Labor Day 2022

Labor Day 2022 After his Merchant Marine father was killed at Brooklyn Harbor, my father’s family was so poor that he and his two brothers picked coal from the railroad tracks along the Delaware River waterfront, near their S. Phila. home, to heat the house. The neighbors pooled food that my Grandmother made into a stew and each family sent a child with a pail to pick up their share. She was forced to rent a bed in the kitchen. My Grandmother and her mother sewed uniforms for the Schulkill Arsenal to make enough money to pay rent and support the children. When my father returned from four years in the Navy at the end of World War II, the post war boom and the strength of the Unions made it possible for him to support his wife and five children and buy a house. The Structural Steel and Ironworkers’ Union made it possible for my father to have a safe and comfortable retirement after his lifetime of hard and dangerous work.

Every Labor Day, I do something to honor the men and women who struggled, suffered, and often died to raise the working class from abject poverty to a decent living through livable wages, safety standards, and an end to child labor. Among my Labor Heroes are Peter J. Maguire, (whose grave I visit in Pennsauken) the father of Labor Day, Mother Jones the child-labor activist, and Joe Hill the heroic labor organizer. Add to the list the farm labor activists like Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. Not many ask about the health and welfare of the hands that pick their produce or build their bridges, but those who do, know the dangers they have faced and still face, and show gratitude to them and acknowledge their contribution. Right here in South Jersey, farm workers children often grow up without education, moving from harvest to harvest, often spending their whole lives without literacy or such things as bank accounts and drivers’ licenses.

On Labor Day, each year, let’s all stop and give a thought to the workers who make the world and the food we eat. Jo Ann