Labor Day has lost its identity. What used to be a day that celebrated workers and their fight for shorter hours, higher pay and safer working conditions has become one that is spent rummaging through sales in big box stores where minimum wage employees are forced to work on the one day that was created to honor them.

Recently, Amalgamated Bank enjoyed a banner day. Our brand was prominently displayed in the heart of Times Square, employees pointed out colleagues who appeared live on Bloomberg and CNBC and the NASDAQ floor was bustling with Amalgamated Bank veterans, board members and countless others who were in attendance to witness history as the bank went public.

“Corporate social responsibility.” “B Corp certified.” “ESG.” “Carbon neutral.” These are some of the buzzwords that companies use to talk about their impact on society. As America’s socially responsible bank, we use these words to describe our approach to doing business. But what does it really mean to be a socially responsible bank?

Email: the life force of our days; the thing we check 500 times an hour (sometimes a minute), and have put our complete faith in to communicate and hold our thoughts, our work, our information and really every aspect of our lives. Turns out, it’s really dangerous.

Last week, for the first time in a year, we brought all of our employees together in the same room to take a look back at 2017 and celebrate the incredible transformation that Amalgamated Bank has experienced over the past five years. It was a day to remember.