Across our economy and democracy, millions of working families and our communities have joined together to speak out and fight back against an extremist agenda that seeks to separate and divide us. The promise of America — that if you work hard you can build a better life — is broken for too many. The rules continue to be set by the greedy and self-interested through our courts and our legislative systems to favor the few over the many. This week, that attack began to be heard by the Supreme Court in the case of Janus vs. AFSCME, which attempts to tear apart public service workers from each other by weakening their unions. Our public sector workforce provides the vital services that help our families and communities thrive. When they are strong at work, its good for all of us.

In unions, working people gain the strength in numbers to raise wages and make their jobs better. As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, thousands of workers rose up in 600 actions across the country proclaiming #WeRise to stand up for the good union jobs working American families need.

We showed up in the streets and online to organize and win for working families. Online #WeRise trended on Twitter throughout the day and workers came out across states and sectors. Fast-food workers in the Fight for $15 and a union joined the actions all over the country to say we’re not letting this latest attack on unions stop any of us. Their organizing and actions over the past five years has helped push 11 million workers to $15 an hour and together we will not stop until working families have strength and a voice on their job through a union.

In California, child care workers joined actions up and down the state, making it clear that what underpaid workers need are unions and they will fight until elected officials in California take the action. As part of #WeRise, University of Iowa faculty and hospital workers also joined in the day, calling on gubernatorial candidates to respect their ability to organize and create a path for workers at University of Iowa to form unions.

Across the country, our message to elected leaders was clear: more than lending words of support for our fight, working families need action to help strengthen and grow the ability of working people to join together in unions for good-paying jobs with benefits, protections and a voice at work.

Elected leaders are responding. In an opinion piece published this week, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney and Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto said, “Instead of seeking to destroy unions, we should help them grow and flourish.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told a crowd in Boston, “For years, big corporations and billionaire donors and their Republican allies have launched one assault after another against unions and against working people…. We’re here today because we have not given up. We’re ready to fight back.” Her colleague, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker recognized the connection to racial justice, writing about how laws to keep working people from joining together “originated in the Jim Crow era, when they were used to prevent black workers from organizing with unions, particularly in the South.”

I was in Lawrence, Massachusetts where I stood with workers who walked off their job to rise and act. When challenged if it was possible to organize millions of workers in unions, I shared the story of the Philadelphia Airport workers who organized and fought and raised their wages. I shared the story of the fearless fast-food workers who were once laughed at for demanding $15 an hour as a standard, and now we see elected officials coming out advocating for it to be the norm.

My brother, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, was in Boston with Sens. Warren and Markey, Mayor Walsh and hundreds of working people who together declared that even though there are enemies trying to cut us off at the knees together we are standing up and rising up for our freedoms, for our families and for our future.

I do believe that our future can be one where working families across our economy no longer work two and three jobs and still live in poverty. I believe that it will be made possible by the strength in numbers of working people joining together and organizing in unions. And I believe that to make that possible it’s on us. That is why #WeRise.

We rise for yesterday and tomorrow. We rise for the generations that came before us, on whose shoulders we stand and on whose progress our fight is possible. We rise for our children and our children’s children.

We rise to Fight. Together #WeRise and we resist the politics of hate and fear that divide us and to unrig the system built against us by greedy corporations and their self-interested politicians.

#WeRise to push leaders to tear down racial barriers and promote an inclusive economy. #WeRise to fuse together a movement of White, Black, Latinx and Asian working families to fight for an America where everyone’s work is valued and respected.

#WeRise to get our families registered and out to vote to elect leaders who are willing to take a stand, more than just taking a side, and hold corporations accountable for the good, union jobs our communities need. We will build a wider movement united by a common goal of raising pay and making jobs better for 64 million people paid less than $15 by helping them join together in unions. By transforming millions of underpaid service and care jobs into middle-class work that supports families, we will build thriving communities across our country.

Together #WeRise. Join us by pledging to stand with working Americans.