Another long weekend has arrived and people across America are getting ready to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of school and of “normal” working life. The business world expects us to celebrate by shopping. Ads fill our media streams—on TV, websites, social media—and everything else we see. Sales are everywhere and spending money is the name of the game.

But Labor Day brings us much more than a chance to shop. It reminds us of how our lives depend on the workers who provide us with products, clothes, and entertainment. This year we have another strike—the writers and actors who fill our screens–to remind us that behind our products and our entertainment are the people who do the work to provide them.

This is an important strike, because it may set a precedent for dealing with the scary new achievement we’ve heard so much about—Artificial Intelligence or AI. This new tech triumph may change the patterns of work and leisure for many people. How will it affect the way our world works? How will workers be paid? Who will get the benefits brought to us by AI? The strike in Hollywood may set new patterns for thousands of workers across the country. And changing patterns takes a lot of work.

This week I am going to reprint part of a blog that I first posted ten years ago, in 2013 to commemorate the founding of the U.S. Department of Labor in 1913. The history of how workers ensured that they received a fair payment for the work they do is one that was difficult and dangerous. Will the development of AI eventually mean that we need to set a different pattern for another new power?

A hundred years ago, having a holiday to honor working people seemed dramatic and important. For the first time, many people felt united as workers. People felt united as workers, as employees struggling to decent working conditions. One of the triumphs of the labor movement was the establishment of the Department of Labor.

Why was it such a big deal? Well, despite the lack of enthusiasm in the Washington establishment, union leaders across the country hoped that having a voice for labor in the cabinet would make a difference. And believe it or not it has. For one thing it changed the composition of the cabinet to include the non-wealthy. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s cabinet in the 1950s was called “Nine millionaires and a plumber” Can you guess which department the plumber headed?

Here is a partial list of changes that the Department of Labor have introduced over the years.
• Supported the Workman’s Compensation Act to get benefits for injured workers
• Started the women’s bureau in 1920
• Started collecting unemployment statistics—previously had only collected employment statistics and not worried about the unemployed
• Limited working hours for children
• Pushed to get Social Security benefits for workers

It is interesting to think about the women who were leaders in the early labor movement. Frances Perkins, the longest serving Secretary of Labor is largely responsible for shepherding Social Security and other New Deal programs through Congress. Her method of being a leader in a man’s world of politics was to downplay her femininity and her sexuality. She was famous for wearing drab, old-fashioned clothes and at social gatherings was not seen as a threat to the wives of her colleagues. Perhaps at that time in Washington her nonthreatening appearance was an important part of her being able to outmaneuver those husbands in politics.

An even earlier labor leader, Mary Harris or “Mother Jones” took the same approach. She claimed to be older than she really was and she too wore old-fashioned black dresses. She gloried in being called “Mother”. Surely there was no better way for her to protect herself from unwanted sexual advances or harassment. She was able to win many labor battles by enabling male workers to take the lead and fight the bosses to achieve some famous labor victories. There isn’t time here to go into the wonderful story of how Mother Jones won so many victories for “her boys”. They are well told in Elliott J. Gorn’s biography Mother Jones; the Most Dangerous Woman in America. But let’s raise a toast and remember an early verse written in her honor in the United Mine Workers Journal:

We love her for her constant voice.
Raised ever ‘gainst wrongs and ills,
For healing the bodies, bruised and torn,
In the factories, mines and mills…

The early labor leaders who worked with the Department of Labor brought Americans many changes that made life better for all working people. As we celebrate Labor Day 2023, let’s give a cheer for the early pioneers who showed the way for us to meet the challenges of the new developments that are likely to affect our working lives once again.