For many, but not all of us, Labor Day is a day off from the labor of earning a living.
But it should be so much more. Giving that day more meaning is why the Koochiching Labor Assembly and the city of International Falls deserve credit for again bringing to the community a Labor Day picnic from 4-7 p.m. Monday.
The picnic had been a local tradition in days gone by and was revived last year.
Many Americans don’t consider why they have a holiday called Labor Day. For some, it just feels like the cross-over from the summer to the fall season.
But Labor Day celebrates the labor movement — then and now — that has helped bring about better working conditions and benefits that so many of us enjoy today.
More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers. But what is clear is that the day has been set aside nationwide to the recognize the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
And while the origins of Labor Day may feel removed from some of us, the need for jobs in America is very much in the minds of most citizens. Labor Day should be a reminder of the dignity that work brings us and the indignity we experience when we are out of work.
The United States Department of Labor reports the vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy.
It is not only appropriate, but necessary that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.
