A shout-out to May Day

May Day around the world is May 1st. In many countries it is called International Worker's Day celebrating the working man. In America and Canada it is called "Labor Day" and celebrated on the first Monday in September. It is honored as a holiday in the United States and the link to workers is not even remembered anymore. 

May Day March in New York City in 1909

That fact we ignore of laboring workers on both May Day and Labor Day is a bit disheartening to me. It was meant to mark a country's thanks to workers, unions and the intrinsic worth of people. But Americans now hate unions, politicians honor workers only during elections, -and then in name only, and the working man is unimportant in actually running the country.

And so, in absence of any other official words, let me give thanks at least this year to those who make the world run.

Thanks to:

• Teachers, underpaid and over burdened, but committed workers that teach our children.
• Nurses, underpaid and over burdened that spend their days helping the sic and needy.
• Manufacturing workers who create wealth mainly for corporations that do not value them.
• Clerks, stockers, cashiers, and countless others that are paid low wages but provided a service to us that was critical during covid.
• Unions that strive to give workers as small voice in industrial decisions.
• Delivery men, postal workers and shippers that seamlessly provide all manners of goods to us
• Bank tellers, technical workers, and financial workers that don't make the millions you hear about, but who keep our financial systems running.
• The millions around the world who are let go and unvalued as the owners they work for make tens or hundreds of times their salaries. The "titans" of industry would be no where without these workers
• Parents who raise children without help, child care, and often no community, but do the most important job in the world.

May I honor you and all the others I cannot mention on this day of thanks. You make the world as we know it possible. 

Thank You