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Erik Hare

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Blogs by Erik Hare

Labor Day
9/2/2007 8:32:44 PM


Labor Day should be more than just a day off or the end of summer. It’s a day to reflect on how we developed the life we have, and why we should be thankful for it.

A century ago, workers didn’t have much in the way of rights. If you couldn’t do the backbreaking labor feeding a furnace or chipping away at a mine, you were replaced. There wasn’t any health benefits or retirement. And you did it six days a week, getting only Sunday off. The blast furnaces of places like Pittsburgh saw more than coal shoveled into them; these were people’s lives burning hot and hard.

In this world, the air was often heavy with clouds of soot in most cities. No one minded it too much, as this was what industry was simply all about. The men working hard to make the wonderful things of this life had their lives turn into bitter ashes that fell all around them. The rich could escape to the country, but working people breathed their own burned out lives back into their lungs.

Eventually, it all came back out as a shout. A demand for justice.

The union movement that came from this furnace eventually won many rights, but only after they stood together and demanded them. At times an angry mob of destruction, at other times an ashen faced wall of solidarity, those who owned the furnaces and factories and mines eventually were forced to realize that without labor, nothing was possible. What was won was amazing. It made our life what it is today.

Consider for a moment the other holiday this September, which is the High Holidays of the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are important, but they are not the holiest of days in Judaism. That day is a simple one: Saturday, the Sabbath. It seems less important because it comes around once a week, but it is the holiest day of all.

Labor Day is the big day to celebrate all that the labor movement won in America. But one of the greatest things they won was the right to have a five-day week. The most important day we celebrate the victory of Labor is every Saturday that we get to spend with our families or just goofing off. Labor did more than bring us this one day in September, they brought us the weekend.

Perhaps we forget the great holiday of labor that comes once a week, but the least we can do is remember the sacrifices once a year. Without Labor, nothing is possible. Without the Labor Movement, our lives would be bitter and empty. A joyous day with a brief pause to remember the sacrifice is all they would have ever asked for, and I think it’s worth the time on this Labor Day.


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More Blogs by Erik Hare
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