As the “Summer of recovery” comes to its end today it is time to give Labor Day a new name and a new purpose. The Labor Day holiday, created to honor, “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations,” is out dated, a 19th and 20th century relic. We the People need a system upgrade.
The unions and the federal government are helpless as labor and management jobs are shipped overseas. Instead of creating policies that enable and encourage workers to change with the times, We the People were forced to bail out General Motors and we will probably bail out a number of union pension plans. The efforts of big labor and big government to protect the worker are stealing the future away from the worker’s children.
It is now time to be honest to the American worker; to truly respect the vital role these men and women have played and continue to play in the strength of our nation. We the People need to be straight with those men and women of our nation that constitute ‘Labor,’ by explaining that those jobs are going away because We the People demand cost efficiency in the goods and services that we buy. The U.S. standard of living is too high to support our demands for low cost goods, and any effort by unions and government to legislate protections is nothing more than avoidance; putting off the problem until later.
We the People need a Labor Day 2.0 in which we honor American labor by honoring self sufficiency, education, and personal accomplishment. How about Entrepreneurship Day? On Entrepreneurship Day we can honor entrepreneurs, from high tech start-ups to house painters and lawn care companies. Entrepreneurship Day should be the 21st century replacement for Labor Day.
