Labor Day: A celebration of the American worker.

Posted September 05, 2011

This weekend, we’ll throw a few of God’s creatures on the Weber grill, maybe go to the union picnic or watch a parade. Some will sing, “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.” I’ll put out the flag (I personally fly Old Glory) and stop to think about all the people who went before me, who stood up so I could, in the words of AFTRA member Mel Brooks, “have a nice living.”

For me, the union is about business. It is about those people who do the job, getting together to have some control of their work life. There is an elegant simplicity to sitting down with the employer once, to come to agreement on terms and conditions for all employees, rather than doing it in series for each individual. I suppose that in a perfect world unions might not be necessary. The employers would be eager to adequately reward us for our efforts on their behalf. But look around. Nope, not perfect yet.

I don’t want to demean the employers, though truth be told, there may be some that need a little demeaning from time to time. I want the companies who employ me to prosper. I want my contributions to help them make millions of dollars, because I want them to be able to continue to employ workers like me and pay us even more. Employees like you and me enable companies to reward their stockholders – which is a good thing since my pension fund is likely one of those very stockholders. But I don’t want them paying CEO’s more money than Croesus for simply getting into the “inner circle.”

The point is that no socio-economic model has been found superior to moderately regulated capitalism and representative democracy. But that puts the responsibility on our shoulders to educate ourselves, to plumb various sources for information to help us to form our opinions, to understand that “because you ought to” isn’t an argument that motivates people.

As you may have guessed, I’m a little different than some union folks. I am a political conservative. That may surprise some of you, others – who know me – probably not. But here’s the wonderful thing about unions, and about America, and this is something worth celebrating on Labor Day: Labor unions, like our nation, are a “big tent.”

Democracies are brave and courageous and worth celebrating because they welcome dissimilarity, including diverse opinions and points of view. I’m very proud that here at AFTRA, we celebrate diversity because we know that our differences knit us together into the strong, healthy and living, breathing union that we are. There is room enough in this “big tent” for everyone. And, this Labor Day, I invite you to join me in celebrating that.

So, this year, after you’ve put away the cholesterol-free potato salad and the pressed-tofu Boca barbequed riblets, take some time to examine a point of view that you’re not familiar with, or that doesn’t fit easily on a yard sign. Challenge yourself to see situations through others’ eyes. Follow the line of thought. Maybe you’ll find something interesting that you hadn’t expected to see in this great, big American tent of Labor. 

Happy Labor Day.

In solidarity,

Denny Delk
National Vice President
San Francisco

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