Putting Labor back in Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day Weekend is upon us again. My dad told me that the harder he worked physically, the less he got paid. He worked in factories before he took the civil service exam and became a firefighter in the early 1950s. Over time, his pay and benefits increased due to the power of the firefighters' union. So make that two lessons from my dad. The first is that workers doing "grunt" work deserve better pay and more respect; the second is that unions should be celebrated for helping workers to get higher pay and better benefits. Yet sadly Labor Day Weekend in America is typically sold as yet another opportunity to spend money at various "sales." It's not celebrated as a day to mark the contributions of the humble worker across America. Indeed, if it's truly "labor" day, shouldn't nearly everyone have the day off?
Workers had to fight bitter, sometimes deadly, battles for nickles and dimes. And they still do. We need to remember those battles and work to improve the plight of workers everywhere.