Twelve weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, representatives from unions across the country convened to memorialize 631 union members then known to have died at the World Trade Center, in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. They were firefighters, police officers, hotel and restaurant workers, electricians, carpenters, public employees, teachers, flight crews and others. The losses were extraordinary, but so was the response.

While Sept. 11 was one of our city’s darkest days, we should also remember what happened next. On Sept. 12, New Yorkers started the long, hard work of lifting each other up and getting our city back on its feet. That period in our city’s history powerfully demonstrated the resilience of the workers who make NYC what it is.

At that December 2001 convening, one rescue worker said that while individuals can do heroic things, what New York saw after 9/11 was only possible because people came together for a common goal. That’s what........

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