Observer Online | Viewpoints

Observernews.com!

Posted Aug. 31, 2001

Work Hard, Take a Day Off

I watched a televised documentary this weekend on the construction of the Empire State Building. It was 1931, during the depression, and Americans needed a lift, a project they could all look up to, a reason to be proud, to be fulfilled.

It is said that the Empire State Building, then the tallest building in the world, took only 13 months to build, from the foundation until the last tile was cemented in place in the lobby. Construction workers worked in groups of four, and refused to go to the girders if one of the team was ill and missed work. They were proud of their work and trusted no one other than the team.

In one 22-day period, workers added 22 floors, one floor a day, to the Empire State Building, with steel so fresh from the mills in Pennsylvania that it was still hot to the touch.

Working was an art. Working was more than half of life during those days, when the men knew that if they quit working steel there were a hundred men on the ground ready to take their places. They worked not only for pride, but also in desperation. The American work ethic was in its prime, probably never to be elevated to such a level again.

After 13 months, the Empire State Building was complete. And after the last hot rivet was driven into the girders, the men went back on the bread lines, waiting for another Empire State Building, waiting for another reason to work.

In his book "Working," Chicago journalist Studs Turkel tells how everyone can experience satisfaction, emptiness, poetry, drudgery, money, poverty, stress, sex, loneliness, exaltation, and despair in their jobs ... sometimes all in the same day.

In an odd twist of history, Monday we celebrate Labor Day by not working, which I think is a pretty good idea. After all, how many days off does the working man get in one year?

But I really do think we've forgotten why we get that day off: To remember and to celebrate the American worker, which is all of us.

Samuel Gompers, founder and president of the American Federation of Labor, said that "Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."

According to the United States Department of Labor, Labor Day is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold," notes the Department of Labor.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.

Laboring has changed much since 1882. The Industrial Revolution has taken us through steel and coal to today's information and technological revolution. Today's laborers are no less important than the laborers of the 1930s. We're just different, with different goals, different work ethics with a different purpose.

Let's celebrate Monday's holiday, at least for a moment, by slapping ourselves on the back for a job well done.

And that's Our Town this week.