Disability Pride Month: The World Works Better With Us
Each July, our union celebrates Disability Pride Month, held in the month the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. This year’s theme, “The World Works Better With Us,” says it well: people with disabilities are not just part of our communities, they help make our communities stronger. We mark the month by recommitting to the leadership and full inclusion of people with disabilities, in our union and beyond. This year, that commitment matters more than ever, because across the country we are seeing attacks on the rights of workers and the rights of people with disabilities, and we are fighting back
Disability is a natural part of human diversity. People with disabilities have always been here and always will be. Nationally, about 1 in 4 adults lives with a disability, and many of our members are among them, working in every kind of job our union represents. Our members live with physical, intellectual and developmental, and psychiatric disabilities, chronic illness, and neurodivergence, and they do their jobs, as our Disabilities Activist Caucus puts it, by doing things differently than others might, not by doing less.
“Disability is the only minority group anyone can become a member of at any time. In fact, if you’re lucky enough to grow old, you will experience some degree of disability. So think ahead: when it’s your turn, will you want your autonomy, decision-making, and dignity protected? Let’s make sure disability rights matter to everyone…now.” — National Disability Rights Network
Some of our members also provide the home and community-based care that helps people with disabilities and older adults live in their own homes, support that is directed by the people who receive it. What connects worker and community member is not charity but interdependence, the truth that all of us depend on one another to live full lives. Both the labor movement and disability justice insist on the same things: non-discrimination, self-determination, and the principle that a person’s worth is never measured by productivity.
This is why disability policy is union business. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is the landmark civil rights law banning disability discrimination in employment, government services, and public life. The Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. decision built on it, ruling that people with disabilities have the right to receive services in their own communities rather than being segregated in institutions, some of which did not close until 2009. Not long ago, people with disabilities were expected to stay out of sight, to hide their disabilities or go without the tools and accommodations they needed. How far we have come is a measure of what people with disabilities and workers won together, organizing side by side, marching, and refusing to be invisible.
That is why we condemn the recent U.S. Department of Justice opinion undermining the ADA’s integration mandate. By signaling it will no longer rely on longstanding Olmstead guidance, the DOJ is retreating from that promise and inviting a return to unnecessary institutionalization. And this opinion does not stand alone. It comes alongside renewed legal attacks on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, proposed Medicaid cuts that would slash the hours and jobs of care workers while stripping support from the people they serve, and efforts to weaken federal enforcement of disability civil rights. Together they form a coordinated push to roll back decades of progress. We stand with the more than 100 members of Congress calling on the DOJ to rescind this opinion.
We are not only defending these rights, we are building them into our own house. On July 11, 2026, our union passed the Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Policy, creating a disability-focused safety plan for all union spaces, putting accessibility at the forefront of planning for every union event, and establishing new training on disability inclusion and rights. This is what member-led change looks like.
This Disability Pride Month, we say it plainly: disability justice is union justice. We condemn this opinion and every attack on disability rights, because worker rights and disability rights have always been one struggle. When they come for the rights of some of us, they come for all of us, and an injury to one is an injury to all. Learn more and get involved with our Disabilities Activist Caucus.
