In the wake of another Labor Day, observed historically each first Monday of September throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, we continue through the course of past years to experience drastic changes in the faces and forms of organized labor, once strongly protected by unions.
The primary focus of our labor has ever been to make a livelihood for ourselves and our families. Having accomplished this on any level of success we invariably continue to “raise the bar” (by sometimes lowering the standards) for achieving them, thus constantly advancing us into perpetual envious competitions. It soon becomes very difficult to recognize the crossover from “friendly competition” to fierce, bitter rivalry, the higher the stakes.
Consider what happens in the arenas of sports, entertainment, politics and even religion as things inevitably begin to get out of control.
It was Peter J. McGuise, founder of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters who suggested in 1882 that a national holiday be established to honor the nation’s working people. and in September of that year the first Labor Day Parade was held in New York City! Organized labor then campaigned to make the day a National Holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed the Bill in 1894 that made Labor Day a National Holiday in the United States!
Over the course of the past 100+years advanced technology has drastically changed the faces and forms of labor with organized labor, once strongly protected by Unions becoming mortally wounded in the process. Isn’t it then time to laboriously rethink and redirect our energies and resources toward cooperation and to pooling, rather than pitting our varying degrees of strength?
Cooperation, a word coined by F.A. Johnson meaning “to compete cooperatively” is the new, more productive wave of the present—and future! Many are voluntarily discovering its advantages while others may need to be driven to it-–for the sake of survival!
May we subsequently labor to de-egotize ourselves to such extent that we become “Instruments of Peace” through which God’s pure Love may flow to others! For the harvest is plentiful–but the laborers are few!
