“LABOR DAY”

Everyday is Labor Day for the creative and hard-working individuals who are industrious by the “sweat of one’s brow”, whether they labor with one’s mind or body. We are all laborers, whether we earn a wage or are generous volunteers. Anyone who toils with the diligent pangs of daily work, anyone who prides themselves with the satisfaction of a job done well, or anyone who provides a service for the pleasure of others is laboring daily. Through these needed labors we deliver goods and services to a world economy where fair trade should shine brilliantly like a beacon across our shores.

HAPPY LABOR DAY, EVERYDAY!

For those of us who believe in a Higher Power, such as God, then one would come to the intellectual conclusion that work is holy, because work sprung forth through Creation, the work and labor of creating the world, the universe, cosmos and beyond. As many a good scientist would acclaim, the on-going creation story began with matter and energy, which is good and all life consists of matter and energy. Work and labor is the integral mission that must continue for the survival of all matter, so in essence, we must all labor to survive, and all labor and work is good and holy in the sense that we are team mates working together for the common good of all humanity. Whether there is a higher power or god, something or someone labored to create all that we enjoy and benefit from on a daily basis. So, work is knighted or anointed as being supremely essential, special and direly important for the continued survival of all life on the planet earth.

So, my friends, we must CELEBRATE the stature and eminence of being a colossal laborer. One significant way is to have a holiday, as we do every September here in the USA. Let us look to the origin of this momentous event.

In 1898, SAMUEL GOMPERS, head of the American Federation of Labor, called Labor Day, “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed…that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”

Labor Day was conceived over 100 years ago amid worker unrest and turmoil caused by George Pullman, President of the Railroad Sleeping Car Company, who imposed high rent, while laying off massive workers and lowering wages. The remaining workers rose up in strike against Pullman. Then, President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a crime and sent in 12,000 troops to break the strike, (similar to when 100 years later, President Ronald Reagan broke the unions and fired all air-traffic controllers in the 1980’s.) Violence erupted, and laborers were killed by the U.S. Marshals, our very own government. Soon, this issue became a sticky point in President Grover Cleveland’s re-election bid, so reluctantly he signed a bill which created Labor Day as a national holiday in 1894.

In conjunction to the deadly Pullman strike, in New York City, the Central Labor Union had already celebrated a Labor Day two years prior to the strikes. It is believed that MATTHEW MCGUIRE, a machinist conceived and founded the idea of an official Labor Day for the significant contributions of all workers and laborers in the United States. What is very clear is the vast positive impact the labor unions had in the creation and on-going celebration of the holiday we all enjoy to signify the end of Summer. Labor Day is a day to pay tribute to all workers big and small, to take our hats off to them, as well as ourselves for the enormous strength and dignity we all add to our economy, freedom, democracy and spirit for the common good of all humanity. We should be proud of our endowment, dispensation and legacy that we put forth for generations to come – our gift to the world!

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “the vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.”

I am an American worker at the age of 41. I am also the father of two delightful teenagers. I am a provider through my labors. Presently, I volunteer much of my time to the building up of God Bless The World. In addition, I deliver newspapers 20 hours per week and do an occasional “Mystery Shop” once or twice a week at 10 hours, and I am the homemaker with cooking, cleaning, shopping, yard maintenance, etc. Combining my four jobs/careers, I work roughly 70 hours per week. I am busy, to say the least!

In the service field, as with waiters/waitresses, the newspaper carrier is one of the lowliest, extremely under-paid, and less respected of all jobs. Newspaper companies once rationalized this low pay, because children and teenagers were the bulk of paper carriers – that has changed over the years as parents look for supplemental income just to pay for food and rent. Does our society really pay tribute to workers and laborers, when they allow an injustice of low pay for newspaper carriers? When I was a newspaper boy at age eleven in Utica, Michigan for the weekly Advisor newspaper, I would also collect for the subscriptions, which as people got to know me personally as Scott, not just the guy who delivers our paper; they would give me huge tips, which would help dramatically offset the low wages. This was a good thing, a real tribute to a young boy with a strong work ethic. Today, most newspaper companies have eliminated the collection process being handled by the paper carriers, stating it was helpful and made the carriers jobs easier, but as a downfall to this aim was the almost overnight destruction of tips. No longer do residents see and know the face and personality of their newspaper carrier, so the ties that once bind us, no longer exist, hence the eradication of tips which helped the newspaper carrier substantially in the past. This is now a bad thing, because at a rate of .04-.08 per paper, the newspaper carrier receives a paltry monthly stipend which is disgraceful and unjust in the poor economic times of today, where both parents must work two, three or four jobs just to pay the bills. So, as you tip your waiter or waitress at the restaurant, please remember to tip your newspaper carrier at least a minimum of $5 a month. That would be the right and moral economics of today, and would truly be a fitting tribute for all who labor daily for the service of others to make our community better and stronger. Say, happy Labor Day to your newspaper carrier through a generous monthly tip – pat him or her on the back – say thank you through your loving actions, not just hollow and empty lip service.

“Work is the principal arena of our leadership. Work is therefore the arena of our servanthood – in homemaking, parenting, and decision-making at every level of responsibility in any enterprise, profit and nonprofit alike, as well as in the astonishing and blessed busyness of retirement. Work is a participation in God’s work of creation,” states Episcopal Bishop, BENNETT J. SIMS.

If labor and work as I suggested earlier and reinforced by Bishop Sims is holy or sacred, a participation in God’s work of creation, then as the U.S. Department of Labor gives beautiful lip service for laborers, should we not give more attention and focus to a “just wage” for all laborers and workers, not only in the United States but also to the world labor force? Should we be more critical towards major corporations and multi-national corporations, like Wal-Mart, who have three family members in the top five list as the richest people in the world, while their true laborers and workers, the ones with those smiling faces only makes minimum wage, which is NOT even a livable wage? Is that not an injustice? Wal-Mart gives plenty of lip service to its labor force, who without them there would be no mighty goliath among retailers, but fails miserably at justice with love in their paychecks of these workers, which is the largest single work force in our nation now. Is the rise or fall of unions in this nation an indication that the richest people in the world, along with politicians are the main culprits for the injustice upon the backs of billions of laborers today? I do not know the answers, but I do know it is more complex an issue than our society gives credence. There are no easy answers, but if we truly want to pay daily tribute to our laborers and workers, then we must begin to wrestle with this problem and discuss it in more open forums for the public to have its input. The World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and Congress should NOT have the final say! The world’s collective voice of all the people, especially the poor and middle-class should have the final say as far as appropriate livable wages that do not harm the environment adversely. Capitalism is good if tempered with common sense and common decency for the common good of all life on earth!!!

“It is not easy to define the relative rights and the mutual duties of the wealthy and of the poor, of capital and of labor…yet, the misery and wretchedness press so heavily at this moment on the large majority of the very poor…Hence by degrees it has come to pass that workers have been given over, isolated and defenseless, to the callousness of employers and the greed of unrestrained competition, and …the concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few individuals, so that a small number of very rich people have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself.” Sounds like the writings of people today, yet was written over 100 years ago in 1891 by Pope LEO XIII, on “The Condition of Labor” or as in Latin, “Rerum Novarum”.

As Leo states further in his treatise on Labor, the worker should never employ the bad habits of violence towards his or her employer, and the employer should never disrespect the laborer as inferior or as a slave; they must respect every worker their dignity as a human being, because laborers are an honorable employment, enabling a person and their family to sustain life upright and credible. “It is shameful and inhuman to treat people like chattels to make money by…and to make one’s profit out of the need of another is condemned by all laws, human and divine and …finally the rich must refrain from cutting down the worker’s earnings.” It can be said that it is only by the labor of the workers, like you and me, that nations grow rich, hence the celebration of Labor, but needs to be extended to everyday through livable wages and good benefits. It is in the best interest of the rich and powerful to empower the poor and middle-class through livable wages and benefits to maintain harmony and peace throughout the world, so we do not employ our courageous soldiers to do the bidding of the rich by putting down the poor, and create more violence and war around the world. An unhappy and poor workforce leads to instability, communism, fascism, and violence, crime, decay of family and communities, revolution and warring factions.

“The preservation of life is the bounden duty of each and all, and to fail therein is a crime. It follows that each one has a right to procure what is required in order to live; and the majority of people can procure it in no other way than by work and wages,” remarks Leo XIII under the “Just Wages” section of the encyclical letter. If an employer refuses to pay a livable wage, which is reasonable and frugal in comfort, then the employee becomes the victim of force and injustice by the immoral employers like Wal-Mart and newspaper companies. It is at this point that the government must step in to rectify these inequities and injustices at the structural level of major corporations. Government policies, in addition to justifying livable wages, a fair trade marketplace and a just economy for the benefit of all must set policy to induce workers and laborers to own property, such as car ownership and home ownership, and should NOT penalize welfare recipients on these two assets. Home and car ownership is fundamental in a strong and ever growing capitalist economy. We should do everything to help muster those dreams into realities for all, and minimum wage will not suffice, nor sending jobs overseas, both are a disgrace to the dignity of human life. Since unions effectively have vanished due to President Ronald Reagan, from the peak of the 1950’s at 50% to the low under 15% today, then the government must start working for the workers and laborers if they expect to win the sacred votes of the majority of people in the future. People are slowly waking up to the reality as the economies around the world gear and lean towards helping only the top 10% richest in society. If government wants to keep the peace, then they must help increase the earnings of the poor and middle-class soon! Revolution is on the horizon!

Over a hundred years later, present world religious leader, Pope JOHN PAUL II reiterates the fundamental rights of all workers and laborers. Primary to those rights is the just remuneration for the work done, and the right to organize in Labor Unions or associations which address the grievances since the government continues an unjust policy in favor of big business, and NOT the moral choice for balance between employer/employee. It continues to be regretful that President Ronald Reagan ushered in the end of unions and just remuneration for work done, but in all fairness, President Bill Clinton rubber-stamped “Reaganomics” and gave his blessings for the trickle-down theory of the Republicans. Take a bow Clinton – you ended up being more of a Republican than that of U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona!

In the book of Genesis, the Jewish book of Creation, there is a convincing case that work is a fundamental dimension of people’s existence on earth. In the first place work is for humanity and NOT humanity for work, as many corporations would lead us to believe. In fact, it is always people who are the purpose of the work, whatever the nature of said work, so people must reign supreme before any thought of profit. With that being said, we must emphasize and give prominence to the primacy of people and other living matter in the production process, the primacy of living matter over non-living, inanimate objects of material possession. What is truly an ugly evil in this on-going story of creation in the world are the face-less people and policies at major, conglomerate multinational and transnational corporations who fix the highest possible prices for their products and services, while fixing the lowest possible wages to the labor and worker who expend a lifetime of loyalty to the company, only to end in desperation and emptiness. This is the ultimate moral crime of today, with only the exception of killing life!

Once more the fundamental principle must be repeated: the hierarchy of values and the profound meaning of work itself require that capital should be at the service of labor and not labor at the service of capital. In essence, all people should be compensated which will suffice for establishing and properly maintaining a family and for providing economic security for that families future, such as college and retirement.

In summation, “awareness that people’s work is a participation in God’s activity ought to permeate even the most ordinary everyday activities, while providing the substance of life for themselves and their families, men and women are performing their activities in a way which appropriately benefits society,” Pope JOHN PAUL II. Wherever people achieve greater justice, greater care for one another, greater respect and greater peace, true LOVE at last exists within the greater universe. So, I beseech you and others to love one another with an all-embracing, active love through honoring and paying lasting real tribute to all the laborers around the world everyday, by saying thank you through just and fair livable wages, and the personal dignity afforded to all workers worldwide for a job well done in lifting up peace and justice for all, one universe under God. AMEN!

HAPPY LABOR DAY, EVERYDAY!

God Bless The World…