This Labor Day, America’s labor movement is at the brink of a pivotal moment. Conservatives are now joining liberals in embracing the vital role of labor unions for advancing a worker-centric society—albeit with some crucial reforms in mind.

This comes at a time when workers are feeling apprehensive about their future labor market prospects, especially with recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence. Concurrently, the independent economy—comprised of freelancers, gig workers, and conventional contractors—is revolutionizing how we work and challenging the relevance of traditional, employee-centric labor unions.

It is in this very moment that unions could play a transformational role—something that would require rethinking and redesigning some aspects of America’s institutional labor framework. Change is never easy, and the status quo will always have powerful support. But workers are already experiencing drastic transitions, and everyone—unions included—should be empowered to keep up.

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