Last Labor Day weekend I was writing my fourth book, Lost Mills of Fulton County. The timing of this book was ironic as I wrote around the Labor Day Weekend. Most people are not aware of why we have this day off from work. I wrote two books about Georgia cotton mill workers. In Lost Towns of North Georgia, I focused on the mill families and how the textile industry forced people off the farms for a steady paycheck. The follow-up book focuses on the four mills in Fulton County that changed Atlanta. My books were designed to shed light on the worker.
Labor became an official holiday on June 28, 1894, when President Grover Cleveland signed it into law. Though the originator of the holiday may be lost to history, many credit labor unions in response to the Industrial Revolution. In the late 1800s workers worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week, and still lived on a substance level - paycheck to paycheck and in debt to the company store.
Children also worked as young as 5 years old. The work conditions were unsafe and unsanitary. There were riots and strikes, so a workingman's day was established. More than 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in Union Square in New York City. This was the first Labor Day parade in America.
On September 4, 2023, we celebrate Labor Day over 100 years after the first unauthorized worker’s day off. Imagine what these workers would think of the emerging trend or at least the discussion of “quiet quitting.”
I know what my father, one of the hardest working men I ever met, would say about “quiet quitting.” He would have turned 87 this last September 1. I always thought it was appropriate that Labor Day was always celebrated near his birthday. Sometimes he had to labor on Labor Day at Transparent Bag Company in Buffalo, New York, or at the endless remodeling of our 1825 farmhouse in East Aurora, New York. He was essentially an orphan who joined the Navy young and learned a trade. He learned to build things in manufacturing companies. He worked hard and he expected us to work hard. His term for quiet quitting would have been, “lazy” and various versions in colorful terms.
Quiet quitting, a new term that blossomed after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down everything. People changed, work changed, and school changed in every practical way. Our attitudes changed when we saw what we could do outside of the normal work environment. It changed for everyone but the laborers. They still had to go to the plants. I am sure my father would have gone to work every day just like my middle son went to a job at a manufacturing plant during the pandemic. Quiet quitting was not an option.
The term originated in 2019. Quiet quitting has morphed into many things. As a college professor, I see it in learned helplessness that permeates the students who were in high school online during the COVID-19 crisis. Jobs changed as people demanded to continue to work from home and attitudes toward their employers became tenuous. Quiet quitting has some merit as employers do not care about their workers, much like in 1882 when Labor Day recognized laborers.
Quiet quitting has a nefarious side, because “LAZY” is real. People have stayed in remote jobs and are doing the bare minimum to keep a paycheck Sometimes this new habit is couched as a work-life balance, but it may be bordering on stealing.
No longer do some employees want to get ahead and move up. Now, this may be the fault of the culture of the workplace that seldom rewards hard work or recognizes employees who go above and beyond. But it is a silent strike much like the real ones that were encouraged when laborers walked out and silently quit.
I work hard no matter my job. I do it because I was raised by a hard-working father. While I joke that “Quiet Quitting” will lead to “Quiet Firing” I understand how it feels to have your work ignored or even punished. I get it when your employer does not really care about your work ethic and treats everyone with the shotgun approach of mistrust.
Writing these books about workers in North Georgia and Fulton County always makes me think of the origins of Labor Day. Life was so stringent, that there were strikes and uprisings. Maybe that was “Quiet Quitting” at the turn of the 20th century.
The reason Labor Day was established was to honor the early hard-working Americans who were never paid their worth. Today, just driving into the office seems to be a struggle for this post-COVID nation. Refusing to go above and beyond says something about our character. Maybe we have lost our pride in doing a good job, just for the sake of good work. Where is the pride? There have always been disengaged workers and shirkers. We did not have a fancy term like “Quiet Quitting” as a euphemism for just plain lazy.
Check out my books about the Lost Mill era and maybe see how much has been lost as we devalue hard work.
I am excited to announce my new book set for release this Tuesday, September 4, 2023. Georgia Covered Bridges explores the purpose, construction, and destruction of these mysterious structures. Georgia once had over 250 covered bridges, discover why only 16 remain.