Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

I grew up in a northern Ohio town where one of, if not the largest annual parades was on Labor Day.

In the1950’s and 1960’s, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said Mansfield, Ohio was “a good union town with major steel and tire companies and a Westinghouse factory.”

There was a time when Westinghouse employed nearly one of of every 4 workers in my home town.

That’s what made the annual Labor Day Parade such a huge event.

I remember guys in my high school saying they could get a janitorial job at the GM plant after graduation and make $17 an hour pushing a broom.

Idle talk?

Perhaps.

But more often than not, sons would follow their fathers and get a factory job.

A thing called “the draft” started to have impact on that in the mid 60’s.

Labor Day was started “to honor and celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers”, to honor and recognize the American labor movement. and the works and contributions of laborers to their development and achievement in the U.S.

In the late 1800’s, workers were faced with 12 hour workdays, with no weekends off and no paid time off.

In was then that trade unions organized marches like the one in 1882 in New York City demanding fair treatment.

In 1894, President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a national holiday following violent worker uprisings, like the Pullman strike in Chicago.

But 30 states had already recognized Labor Day as early as 1882 with Oregon credited with the first in 1877.

By the way, the first official Labor Day was actually on a Tuesday.

After growing up in the era when factory work was king in my home town, things started to change in the 70’s and 80’s.

Thanks to increased economic pressure and foreign competition, plants started to shut down.

I was working in radio and would attend union meetings and talk with strikers on the picket lines.

When the companies said, “We need to cutback and curb expenses”, labor unions weren’t buying it.

I remember one union leader saying “They’ll never close this place down!” and 5 years later, the factory sight was a big parking lot.

When you look back in history, there’s no question that business leaders were taking advantage of workers but there came a time when the roles were reversed.

The result was the “Rust Belt”.

My home town is struggling to “right the ship” but it has been an agonizingly slow process.

The bustling, vibrant town of my youth more closely resembles a combination “used car lot” and vacant building mecca today.

But people are trying.

Really trying.

Just before I left for a new job in southern Indiana in the mid 80’s, I had heard, “Well, we’ve always done it that way!” so often, I wanted to scream.

There was time during this period in the 70’s and 80’s that society decided we needed more people with degrees but now we’ve tipped that teeter-totter the other way.

Plumbers, electricians and carpenters and retiring much faster than we can replace them.

All these very learned people need someone who can fix a leaking faucet, hammer a nail, fix their car or wire in a new ceiling fan.

I used to think that some looked “down their noses” at workers wearing overalls.

But I think that a good auto mechanic is every bit as skilled as a good doctor.

Just because he wipes grease off his hands or wears work gloves instead of rubber gloves doesn’t make his job any less important.

I watched a heavy equipment operator snatching small branches and roots with that huge tool and maneuvering them into a dump truck one day and I thought, “That’s pretty amazing.”

I said the same thing years ago following my open heart surgery on when the surgeon explained what he had done to my ticker.

As we consider the evolving job scene, no one job is more important that the one you need down right now.

If it involves a scalpel or a shovel, if you can’t use it right, the job doesn’t get done.

No matter how you work it.

On Labor Day, we salute workers.

Unlike Maynard G. Krebs, who used to respond with “Work!?!” on the Dobie Gillis Show.