This Labor Day morning, I pause. The news that swirls is of tragedy and destruction. A horrific hurricane devastating the Bahamas and taking aim on potentially hundreds of miles of coastline along the Southeastern United States. A historically massive footprint of wind, rain, and storm surge, What horrors await?
Another mass shooting, lives ripped from families and friends with a cycle of violence that only seems to intensify. Where will be the next dateline of carnage? And now, a massive boat fire off the coast of California with many feared dead.
If we look beneath the breaking news, we know there is pain everywhere, in wartorn countries, in those being separated along our border, in those facing hate and intolerance, sickness and poverty. We know that larger forces of suffering march onward, like the opioid epidemic and the crisis of our climate, which we see reflected in not only models for the future but in our present.
Add to that, a president who seems intent on exacerbating or even creating challenges rather than solving them. The bleakness of this administration and those who enable it fills newspapers and newscasts daily, not to mention the unsettling conversations of citizens.
I have spent several days with close family, on a weekend of conversation, trips to the movie theater, shared meals. It has been calming and contemplative, but I know that millions feel no safety or joy in the present. How do we not lose hope?
I take some solace in the movement this day commemorates. There was a time in this nation when labor was exploited virtually without recourse. When children toiled and died in dangerous conditions, when people could be fired for no reason, when workdays and workweeks stretched on with no pause, when wages were not subject to any legal oversight. I know that we still have a long way to go and the economic system of our times comes with many challenges and injustices. But what I remember was that what changed the course of our nation then, as it can now, is the collective movement of people coming together, bonded by a common story of work and a search for dignity.
The labor movement and unions have made mistakes to go along with their victories. We can debate what form of labor rights our current system should take. But we should recognize that we are stronger when we are confronting our struggles together.
We are in a moment of reckoning. We are at a time when we are being told that we are different, from our fellow Americans and from others in the world. We are at a moment where the size of the hurdles is being used to demoralize rather than inspire. The fight for basic labor rights did not seem to be a foregone conclusion in the America of my youth, much like the struggle for civil rights. And we are seeing now that those battles continue. But the fact that we celebrate a Labor Day is a sign that there can be triumphs in the future even if the present seems bleak.
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