Honoring Those Who Toil

What does Labor Day mean anymore other than another day off, another
store sale and, in some cities, parades ever smaller and more devoid of
passion for elevating the well-being of working people?

Philosopher/mechanic Matthew B. Crawford, in his recent, embracing book,
Shop Craft as Soulcraft has a thoughtful consideration. He deflates the
high-prestige workplace and makes the case for millions of Americans
who still make and fix things with their hands.

"I want to suggest we can take a broader view of what a good
job might consist of, and therefore what kind of education is
important. We seem to have developed an educational monoculture, tied to
a vision of what kind of work is valuable and important - everyone gets
herded into a certain track where they end up working in an office,
regardless of their natural bents.

But some people, including some who are very smart, would rather be
learning to build things or fix things. Why not honor that? I think one
reason we don't is that we've had this fantasy that we're going to
somehow take leave of material reality and glide around in a pure
information economy."

Dr. Crawford has a PhD in political philosophy and is a mechanic who
runs Shockoe Moto, an independent motorcycle repair shop in Richmond,
Virginia. This gives him a deep sense of skill and broader perspective
with which to evaluate these ways of satisfying one's value of
locally-rooted work. He contrasts these traits with the deadening
assembly line and computer focused office work, both of which can be
outsourced on the whims of a boss.

The Winsted, Connecticut Deck's Fix-It Shop, operated joyously by an
aunt and her nephew, until they retired last year, would have been
exhibit A for Dr. Crawford. They fixed hundreds of different products
brought to them by the townspeople. Their small shop was filled
horizontally and vertically with items donated, about to be fixed or
were unfixable by the manufacturers' design. They could have charged a
museum entrance fee for browsing if their shop had more room. Oh, what
pride they regularly took in their work.

Electricians, plumbers, carpenters, painters, tailors, car and bike
repairers, restorers of stoves, refrigerators, air conditioners,
furnaces, locks, windows, sidewalks and streets enjoy a special kind of
personal job gratification that is alien to the pre-designed, robotic
labors of their friends who come home every day with clean clothes.

I've often wondered why the knowledge of tradespeople about the best,
middling and worst brands of equipment, products and materials they work
with or have to install (such as furnaces) isn't collected by some
magazine or consumer group. After all Angie's List is surveying what
their customers around the country think about the quality of the
service.

Along with the repairers, we should recognize the inspectors-millions of
them working for government agencies and companies to assure that
health and safety laws are observed and quality controls are maintained.
They are the meat and poultry inspectors, OSHA and Customs inspectors,
sanitation inspectors of food stores and restaurants, motor vehicle
inspectors, nuclear, chemical and aircraft inspectors, inspectors of
laboratories, hospitals, clinics, building code inspectors and the
insurance inspectors assigned to loss prevention duties.

The more conscientious of these inspectors are vulnerable to being
over-ridden by their less committed superiors (such as meat inspectors
for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) or harassed (inspectors for the
U.S. Forest Service on corporately exploited federal timber land.)
Sometimes inspectors so commit their conscience to their work that they
become whistle-blowers about safety hazards or hanky panky, which too
often invites career-ending retaliation.

How little attention we devote to those inspectors who are sentinels for
the well-being of the American people. As a result, the courageous are
not honored-if only to motivate the young to choose these careers.
Moreover, a culture of corruption, that can erode their alertness or
burdens them with weak standards to enforce, escapes exposure.

Then there are the near invisibles-the cleaners who do their thankless
but essential jobs in hotels, airports, bus and train stations, office
buildings, factories, schools, libraries, museums, streets, restaurants
and homes.

Strange how we don't react to cleaners-rarely thanking them or greeting
them with salutations. Notice how airline passengers rush past them on
the jetway while they wait to clean up the messes under severe time
pressure. People who babble incessantly at airports or bus and train
stations, while waiting for their departure, ignore the sweepers and
dusters, automatically averting their eyes, and almost never
acknowledging their work.

Taxi drivers are often tipped and thanked. How many hotel maids, who
clean twelve or more soiled rooms and toilets a day, receive any thanks
or tips by the guests? Cleaners are among the lowest paid workers, often
handle not the safest of chemicals, and receive very little respect or
recognition. Their lowly status has to affect their morale and maybe
their performance.

Yet what would we do if these workers went on a general strike from the
nursing homes to the garbage trucks? We'd feel it a lot more than if the
overpaid Wall Street traders went on strike.

One day I was at BWI airport and went to the crowded men's room. As I
entered, the elderly cleaning man erupted in frustration. "I'm sick of
this job," he shouted to no one in particular. "Hour after hour I clean
up, come back, see the crap, clean up some more. It never ends," he
wailed. The men who were wiping, flushing, washing, drying and zipping
were stunned and silently shuffled out, as if he wasn't there. I thanked
him for his work and candor, calmed him down and gave him a gratuity.
The others looked at me blankly as if I was dealing with a ghost they
never see as a human being.

Cultures can be astonishing. The hands-on workers who harvest our food,
clean up after us, repair our property, look out after our health and
safety conditions and serve as nannies to our children receive few
honors, status or anywhere near the compensation of those who gamble
with our money, entertain us or drive us into wars they don't fight
themselves.

Shouldn't Labor Day be a time to gather and contemplate such inverted
values and celebrate those who toil without proper recognition?