What does Labor Day mean to you? For many, it mainly marks the end of summer vacations, an extra long weekend, time for family cook-outs, great sales and the start of football season. I propose that this Labor Day we take some time to reflect on its origins and its meaning today.

Labor Day was declared an official U.S. national holiday in 1894, largely as a gesture in remembrance of workers killed by the U.S. military and marshals during the Pullman strike. Hundreds of workers were killed in this country in the late 1800s and early 1900s over the right to unionize and bargain for better wages and working conditions. It is fitting that on Labor Day that we acknowledge the positive contributions that organized labor has made to working and living standards.

The work world is radically different than sixty years ago when a third of the American workforce was unionized (today about 7% is;) it is radically different than even ten years ago and continues to evolve rapidly. Here are a few of my observations about the world of work and items that might be worthy of reflection this Labor Day:

• This is old news: traditional worker "contracts," essentially assuring job security and advancement in exchange for loyalty, are long gone; almost all of us are basically "employed at will."  Employers can pretty much release workers for whatever reason they see fit or for no reason. Most workers are fundamentally "free agents;" especially as our economic recovery continues, more workers who for whatever reason don't feel particularly positive about their situation will feel free to sign on with others. Workers need to keep their skills and capacity to move on fresh; employers need to make sure there are sufficiently attractive reasons for especially their most valuable human resources to stay.
• Technology continues to revolutionize the workplace and worker roles. Significantly greater portions of work will require at least some technological (computer) savvy, and most growing job sectors will require sophisticated technological capacities. Education, government, employers and workers themselves need to step up efforts for closing large gaps between skills that are required and skills that the workforce possesses.
• Technology will significantly impact our work world in other ways as well, perhaps principally in privacy arenas. E-mail, internet, phone, video and location monitoring  capabilities have introduced whole new ethical / legal quagmires.
• Our great recession only temporarily slowed the anticipated "brain drain" and exodus of retirement-age knowledge workers. Unless employers get smarter about it, many legacy skills that took decades to acquire will soon walk out the door when there is no game plan to replace them.
• Our population and workforce pool are increasingly diverse; workers and employers alike need to improve capacities for cross-cultural communication, relationship building and teamwork. States and organizations that do best attracting, training and leveraging a diverse workforce will be in the best competitive position.
• Fundamental worker needs and motivations have not changed much for centuries. Beyond decent pay and working conditions, workers seek meaning in their work, opportunities to use their talents and be recognized for them, fundamental respect and  fairness, growth and community. For over a dozen years, worker engagement surveys have consistently demonstrated that less than a third of the American workforce is engaged at their workplace, and about a quarter are actively disengaged; that does not bode well for how employers are fulfilling fundamental worker needs.
• Skepticism and distrust that institutional leaders will do the right thing are growing. As the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer summary stated, "the shock of 2008, the subsequent recession and misdeeds by establishment figures have forced a reset in expectations of institutions and their leaders." Their most recent survey showed that 19% of 26,000 respondents across 26 countries trust business leaders to make the right moral and ethical decisions; 14% trust government leaders to do the same. Other studies have demonstrated strong correlations between integrity, performance, abilities to attract and retain talent, customer loyalty and sustainability.  Institutions and their leaders have work to do earning workers' and customers' trust.
• The widening gap between executive and worker pay levels is not contributing to closing integrity and trust gaps. Until the day he died in 2005, the esteemed management theorist Peter Drucker maintained that anything beyond an executive: worker pay ratio of 25:1 was bad for business. According to a 2012 Bloomberg Businessweek study, the average CEO pay for the top 100 companies in their survey was 495 times the average pay of non-supervisory workers in their industry. According to an Economic Policy Institute 2012 study, average CEO pay increased 127 times faster than worker pay over the last thirty years.
• Working conditions and wages for a substantial portion of workers globally are still abysmal, particularly in the mining, maritime and manufacturing industries. To re-purpose a sentiment from organized labor's beginnings, "worker solidarity" implies that whatever our role - union or not, executive or non - we have a responsibility at some level to improve working conditions globally. More of us as decision-makers in organizations and consumers need to be better at "upstream" and "downstream" thinking about ways that our commercial and consumer behaviors impact workers across global supply and distribution chains.

We all have work to do; let's get at it! Oh, and Happy Labor Day!

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work that is worth doing."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 
"All wealth is the product of labor."

John Locke