Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Good to Celebrate Labor Day

We’re fast approaching what is generally seen as the last holiday of summer — Labor Day. Church leaders often have messages about Labor Day, but I doubt any of them will ever have to worry about a job. Lots of the rest of us do worry, especially in an economy that not only continues to downsize but one where our so-called “captains of industry” (remember that phrase?) use “the bottom line” to guide their business practices rather than the needs of people who not only depend on them for products and services but their very means of survival — their jobs.
Our global economy has forced us to cast our gaze outward so that what happens in other countries affects our lives, and what we do affects the lives of those on foreign soil. Many living outside the United States own more than a “piece of the (U.S.) rock.” They own shares in our companies; they own some of our farm land, they can determine what happens on Main Street even if they don’t know where our main streets are.

Knowing all of this, can we still find reason to celebrate what is fast becoming just one more “Monday holiday?” Yes. While many companies have become more global than local, we can still find reason to celebrate, not so much the company but the people who make up our world at work. Look around your office or your place of business or the halls of your school, and really see the people whom you pass and greet day in and day out. They share our space, work alongside us. Like you and I, they worry about their children, their parents, their health, just like we do. They wonder whether they can meet their bills and still have some money left to go to dinner or a movie, or a church picnic, take a vacation, give some of their already-disposed-of income to the poor and/or try to help meet some of their church’s list of “unmet needs.”

Our present economy, with all its problems and pitfalls, gives us a nudge to become more creative in finding ways to conserve, ways to stretch our budgets just a little more to cover continuously escalating costs of goods and services. It’s too easy to become maudlin and complain about all of the problems and challenges that face us as part of today’s workers. It takes up way too much time to become enmeshed and immersed in what’s wrong with our place of employment or our employers.

We need to celebrate the community we have formed at work, to look for ways to make our corner of the world better than it was yesterday and look forward to tomorrow when we can directly influence someone’s life or situation in a positive way. Many of us love our jobs, consider every day a gift, a time when we can work with people we care about in a positive atmosphere to impact not only those close to us but others in the wider world as well. Happy Labor Day.