I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Labor Day. It’s not that
I don’t like the extra day off, but Labor Day holds other connotations for
me–like the cold smack of life’s realities.

I grew up in a “non-labor” home on the Main Line. My mother was a
stay at home mom and my father was a patent attorney with Philco who commuted
to Philadelphia. When I was in elementary school, some of the factory workers
at Philco went on strike. One night our father told us how he had to go through
their picket line to get to his office. The men yelled at him and called him a
“scab”. At that point I decided these people were bad.

Many years later, in my senior year in college, we had a class
called Practicum. One day our topic was on professional organizations. We were
told the NEA, the National Education Association and our state equivalent, the
PSEA, were the preferred teacher’s organizations. After all, we were
college-educated professionals now. Those unfortunate enough to get a teaching
job in the city were warned they would be coerced into joining the AFT, the
American Federation of Teachers, a labor Union founded in 1916 which was
involved in collective bargaining and teacher’s strikes.

So I was pleased that summer when I landed a job in a new high
school in the nearby suburbs and joined the PSEA. Life was pleasant.

But in September of my third year of teaching our PSEA voted to
strike when negotiations with the administration and school board broke down.
And there I was, a card-carrying member of the PSEA, holding a picket sign at
the end of the school drive at 7 a.m., wondering why
our profs had lied to us. It was one of those moments when you could hear the
idealism of youth shattering.  

The second day, a then, very young Robin Macintosh from KYW came
out with a camera crew to film us for the evening news. He told us to walk in a
tight circle and they would shoot up towards our heads to make it look like
there were more of us. Hmm. What’s that about journalistic objectivity and
integrity?

 That night, the phone rang at my parent’s home where I was still
living, and my father answered. It was a neighbor. “Bill, wasn’t that Sally I
just saw on the 6 o’clock news?”

 Busted!

 After 11 days the strike was settled. I say, “settled,” as a
contract was signed. I can’t even remember who won, but the atmosphere in the
building for the remainder of the year was icy.

 One morning that winter it started to snow so fast that the school
buses arrived to take the students home at noon. Great, I’d be getting home
early. But the administration informed our faculty that since we expected
them to adhere to the letter of the new contract, we were to stay in our
classroom until the end of our contractual day – 3:20 p.m. And the snow
kept falling.

 Three and-a-half hours later, I left on my route that took me along
Valley Creek through Valley Forge Park. There were several times when I thought
I was going to get stuck in the snow. Luckily I made it as far as the bottom of
Devon State Road. Cars were stuck all along the mile-long hill up to Conestoga
Road.

 Somehow I got my car turned around and into the parking lot of a
little church, and walked the rest of the way home… one mile up the hill as the snow
kept blowing.

 Happy Labor Day? Humbug!

Well, maybe it’s not really that bad. I do get the day off.