Labor Day: NOT a real celebration of workers

A couple of weeks ago was “Labor Day” here in Spain.?

Companies gave workers the day off as a token of appreciation (ha!) and all the buzz around the date got me thinking: What the fuck are we actually celebrating?

Does society really give a damn about its workers?

The people implementing, building, and doing the thing, the people heading out every morning to put in the hours, the people busting their asses…all for the gains of someone else.

So, a day that originally was meant to celebrate workers and their contributions to society has now become a performative show that solely celebrates how much people produce - the tangibles - for others at the top.

That’s not a “celebration” I want to be a part of.

From the collective to the individual

Let’s do a quick jump back in time to 100 years ago.

Back then, the emphasis on worker’s rights was entirely different than it is today: there were more unions, more cooperatives, and a greater sense of advocating for one another.

Today, the focus has shifted from the good of all to the good of one: “me”.

Big businesses busted through the door and switched the focus of the collective wellbeing and community support to a race for profits and growth…

And it was done at the cost of everyone involved.

People started to see labor as their way to scale up - leaving their peers behind - and finally making it to that coveted spot at the “top”.

So we - the workforce - became pawns in someone else’s capitalist game.?

We overworked ourselves to the bone, hoping it would get us the recognition we deserved and…

The silence was deafening. The respect was null. The dignity we expected to attain was nonexistent.

Why??

Because while we were busy clutching onto our work, hoping that it would deem us as valuable and worthy humans, we intentionally (or unintentionally) left our relationships and others in the dirt - all because we wanted to be productive, for the sake of someone else profiting off of us.

I’m sure you’ve been in a situation where you thought about your work…

• This is JUST a “means to an end”
• This is JUST “what’s being offered at the moment”
• This is JUST “going to be for a little while”

So the game plan was to hustle your way out of this situation by working harder and getting recognized, and anyone else not willing to hustle like you did to get ahead was surely… lazy.?

But remember what I shared about the collective? It’s changed throughout the past 100 years and instead of sticking together - we’ve now focused solely on US getting ahead. Maybe one person hustled and got out, which made it seem like there was nothing the collective could do to make a change.

So, we accepted the “just” conditions.

“Their best interest, not mine”

Let’s face it: the modern, capitalist society that we live in doesn’t really give a fuck about us, the workers.

We’re only as good/valuable as how much we can produce; and, when it gets to the point where we can’t “put in the work” anymore, we’re immediately discarded and ignored.

Whether this comes with age, a disability, or a desire NOT to participate in this sham…it doesn’t matter.

If we’re not making money, accumulating wealth, and creating more things - usually for someone else - we might as well be…dead.

So are we really working towards our own best interests, or are we doing it for “theirs”?

(You know exactly the “thems” I’m referring to: the Bezos, Buffets, and Musks of the world…)

Doesn’t it feel a bit ridiculous to celebrate that form of labor?

Having to trade in our work for the basic necessities and the resources to survive, while someone else basks in the actual profit of it all?

If you ask me, that’s no way to “celebrate” and “honor” workers (again: ha!).

And this is coming from a recovering workaholic! Before making this realization of anti-hustle/rest, I worked myself to the bone, I attached my worth and identity to the work I produced, and the only identity I felt that was “worthy” of recognition was my job title.

It gave me a sense of purpose and boosted my ego.

I thought, that if I could show people how well I worked, the results I could bring, and my dedication to the job - I would be seen as valuable. Clearly, this was a “me” issue.

The problem with that “me” issue, however, was how it bled into my relationships. The “hustle-culture” I subscribed to, influenced how I acted and treated myself, my parents, my family and friends, my partner, and even my colleagues. I held them to extremely high work and production standards because I thought that was what I needed to do.

I was only working towards the interest of productivity, production, profits, without stopping to think, well what the fuck do I want? What is the best interest in my life? What types of relationships do I want to have??

And that’s when decolonization started happening because I realized, I wanted intentional relationships, rest and play, and time to enjoy life - not work my way to “earn” the rest.

When we prioritize rest over labor…

I’m not here to say that our better days are past us. And I’m definitely not trying to romanticize the past, because it comes with its own shit, too.

However selfish we might have become today - and I’m not placing the blame on us, but on the society that made this possible and celebrated it - we’ve also made incredible progress in terms of our awareness of systemic issues.

Younger generations not taking our shit - or anyone else’s, for that matter - and they’ve armed themselves with the tools and the language to fight back against hustle culture, unfair work expectations, and all the shit we used to put up with because we didn’t know.

Capitalism, power dynamics, hustle culture, white supremacy: they see right through the bullshit and call it out, dismantling whatever power these beliefs thought they had over them.

Since time travel is impossible (one could only dream) and we can’t really take this newfound awareness back to the collective of 100 years ago, I see the only way to move forward and enact change is to re-adopt the focus of justice and community power that we had in the past.

A fucking winning combination:

1. A strong focus on collective justice and community wellbeing where we act TOGETHER AS ONE, and not individually
2. The language to call out, deprogram, and listen to others, connecting beyond the self

A combination that can help us see beyond our “production value”, provide us with the understanding that we’re more than the profit we churn out, and give us the tools we need to look after one another.

How??

By prioritizing rest, collective justice, and working together. This looks different on an individual to systemic level - from taking breaks or becoming more intentional with our relationships to setting aside the resources and budget to make sure teams and groups within your organization have the support they need to get the work done well.

Some ideas to get you started can be:

1. Look up cooperatives in your region. If we really valued labor and genuinely cared about engagement (not just engagement to make the owners more wealthy) then the workers would get equity in the organization.
2. Next time you have a public or personal holiday - take the damn holiday.? You're hurting yourself, colleagues, and future generations by role modeling that productivity is more important than rest, and our value is based on the work we produce. And if you know anything about intergenerational trauma - THIS pattern recreates other patterns in future generations.

Overworking and overproducing (with little resources and support) isn’t a flex, it’s abusive.?

No matter how much companies and organizations claim to care about us, I want to see their words match their actions.

The change starts from an individual level - someone choosing rest overproduction - then moves to a community and collective level. Imagine the power we hold, together, when we all rest and opt OUT of hustle culture and into rebuilding the collective.

Imagine what could happen if we united as a community - through unions, cooperatives, etc. - what kind of systemic change could we unfold?

That’s a celebration I can get on board with.

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