Monday, September first, is Labor Day. This year the actual Labor Day falls on the Monday holiday on which we will all celebrate our jobs by not working. It seems fitting that Labor Day actually falls on Labor Day this year; it seems like a good omen. American Labor has had a good year in 1997, the first in a long time.
The first food that ever entered my mouth was paid for with union wages. My father, Al Floegel, was a member of United Artisans, Local 13, Plumbers and Steamfitters. My father had a few maxims to guide his working life and he made sure I became acquainted with them at an early age. The first was, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” and he would say it slowly, to be sure I didn’t miss a single word. He repeated that phrase with an exhausting regularity and I hated it, but something must have clicked because 25 years later I’m using the same phrase, although I try to spare my audience the emphatic delivery.
My dad’s second phrase was, “An honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage,” and this phrase is more to the point when we think about Labor Day. As with the first phrase, every word of this is important to my dad as is the order in which the words fall. What comes first is an honest day’s work. I’ve never seen anyone work harder or better than my father, whether it was on behalf of his employer or around the house on weekends. For my father, being a member of a union is more than collective bargaining. It’s about setting a standard and meeting it consistently. My father sees his work as an extension of himself. His pride in himself is reflected in the quality of his work. The union is a part of that, by providing training in apprenticeship programs and even more effectively, by having an ornery old journeyman on every job. I know, I worked with those guys when I was young. They’d be patient, barely, as they walked me through something the first time, but if I didn’t have it down cold forever after, they’d let me hear about it.
Once that honest days’ work was done, it was time for an honest day’s pay. And that honest day’s pay can be a long time in coming. The wages of the working class are the first to register the shock of an economic downturn and the last to feel a boom. As the apples ripen on the trees in Washington state this year, the United Farm Workers are organizing the pickers. Right now a picker can earn $45 a day, but he or she has to pick 5,000 pounds of apples to get it. These people do an honest day’s work, but their pay hasn’t risen in ten years.
It’s a hopeful time for organized labor, which seemed to have lost its way for many years. Once again, union organizers are focusing on recruiting new members to unions and on raising the wages of the lowest-paid workers.
If the labor bosses lose their way again, they should check in with the farm workers, easily the most religious union in America. The farm workers can point out that the answer’s in the Bible: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” Or they can ask my dad. He’ll tell them, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”
Anything Worth Doing
Monday, September first, is Labor Day. This year the actual Labor Day falls on the Monday holiday on which we will all celebrate our jobs by not working. It seems fitting that Labor Day actually falls on Labor Day this year; it seems like a good omen. American Labor has had a good year in 1997, the first in a long time.
The first food that ever entered my mouth was paid for with union wages. My father, Al Floegel, was a member of United Artisans, Local 13, Plumbers and Steamfitters. My father had a few maxims to guide his working life and he made sure I became acquainted with them at an early age. The first was, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” and he would say it slowly, to be sure I didn’t miss a single word. He repeated that phrase with an exhausting regularity and I hated it, but something must have clicked because 25 years later I’m using the same phrase, although I try to spare my audience the emphatic delivery.
My dad’s second phrase was, “An honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage,” and this phrase is more to the point when we think about Labor Day. As with the first phrase, every word of this is important to my dad as is the order in which the words fall. What comes first is an honest day’s work. I’ve never seen anyone work harder or better than my father, whether it was on behalf of his employer or around the house on weekends. For my father, being a member of a union is more than collective bargaining. It’s about setting a standard and meeting it consistently. My father sees his work as an extension of himself. His pride in himself is reflected in the quality of his work. The union is a part of that, by providing training in apprenticeship programs and even more effectively, by having an ornery old journeyman on every job. I know, I worked with those guys when I was young. They’d be patient, barely, as they walked me through something the first time, but if I didn’t have it down cold forever after, they’d let me hear about it.
Once that honest days’ work was done, it was time for an honest day’s pay. And that honest day’s pay can be a long time in coming. The wages of the working class are the first to register the shock of an economic downturn and the last to feel a boom. As the apples ripen on the trees in Washington state this year, the United Farm Workers are organizing the pickers. Right now a picker can earn $45 a day, but he or she has to pick 5,000 pounds of apples to get it. These people do an honest day’s work, but their pay hasn’t risen in ten years.
It’s a hopeful time for organized labor, which seemed to have lost its way for many years. Once again, union organizers are focusing on recruiting new members to unions and on raising the wages of the lowest-paid workers.
If the labor bosses lose their way again, they should check in with the farm workers, easily the most religious union in America. The farm workers can point out that the answer’s in the Bible: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” Or they can ask my dad. He’ll tell them, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”
Happy Labor Day.