Holiday Cousins
or
Labor Day Appreciation Post
Our vast range of holidays are far from equal, varying widely in celebration, reverence, and/or fun. Many lack defining characteristics given to the more ostentatious holidays: Halloween with its costumes and jack-o-lanterns, Thanksgiving with its turkeys and overeating, St. Patrick’s Day with its shamrocks and drunkenness, and Christmas with its two month commercialization and capitalist excess. Other holidays, despite an absence of set traditions, are blessed with a self-explanatory name: Mother’s Day, Veterans Day, New Year’s Day. But some holidays can be harder to keep track of or to understand their significance; two American holidays which fit this description are Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Can you tell which picture is of Labor Day and which is of Memorial Day?
Similar in our minds, we often get Memorial Day and Labor Day confused; we interchange them, sometimes saying one when we mean the other. These somewhat vague holidays share two common traits: they both involve a three-day week created by a Monday off from work, and they both bookend the summer season. Memorial Day, falling on the last Monday in May, is the unofficial first Day of Summer, while Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is the unofficial last day of Summer.
I like to think of these two days as “Holiday Cousins.”
And while both days can be rather ambiguous in what they celebrate (Memory? Labor?), they are accompanied by a number of people willing to aggressively remind us of their true meaning. Or, more accurately, one of these holidays produces such lectures.
Memorial Day gets far more honorary attention, far more fanfare, and far more reverence than Labor Day. Not a Memorial Day weekend passes without scores of keyboard warriors taking to social media to remind us that “Memorial Day is more than just a three-day weekend,” to tell us to “Please take a moment during your barbecue to remember the reason for this day,” and to sternly warn us “Don’t forget those who have sacrificed,” “Etc. Rhetoric Etc.”
An example of the self-righteousness you might see on Memorial Day Facebook
Memorial Day is designated to remember and honor those Americans killed serving in the armed forces. And if there’s one thing armchair Americans love, it’s to ratchet up their patriotism and jingoism when easy opportunities present themselves. Granted, I’m not saying these people are entirely wrong, or even remotely wrong. Giving respect to those who have died in service of their country is by no means an improper or trivial act. What frustrates me, however, is the lack of such rhetoric or respect accompanying Memorial Day’s cousin, Labor Day.
This is unfair.
Labor is what built America and Labor is what makes America run.
The streets you use, the food you eat, everything relies on labor. Grand ideas and plans are useless without the labor to back them up.
People devote their lives to their labor. We sell our time to labor. We sell our youth to labor. We sell our health to labor. These sacrifices are no less important or noble than those who make sacrifices through the U.S. military.
“But soldiers have DIED defending our freedoms!” Right. And according to OSHA, over 5,000 workers were killed on the job last year alone. It turns out people also die in the boring (but necessary) day-to-day grind of providing us with goods and services.
I am not trying to demean or diminish anyone who served, fought, or died for our country. I am trying to elevate the importance and sacrifice of labor in the public consciousness.
Retail never misses an opportunity for increased commerce.
It’s easy to not only forget about labor, but to look down on it. How many people disregard, or have downright contempt, for jobs considered menial? Fast food workers, third shift grocery stockers, meat packers. It’s easy to ignore these people, to not consider the integral way in which they keep society running smoothly. It’s easy to shrug our shoulders while disregarding the systemic social reproduction that limits opportunity. I’ve even seen people scoff when these workers ask for higher wages.
Perhaps some of us recognize these laborers, maybe we even claim to appreciate them. But do we really consider that many are giving their lives to this work? To the benefit of society? To the benefit of us personally? To the benefit of creating wealth for those who already have more than they ever will?
I don’t mean to single out blue collar work either. Slaving away in an office, giving your time in business meetings or conference calls, dealing with angry customers on a day-to-day basis—this requires a sacrifice of time and health as well. It’s just as easy for us to shrug our shoulders at these sacrifices and say “Well at least be thankful you have a ‘good’ job.”
Essential for making society function.
Our society takes the vast sacrifices made to labor for granted.
And we’ve created a system in which these sacrifices to labor are NEEDED.
During the Covid-19 Pandemic we put working people in harm’s way because our country NEEDS labor to function. We prematurely ended the shutdown. Why? Because when labor takes a break, the economy grinds to a halt. We don’t ask — we DEMAND that labor continue, despite the dangers and repercussions.
This is an important lesson to remember.
Labor is sacrifice, yes. But also:
Labor is POWER.
This Labor Day: Appreciate labor, but also have respect for its capabilities. Remember the sacrifices so many people have made and continue to make to labor. Realize what labor is capable of in terms of affecting our society and our lives.
And if you ARE labor (as almost all of us are), don’t forget the power you hold to affect change through your collective efforts.
Labor Day already gets the short end of the calendar position: the melancholy end to the summer, the last weekend up north, the last bout of freedom before children return to their classrooms. Let’s not, in addition, cheapen its meaning. Let’s not forget what built this country. Let’s not forget who turns the wheels of our economy. Let’s not forget the sacrifices laborers have made and continue to make.
And most importantly, let’s not forget the immense power we as laborers hold.
Brohemia 