Thoughts On Labor Day: A Holiday that Means More than Picnics or Parades, More than a Day Off from Class

             For many, Labor Day means another day off, another picnic or barbeque, or another three-day weekend that can be used to take a short vacation on the lake. In fact, for some, Labor Day means a sale.

            Historically and politically, however, Labor Day means much more. It means gaining the eight-hour workday and the weekend. It means acquiring safe and fair working conditions. It means securing fair wages. It means ensuring children are not exploited for cheap labor. It means the establishment other social safety net programs, from social security to unemployment insurance. The holiday symbolizes, in short, the most powerful political-economic arm of working class people.

            It is indeed more than a picnic or a parade.

            While organized labor played a significant role in shaping the rights workers enjoy today, the current state of labor is not so great. Union membership is way down, both in the private — only 6.6 percent of privately employed workers are in unions — and the public — only 36 percent of employees are unionized — sector. Historically, popular support of unions is also relatively low, with just over 50 percent of the public viewing unions positively. Young people — i.e., the growing workforce — are much less likely to join unions than their preceding generations. Right-wing legislation has curtailed the ability of unions to organize and exercise collective bargaining.

            However, despite legislative attacks and eroding membership, unions have been at the forefront of recent important social and economic justice movements: from fighting to raise local, state, and federal minimum wages; to achieving equal pay for equal work, regardless of gender or sexual orientation; to battling for affordable health insurance; all the way to pressing for immigration reform.

            Thus, organized labor is down, but not out.

            Amidst stagnating incomes and and perpetuating income inequality, it is time we reinstate the significance and utility of Labor Day. So, rather than hoping for a day off from classes, Wittenberg students could start by organizing and agitating for a living wage for the University housekeepers — a group of laborers that were sold down the river by the administration just a few years ago.

            This, however, would certainly come with pushback from the administration. Which is to say, it makes sense that Wittenberg doesn’t officially observe Labor Day: an institution can’t celebrate the victories of the working class while paying a poverty wage.

            “Having light, we hoard it,” so the motto should go.