It’s Labor Day weekend. Monday, we’ve got a holiday in honor of our workers. (Yes, St. Martin’s office will be closed on Monday.)When I lived in Australia, we celebrated Labor Day in March and the old-timers still called it “Eight Hour Day”. They were celebrating that in 1856, their workers had been among the first in the world to win an eight-hour work day. They were lucky the day had such a peaceable origin.
In this country, Labor Day came into being in 1894 after a particularly nasty confrontation between labor and business: the Pullman Company was losing money, so it laid off workers and cut remaining workers’ wages without lowering what it charged them for housing and necessities in the company town. The workers went on strike and refused to work on trains carrying Pullman cars. The strike spread across the country, and involved 250,000 workers. Chaos ensued. President Grover Cleveland sent 16,000 troops to quell the strike. Both sides used violence. By the time it was over, there were thirty dead and $80 million dollars in damages. Six days after the strike ended, the President declared Labor Day a federal holiday. Labor Day was President Cleveland’s attempt to bring peace between labor and business.
We continue today to try to support the interests of both our business community and our labor force. But the more we work at it, the more we discover just how complicated it is. Protecting or increasing the profits of a company enough to make the business a desirable investment may mean cutting jobs. Supporting workers’ rights to fair wages and benefits may cause the company to go out of business or move overseas. It’s complicated!
It’s also messy. I remember a garbage strike in Philadelphia with weeks’ worth of stinking trash piled up in a park near us. At the same time, I recognize how valuable union support has been to members of my family when they were being treated unfairly in the workplace. I have struggled with vestries and non-profit boards to come up with raises the employees both need and deserve, when we are also struggling to keep the buildings functional and the mission vibrant. I know how awful it feels to have to let a valued employee go because there just isn’t enough money to go around. It’s complicated!
That’s why I like the Episcopal Church’s prayer for Labor Day. It asks God to guide all of us in our confusion:
Almighty God, you have so linked our lives with one another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Blessings,
Rev. Phyllis Taylor
