To the Journal editor:

As part of celebrating Labor Day that honors our workers for progressing the prosperity and well-being of our country, we define, justify, and apply justice to declare just worker rights.

What is justice?

Justice is revealed in our history when we progressed from justice for few to justice for all.

In our Founding, our minimalist government established individual rights for wealthy white men to promote justice for few.

In our history we progressed through our many revolutionary rights movements, including our worker rights movements in our New Deal, when our activist government progressed all economic, educational, environmental, health, legal, political, religious and social rights for all workers and all retired workers to progress justice for all.

Applying justice for all, we declare just interrelated worker rights for all workers and all retired workers:

Our right for an activist national government to enforce, progress and restore all rights for all.

Our right for progressive redistributive taxes to help finance progressing all rights for all, including raising our income tax rate for millionaires from 37 percent to 70 percent (our 1970s rate) and eliminating welfare for millionaires.

Our right for a job for all.

Our right for a just income for all, including 1. requiring women paid equally as men for comparable work, 2. raising our national minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $15, 3. creating high-paying construction jobs with trickle over benefits for all, and 4. creating basic income of $1,000 per month for all.

Our right for free education and training for all.

Our right for free health care for all.

Our right for equal opportunity for employment and advancement for all.

Our right for healthy and safe workplaces for all.

Our right for freedom of participation in all areas for all, including economic, legal and political participation for all.

Our rights for freedoms from discrimination (policy) and harassment (practice) for all, including freedoms from age, ethnic and sexual discrimination and harassment for all.

Our right for a scientific job description and evaluation for all, including having research-based consensus, content, and predictive validity, not having opinion-based evaluations.

Our right for freedom from unjust firing for all, including a just firing requires scientific valid facts proving a serious offense, including damage, fraud, harassment, incompetence or theft.

As part of celebrating Labor Day that honors our workers, we declare: All rights for all workers! Justice for all!

Gordon Peterson

Marquette

Editor’s note: This letter writer should not be confused with Gordon J. Peterson, a retired funeral director who worked for many years for Swanson-Lundquist Funeral Home in Marquette.