Editorials

Labor pride

Oct 1, 2009 10:40 AM

Labor Day might not qualify as a “major” holiday if judged by the virtual absence of media coverage. But this year’s Labor Day Parade, with its many thousands of enthused participants, served notice that this holiday has once again come into its own as the holiest of America’s unifying secular holidays.

It is a memo of our national soul; an autobiography of our country’s spirit. It proclaims the worth of the ordinary worker. It declares the right to the pursuit of material dignity.

“The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress,” said Martin Luther King Jr., noting that “labor miraculously … lifted the whole nation to undreamed-of levels” and strengthened all its inhabitants, even those who themselves were not unionized.

Every boost in our standard of living and every inspiration that raised the quality of our lives were enabled by the thrust and leadership of the labor movement. Every fight for social and economic justice was driven by our core values.

In keeping with the historic message of Labor Day, this year’s parade focused on themes that are timeless because they have earned a permanent place in our belief system, yet time-sensitive because they are being tested by current events.

Consider the Stella D’Oro workers, whose plight invokes the age-old specter of employers ruining the livelihood of productive and loyal workers who have dared to insist on basic fairness.

And consider the Employee Free Choice Act. The labor movement is marching in lockstep on the moral high ground toward congressional passage of this legislation to protect the right of workers to join unions. It is meeting with fierce resistance, generations after Clarence Darrow pointed out that “… unions have done more for humanity than any other organization … that ever existed.”

The Labor Day Parade means more than taking back the streets for a few hours of an annual parade. It means taking ownership of a renewed pride in a national consciousness that proclaims loudly and clearly that we are brothers and sisters who are claiming our stake in a society that we built and have worked to make ever better.