A few thoughts on Labor Day

By Darrell Laurant

Published: August 31, 2008

Labor Day has become a holiday without a face. 
         
We don’t exchange Labor Day presents, there are no Labor Day meals, and I’ve yet to hear the first Labor Day song (unless it’s something by Woody Guthrie).

Once upon a time, it used to mark the ceremonial (if not official) end of summer, but the decision by state legislators a few years ago to re-open schools before Labor Day pretty much left that a moot point.

I’m not even taking Labor Day off, because I’ve got a few things to do in the office. But the turn of the calendar page did cause me to start thinking about how labor itself has changed in Central Virginia since I arrived here in 1977.

- Thirty years ago, there were plenty of blue-collar jobs for people with only a high school diploma. Lynchburg Foundry was thriving, as were Griffin Pipe, Rock Tenn, General Electric, Babcock & Wilcox, the Lane Company in Altavista and even some vestiges of the textile and shoe industries.

Today, the Foundry is gone, GE morphed into Ericsson and then left, the textile mill and Craddock Terry Shoe Company are no more, and factory jobs are hard to come by.

There is still plenty of work available for those who aren’t college graduates, though — in fast food.

- Speaking of which, I can’t remember ever seeing so many people of post-retirement age working behind the counters at McDonald’s, Taco Bell, etc. I’d like to think it’s because they’re bored and want something to do, but I fear it has more to do with survival.

- The major employers in the area are no longer independently owned businesses, in most cases, but extensions of national companies. This adds a certain suspense to the workplace, since you never know when someone in Chicago or Dallas will ponder the bottom line and decide that they really don’t need that outpost in — Where was that? Lynchville? — anymore.

- The leading employer in Central Virginia in 2008? It’s Centra Health, which has extended its benevolent tentacles into areas unheard of for hospitals 30 years ago. At least there is a certain stability in this, because chances are, there the parade of sick and injured people will continue.

- Similarly, C.B. Fleet continues to thrive.

- Joining Centra as one of the top three local job providers is Liberty University, which was just a struggling little church school in 1977. And LU’s explosive growth has also changed the face of the local employment scene by providing thousands of students to work in restaurants and retail.

- When General Electric/Ericsson imploded locally, the shrapnel gradually fell to earth in the form of a dozen small companies serving specific sectors of the high-tech market.

- More and more people seem to be working two and three jobs, often with no benefits.

- Of course, the 21st century world of work isn’t all gloom and doom. If you like living in Lynchburg but want to be employed by, say, a major bank in Charlotte, you can now work from home and check in online.

And one thing that hasn’t changed is how solicitous our public officials always become this time of year toward “hard-working Americans.” (Presumably, Americans who aren’t hard-working are on their own).

All across the nation today, candidates for political office will be staging photo ops in diners, bowling alleys and other places where these salt-of-the-earth voters might be congregating.

They might even be standing at the gates of a factory. If they can find one.