Workers of The World Unite!

What does Labor Day mean for you?

If you’re like me, I can’t say that I think much about Labor Day. For many of us, it marks the “end of summer” and a time for the last festivities before life transitions back to regular schedules (much of which is built around school schedules).  Furthermore it allegedly ends the time when you can wear white pants in public!

Of course, it’s a holiday and a day off, but what’s underneath it?

The celebration of Labor Day started in the 1880’s related to recognizing workers and labor unions. It is important to remember that some of what we have come to take for granted these days – like paid holidays and vacations – were not necessarily part of the lives of workers throughout history. In fact things like sick time, health care, safety regulations, unemployment benefits, equal pay, a weekend etc. were the result of workers coming together to advocate for themselves and for other workers. This struggle continues even as we speak!

But not all workers and laborers enjoyed these gains. We know that Black people – who by and large built this country through forced labor – were denied access to skilled jobs, basic protections, living wages and even citizenship (even as Labor Day was being celebrated in the late 1880’s!). We know that other racial and ethnic groups like Native Americans and Chinese immigrants living here were forced to work with few protections and no pay. We know that the work of women has been devalued and unequally compensated. And we know that so many modern examples of forced/coerced labor exist to this day in the forms of human trafficking, sex trafficking, forced prison labor and child labor (to name but a few).

And in just the past few years, with the emergence of the COVID pandemic, we were forced to confront the harsh realities that so many “essential workers” face in terms of low wages, long hours and dangerous conditions.

This is all part of Labor Day. 

In the gospel today, Jesus goes back into his hometown, unrolls the scroll at his Shabbat service and reads from the words of the prophet Isaiah, “God’s Spirit is on me; for I have been chosen to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, and to announce, “This is God’s time!” (Luke 4: 16-21)

The people who gathered around Jesus were the low wage workers of his day. Some of his audience were sex workers. Some were day laborers. Some were forced laborers. Some were unemployed or unable to work. Many of his parables and teaching stories feature themes of labor and work, in part, because his audience could relate but also because the Bible speaks repeatedly about worker justice.  Jesus’ message of hope and liberation was directly influenced by the God he had come to know – the God of his ancestors. 

I often think to myself, “Which workers of today would Jesus be speaking to and what would a message of hope be for them?”

Part of our faith journey is to notice workers in our midst and to ask questions like: What are their lives like? Do they earn a living wage? How are their working conditions? What about people who are unable to work?

We might think to ask this about some of the “obvious” categories of people that we encounter every day like a grocery store worker, a healthcare professional, a teacher, a contractor or mechanic, an Amazon or Instacart delivery person, an Uber driver or our mail carrier. 

Yet much work and labor is hidden from us or gets “invisibilized” (generally the work of women and more often the work of women of color gets hidden). For example, we might shop at Wegmans and notice the cashier but may fail to ask, “Where does my food actually come from and how did it get here?” We might buy a new iphone at the Apple store and interact with a manager but may not think, “Where do all the parts of my cell phone get made or come from?” 

In this globalized world, so many workers bring us the things of everyday life, and that’s a lot of people to think about! So we may need to start small…

Like any shift in perspective, we might begin noticing things more often. We might try to notice where workers are advocating for their own rights (via unions or otherwise) and pay more attention to and/or support these struggles. We might try to be more aware of people whose work gets invisibilized and try to acknowledge that work more often. We might notice which groups of people do certain jobs (or don’t do certain jobs) and reflect more deeply about why that is. If we’re an employer, we might review the culture and climate of our workplace and see what needs to be changed.

What questions would you ask? What’s important for you to notice?

Activist and artist, Ricardo Levins Morales, notes that any gains that we have in terms of worker justice and labor “did not invent themselves and will not defend themselves. Only organized people can do that.” (1) While Jesus was not a labor organizer, per se, his message was one of “good news” for those who were struggling. Perhaps as we move through this day and going forward, we can be more mindful of what workers need and deserve and support the many struggles for freedom in our midst.

(1) To check out a great piece of artwork created by Morales and to explore more of his work, check out https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/labor-movement