It’s tiresome reading such nonsense as the letter from Steve Lemois (June 18) who claims to know what unions are doing.

Here are some of the programs and laws that union workers have fought hard to create, many of which we still protect from regular attack by wealthy interests: Social Security, Medicare, the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, child-labor laws, family/medical leave with employer-paid insurance, unemployment insurance, temporary-disability insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and the minimum-wage law. And we have much more hard work ahead of us, such as the need for affordable access to health care for everyone and human-rights protections for workers making our products both here and abroad.

We union workers sure do manage to do an awful lot for non-union people while just “looking after our own behinds,” which Mr. Lemois claims is all we do. Can he even be serious?

BRIAN WILDER

Cranston