In her column last week, Linda of the North mentioned Christmas being four months away. Whoa! Coincidentally, in mid-July, I was perusing a craft store and found aisles of Halloween decorations. Terrified, I ran for the door scurrying down aisles of Christmas decorations. Dumbfounded, I grumbled like the Grinch, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Why, oh, why must we rush every holiday and season? I am at the stage of life where I savor time and enjoy each moment. Yet my life continues to pass at breakneck speed. Currently, I am pondering the perennial question: Where did the summer go?

Memorial Day and Labor Day are the bookends marking the summer season.
While everyone welcomes the former, most meet the latter with reluctance as we prematurely mourn summer’s end. Moms and dads are the exception. They rejoice Labor Day because it coincides with a new school year and gets the kids out of the house and back to the books.

I have always liked Labor Day—and not just because my birthday falls around it. (Hint unintentional.) As a worker, I am thrilled to observe the economic and civic significance of this holiday honoring our vital labor force. Although never a union member, I have worked for companies that employed union workers. I also came from and married into a family of union members.

For 30+ years, my late father drove a Chicago Transit Authority bus and belonged to the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241. My father-in-law, husband, and stepson are proud members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 134. Three generations of union men—two retired and receiving pensions, one gainfully employed. A good thing bears repeating.

Unions have significantly improved the living standards of all working people, union and non-union. They gave us the eight-hour workday and the weekend ended child labor and fought for safe working conditions, adequate health care, pensions and other worker’s rights. And they will continue to fight for the working class.

The late Pope Paul VI said, “The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good.” Amen.

Thanks unions and union members. Happy Labor Day to all.

~Chicago Mary

Agree? Disagree? Send your comments to:

Mary.Fliris@castanet.net