It’s the first Monday in September. That means it’s Labor Day.  The very first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City way bay in  1882.  At least for now, it’s still a national holiday.  I don’t hold up a great deal of faith we will continue to celebrate it, since business and the GOP party have been working hard to eliminate union labor at every turn.

(You might find it interesting that the State of New York wasn’t the first state to make it a state holiday.  Nope- they dawdled passing the bill, so Oregon earned that honor.)

And, we don’t have a clue whose idea this really was.  Some say it was Peter McGuire (the co-founder of the American Federation of Labor- the AFL in the AFL-CIO), but it probably was his homonym- Matthew Maguire (of the Machinists Union) who should be honored with the concept.

Over the course of my life, I have been labor and I have been the “man”. (To be honest, I spent a lot more time in my life as the “man”, but, hopefully, I was an enlightened version of a boss.) I’ve written before about my first real job– working in a dry cleaning store… But, I was only “labor” in that situation for about a year- I had become assistant manager after that first year.

And, then I worked as a waiter for a catering hall. It was a union gig. (To be honest, the union wasn’t an omnipresent focus on the job.) After a few years (I think it was three), I became shop steward (Local 923) and eventually an officer (Treasurer) of the union.  That was truly short-lived, though, because I became part of the management of that very same catering hall.  I resigned that position almost immediately upon my election,

As an employer over the decades, I never paid anyone the minimum wage. There were a few reasons for that. For starters, most folks can’t make ends meet getting paid that little. (I do admit that it was easier to do so some 35 years ago, but…)

I also never hired the “just adequate”, but searched for those with a little bit more.  That quest matches one of my eMail signatures:

The difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is just that little bit “extra”. Let’s aim for the extraordinary!.

And, as an employer, I always made sure our firm shared its profits with our employees- at least, with those that stuck around with us for at least 18 months.

Given the state of the economy- in the US and around the world; given the way firms don’t consider the efforts of their employees who make the products or deliver the services that generate the revenue for that firm; and given the way corporate executives extract 350X to 500X the average wages they pay their staff for their own compensation, it’s pretty hard to get excited about the concept of “Labor” Day.

Nowadays, it seems that Labor Day is only the separation point between summer vacation and the first day of school for our public schools.

And, this year, since everyone is staying home and not going to school, that separation is even flimsier than ever.

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