10,” which grants Right to Work protections to most Wisconsin government employees.

And in Illinois, a mother named Pam Harris, joined by other parents and family members who provide home-based personal care to special-needs individuals, took a corrupt quid pro quo government unionization scheme all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In that case, now-imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich and current Gov. Pat Quinn issued executive orders designed to force home-based personal-care providers into Service Employer International Union ranks. The court struck down the scheme, ruling that individuals who indirectly receive state subsidies based on their clientele cannot be forced to pay compulsory union fees. The court’s ruling renders unconstitutional similar home-care unionization schemes in effect in at least 13 other states.

In the wake of the court’s ruling, SEIU officials were forced to back down from demanding $11 million in annual forced dues payments from 25,000 Illinois providers.

But despite these big victories for worker freedom, more work remains.

You see, in the 26 states without Right to Work laws, workers who want to refrain from union membership can be fired for refusing to pay union dues. What’s more, millions more nonmember workers have no choice but to accept union bargaining over their wages and working conditions, even if they want nothing to do with the union.

This despite the facts that poll after poll shows that the American people overwhelmingly oppose forced union dues and affiliation and more than 93 percent of private-sector workers have chosen not to join a union.

For union officials, political activism takes precedence over protecting worker rights. And why not?  Big Labor’s $1.7 billion forced-dues funded political machine enables Big Labor to wield an immense amount of clout in Washington, D.C., and state capitals.

As we are seeing in Michigan, Illinois, and beyond, workers are waking up to the fact that this flood of forced-dues cash also breeds extravagance, abuse, and corruption.  In more than 200 active cases nationwide, Foundation attorneys are helping thousands of Americans like Pam Harris stand up for their rights against union official corruption, intimidation, and even violence.

Perhaps this Labor Day, union officials for their own sake should take a step back and reexamine why millions of American workers want nothing to do with a union. 

Mark Mix is the president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.