Work to be done

This Labor Day, let’s renew efforts to bring dignity, fair compensation to working poor.

When we celebrate Labor Day this year, we might ask ourselves what, and whom, are we really honoring?

Are we saluting the men and women who led the labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ushering in — often against violence, resistance and long odds — the paid vacation and 40hour workweek? Are we singing, in this year of the accursed virus and surging unemployment, a dirge for all those who seek to work but can’t?

Or are we celebrating the idea of work itself — the dignity it can provide for men and women eager to trade their sweat, their genius, the biggest share of their lives, in return for food on the table, money for rent or mortgage, and hopefully, some measure of meaning? To trade their labor to build bridges, erect homes, find cures, collect our trash and teach our kids and so much more.

At this painful moment in our history, all of these things seem like right answers — and none of them, too.

We began 2020 with an economy that was humming along after nearly 11 years of expansion — a record in this country. The climb out of the deep hole left by the Great Recession had been slow but after so long its momentum had seemed almost unstoppable. Even in Houston, where the recovery had flagged due to contractions in the energy industry, the recovery had roared into the new year. In December, the unemployment rate here had stood at 3.6, tied with October for the lowest rate since at least 1990, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics local tally began.

By April, the jobs were vanishing all over America. In the Houston metro area, the rate had jumped to an astounding 14.3 percent, a figure that has improved but remained at a crushing 9.4 percent as recently as July, still higher than any prepandemic monthly unemployment rates for at least three decades. Figures for August released Friday afternoon show improvement, with the national rate dipping to 8.4.

On Labor Day, though, our gaze must move beyond the immediate crisis of those looking for work and recognize that the work begun roughly 150 years ago in the United States to bring dignity to labor is far from finished.

In Harris County in 2018, the last year for which census data is available, nearly 92,000 men and women worked full-time year-round — and still lived in poverty. Think about that. Working every workday, all day or all night long, and yet remaining not just poor, not just strapped or overcommitted, but officially impoverished — along with every member of their household. Harris County isn’t unique. The working poor are taking the early buses and manning the late shifts all over America. The underbelly of the greatest economic expansion in American history is that for too many workers, the jobs were easy to find, but a path out of poverty remained elusive. In 2018, 2.9 million American full-time workers went to work each day and returned just as poor as they were when they left.

The growing pressure for higher pay at giant, non-unionized companies such as Amazon and Walmart had been bringing those numbers down, slightly — but not nearly quickly enough. What will happen to wages in the coming months, when a scramble for increasingly scarce jobs jumbles the supply-and-demand of the labor market isn’t clear, but smart money says the pressure to raise wages will subside.

That ought to concern everyone, whether you’re among the lucky ones who’ve kept your job during the pandemic or whether you’re one of the millions newly looking.

If this pandemic has taught the world anything, it’s that society is only as strong as its most vulnerable parts. A health care system that leaves millions uninsured and largely uncared for is not just unfair — it’s a national security threat. Think of the waiter who feels sick but lacks not just health insurance but also paid sick leave. When she goes to work anyway, she risks sickening colleagues and customers — and when the business shuts down, the economy, too. A society that depends on workers at the lower end of the pay scale to risk their health to deliver essential services for everyone, rich or poor, is one that cries out for fundamental reassessment.

Those are lessons worth pondering on Labor Day any year, but especially this year. Most times, when we reflect on the fiery origins of the labor movement, what comes to mind is the conflict between labor and capital. But there’s another lesson available, if we look harder.

If the labor movement had a defining characteristic, amid all the excesses and mistakes of union leaders through the years, it was this: Workers fare best when they stand together, when they pool their leverage. It’s no less true of a nation. America is being tested. Perhaps we are all walking the picket lines of protest against the challenges now buffeting us from every angle. We’ll fare best if we walk together.

That’s an inconvenient lesson to apply amid all the division we see today. But it’s no less true.