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Heading into Labor Day weekend—one that falls right before important midterm elections—it’s hard not to feel like we’re sitting on top of a roller coaster, waiting for it to drop us into who knows how many twists and turns.

In addition to the uncertainty about the outcome of the elections, the future of state labor policy remains an open question.

No one expected Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, to actually veto the public-sector collective bargaining bill that she promised to support. And no one knows what areas Spanberger is willing to compromise on to get a bill enacted in the upcoming session.

Still, as most people who work in politics or the labor movement understand, change often takes time. And there are signs that labor has reasons to be more hopeful.

Nearly half of Americans want labor unions in the US to have more influence than they do now, a record high in the past quarter-century and roughly double the number who want unions to have less influence.

There will be plenty of conversations happening over the weekend at Labor Day events about what kind of future we want to build here in Virginia. For those in the Charlottesville area, a March for a Living Wage is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 7, at the campus of the University of Virginia.

Below, I share what I heard and saw on the picket line at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on Wednesday.

And, I reflect on the loss of a feminist icon.

Michael O’Connor

Reporter, Dogwood

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden workers on strike on Sept. 2, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

Yesterday, I queued up a podcast on the English Revolution of the 1640s and drove south on I-95, bound for the picket line at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

When I got there, I chatted with Jamie O’Brien, an educator at the garden. O’Brien shared how the workers want the garden to come back to the negotiating table to find a compromise on an initial pay increase.

“The wages are so low, the turnover is so high that people can’t work here very long,” O’Brien told me. “And by doing this, we’re trying to make it a place where you can make this a sustainable place to work and make a living in Richmond.”

As we spoke, four Henrico County police cars parked at a distance. I was told they were there to make sure cars could get in and out, but their presence added to the tension.

While I was at the garden yesterday, I saw some cars cross the picket line and others drive away in solidarity. As I overheard one of the striking workers say, Richmond has no shortage of activities.

I also spoke with Dan B., another striking worker who was gamely keeping a beat on an overturned bucket. Dan told me how frustrating the hostility from the garden’s management has been.

“Living things need care,” Dan said, referencing the flowers and butterflies that make the garden special. “And the people who help those things grow also need care.”

Kroger workers in the Richmond and Tidewater areas who organized with United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 are fighting to be included in the same contract and against a wage freeze.

State Del. Kathy Tran, sponsor of the public-sector collective bargaining bill, said she “had a wide ranging conversation about college admissions and affordability, as well as public sector collective bargaining” with the president of George Mason University.

OpenSecrets has a report on national political spending by labor unions and the nuances of union members’ partisan leanings. “If you want to keep your place at the table, which they do, that means raising historic amounts of money,” a political science professor said.

Virginia Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi speaks at a town hall in Loudoun County on Sept. 2, 2026. (Michael O’Connor/Dogwood)

After getting back from Richmond, I hopped back in the car, threw on the new Billy Strings album and ventured west to Sterling for the first stop of Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi’s (D) energy listening tour.

The room inside the Dreamscapes Performing Arts Center wasn’t the biggest, but it was filled with people angry about the ongoing development of Virginia’s hundreds of data centers and energy infrastructure.

People cheered on the idea of state lawmakers holding a special session to extend the review time of the proposed merger between Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy.

But today, Dave Ress at the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott (D) trusts the State Corporation Commission to do its job within the current timeline.

Someone from LIUNA’s Mid-Atlantic team said the union plans to file to intervene in the merger cases under review in Virginia and North Carolina. He said the union has had a good relationship with Dominion, which has a history of using union labor.

He said the union wants to make sure that any deal that gets approved will have protections for workers and that NextEra will honor Dominion’s agreements with labor.

(Democracy Now!/YouTube)

Today, many in the country are mourning the passing of activist and journalist Gloria Steinem.

“Gloria was a trailblazer who dedicated her life to fighting for women’s equality and economic independence,” US Rep. Don Beyer posted online. “Her courage and determination opened doors for generations of women, and her example has inspired so many of us who continue that fight.”

I actually saw Steinem speak once, way back in 2007 or 2008. I was fresh out of high school, serving in AmeriCorps in Sacramento, California, and feminist theory was all new to me.

But something that stuck with me was her suggestion that we should all be sitting in a circle, rather than listening to her speak at a lectern.

That was probably the first time someone made me pay attention to the ways our structures—physical or otherwise—shape how we think and move through the world.