Work changes over years; so does how we view Labor Day

It’s been 130 years since the holi- day we mark today was born in New York City in the nascent days of the labor movement with a parade of about 10,000 workers. Over the years — well after President Grover Cleveland signed a bill in 1894 making it a national holiday — Labor Day has evolved into a last-fling-of-summer type of day.

Locally, it’s the last day of the Canfield Fair. It’s the day when thousands of families have what they figure to be their last picnic of the year. Amusement parks scale back their hours. Lakeside resorts shutter their midways. Owners of antique cars give them a last spin before getting ready to put them in storage. Summer won’t officially become fall for a couple of weeks, but Labor Day is at least a psychological mile mark.

And every four years this weekend also has traditionally provided the kickoff of the presidential campaign.

This year, however, the schedule is off because the campaign got started months ago, as soon as it became apparent that Mitt Romney was a shoe-in for the Republican nomination, and the Democrats are not even holding their convention until this week. Regardless, both candidates will be making Labor Day stump speeches today, which is appropriate, given that possibly no single word will be spoken more by Romney and President Barack Obama than “jobs” between now and Nov. 6.

That is because, quite clearly, there are not enough jobs to go around. And both parties agree that something must be done about that. But they clearly don’t agree on why there is a jobs deficit, what must be done and by whom.

That fight will be fought over the next two months, and it will likely decide who will be president for the next four years.

Some different numbers

In the meantime and on a lighter note, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released some interesting Labor Day statistics about the 155 million people 16 and older who are considered part of today’s workforce.

A random sample of a handful of occupations shows that the United States has 7,835 actors, 389.471 computer programmers, 1,051,896 cooks, 395,311 hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists, 1,445,991 janitors and building cleaners, 3,073,673 teachers (preschool through grade 12), 48,455 telemarketers, 33,057 telephone operators and 115,561 web developers.

Many of those professions not only didn’t exist when that first Labor Day was celebrated in 1882, they couldn’t even be imagined. Telephone operators would have been right on the cusp, since Alexander Graham Bell filed his first telephone patent in 1874.

But while what people do for a living evolves over time, it remains that workers not only earn a living, but they earn respect. The money they make may not always be commensurate with the work they do, but ours is an imperfect world. Very few people think (or will at least admit) that they are overpaid. Many of us are absolutely sure that someone across the aisle is being overpaid. But in truth, few of us have worked more than a handful of jobs, and so few of us know to a certainly the trials and tribulations that fill the lives of other workers.

So, on this Labor Day, let us agree that all workers — and in this economy all who are struggling to find work — are doing their part to support their families and to make this a better, stronger nation. And let’s hope that regardless of who wins the presidential election in November that both parties can agree to work together so that next Labor Day is a bit more celebratory than this one.