Labor Day is Bullshit

Ah Labor Day, the time where we sit back and relax and celebrate the American worker. It's great. take the day off, your company got this one. Or do they? While millions of people get to enjoy a nice bbq with family and friends, millions more wonder how they will make ends meet this week being forced to take a day of paid work off.

You see, not everyone in the country makes a salary. Many are the hourly wage jockeys who work as much as they can just to make ends meet. We have our business owners, many of them being regular middle class people, who are the root of our economy. Sadly, these people are forced to lose income by this mandatory day off. Not much you can do if the place you work is going to be closed, or the people you do business with aren't available because they have the day off.

This has been my personal situation for the past eight years. As an independent consultant, I've been forced to take this day off against my will simply because my clients do not work today. If I had employees, they wouldn't have any work either. So I get to sit on my ass the whole day doing nothing. Just like what I had to do on Friday since my clients close early for the 4-day vacation.

And in this economy, who know who else gets screwed? The unemployed. To them, every day is a day off. So why be forced to take this one off too. Jobs aren't being posted today, people aren't being interviewed today, and you won't even get your mail today to see if you got that offer. Just another day to sit around the house doing nothing, or burning through what little cash you have just to do something to keep your sanity.

So who really does 'win' on labor day? Big Business of course. Staffing is VERY expensive. If they can take a day off from paying their employees, why not! Corporate cash flow will always be going on in the background, so being closed a single day will have little effect on their bottom line. But for the mother trying to feed her kids and makes just enough to do so, this day represents 1/20 of their monthly income GONE.

And its funny to think how this 'holiday' got started. That's right kids, Labor Unions. They started this as a way to stick it to their corporate masters. They probably have in their contract that they get a paid day off today. But for organizations that say they stick up for the little guy, they sure are screwing a ton of them over elsewhere. I'll save my anti-union rant for another blog, but it'll suffice for now to say that unnecessary days off in America are one of the many reasons China and India are stealing all our labor.

So enjoy your day off. Hopefully many of you will use this time to fix things up around the house or bbq with the family. But for the rest of us brave underemployed apartment-dwelling unmarried citizens, I wish you all luck.

jbx