Every year when Labor Day rolls around, I look forward to the pictures and videos of our members marching through towns large and small, all those proud ambassadors in IBEW gear smiling and waving behind our banners.

We have reason to be especially proud this year, with the news that we gained more than 24,000 new brothers and sisters between last summer and this one — an organizing surge not seen since the 1970s.

We’d love to break the record again next year. Power in numbers means more political clout, more leverage in bargaining, and more gold-standard IBEW workers to fill jobs and increase our market share.

But we can’t do it in a vacuum. We have to be aware of outside factors that affect our jobs and growth. And we have to fight back with the same solidarity and determination as our brothers and sisters long before us.

As you’ll read in this month’s cover story, our IBEW and labor movement ancestors literally risked their lives for the rights and protections we take for granted today. Every day, we’re bargaining for the bread-and-butter issues — raises, benefits, job classifications, workplace safety and so on. But we tend to assume the bedrock principles that gave us a collective voice and prioritized our health and safety are secure.

We can’t make those assumptions anymore. Political attacks on our rights, safety and jobs are escalating like we’ve never seen before. Which says a lot, given that the business lobby has had its swords out since the ink was drying on the 1935 National Labor Relations Act.

This year, the White House has killed pro-worker policies, decimated agencies created to uphold our rights and put anti-union officials in charge of labor boards. Federal workers, including IBEW members, have been fired in mass without cause or recourse, while a court ruling has freed the government to unilaterally end CBAs for the remaining federal workforce.

Assaults on the Occupational Health and Safety Administration have shut down 11 state offices, fired investigators, ended research, banned rule-making and put dozens of existing rules on the chopping block.

Meanwhile, thousands of trade union jobs in clean energy and infrastructure are disappearing as the government freezes funding and cancels projects.

It’s a lot to take in, I know. But it’s not insurmountable. Remember that our predecessors had no foundation to stand on. They started from scratch, and look what they accomplished.

By taking a page from their playbook and standing in solidarity as a union and a movement, we have the power to surmount today’s obstacles.

This Labor Day, I challenge you to commit yourselves to upholding the bedrock principles our movement was founded on and to stand up to assaults on our fundamental rights as workers. Together, we can fight back and win.