Labor Day in the United States is the first Monday in September.  It has been a federal holiday since 1894. Its original purpose was to honor and recognize the unionized work force. The evolution of the holiday, however, has eclipsed blue-collar workers and their unions.  It has evolved into a gigantic national barbecue – even at our country clubs. Labor Day is a major holiday.  It’s a watershed date on our calendars, but its blue-collar origins have been forgotten. It’s now an end of summer feast.
 
Unlike the United States and Canada, many countries honor workers on the first day of May not on the first Monday in September. For many May Day is synonymous with International Workers’ Day, which commemorates the many accomplishments of the labor movement. It is an all-important holiday in communist countries.
 
Partially in response to these widespread communist celebrations, in 1955 Pope Pius XII established May 1 as the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.  This Catholic feast sought to highlight a deeper meaning: the dignity of human work as dramatized by the carpentry of Joseph.  The feast’s theological meaning is even deeper.  All of us are created in God’s image and reflect this not only in our ability to think and love but also in our capacity to create. Our work, whether as teacher, mechanic, CEO, writer, contractor, or snowplow operator is God’s continuing creation.  Work in its manifold varieties is holy.
 
Our modern world is far from that ideal.  Ruling classes in both capitalist and communist societies exploit the worker for the advantage of the ruling elites.  An American CEO has more in common with a high-ranking communist apparatchik than he would like to admit.  Unlike workers in their respective systems, CEO’s and communist bosses often live extravagantly.
 
From drastically different worldviews, Max Weber, the famous sociologist and Karl Marx agree that work is central to the human character.  Marx would see an industrial society as emotionally separating workers from their work.  Weber would consider capitalists who manage and risk their money in order to earn more wealth as also working and contributing.  I suspect, though, that Weber would have trouble with Mahatma Gandhi’s sin of “wealth without work.”
 
Gandhi listed Seven Social Sins. There is enough in Gandhi’s list of for several books, but this Labor Day weekend let’s think about two of them: “wealth without work” and  “commerce without morality.”
 
The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy reported in 2004 that the ratio of American Chief Executive Officer (CEO) remuneration to that of the wages of American workers was 431 to 1. Admittedly CEOs work and work hard; they perform essential functions. Their 16-hour days are filled with responsibility, stress and pressure; they must constantly be alert to trends and developments.  The average worker has none of these round-the-clock responsibilities. They punch that clock and go home. Absolutely, CEOs should be much better paid than the average worker but are they worth 431 times more? Of course not.  This is Gandhi’s sin of “wealth without work,” or at least disproportionate wealth without proportionate work.   CEOs in other highly productive capitalist nations also have high pressured, stressful jobs, but the ratio of their pay to their worker’s is dramatically less.
 
According the Dr. Mark Kroll in “CEO Pay Rates: US vs. Foreign Nations” in 2005 Japan had a ratio of CEO remuneration to the average worker’s of 11 to 1.  In Germany it was 12 to 1, in Great Britain 22 to 1.  In the United States it was 475 to 1 –- even higher than the Institute for Policy Studies’ figure. (With their stock options, bonuses and numerous perks, CEO remuneration is complicated and difficult to report accurately.)
 
The current meltdowns in the mortgage and housing markets, moreover, are an even better example of “wealth without work” – or “commerce without morality.” In the 1930s congress regulated the nations banks.  Banks could not get into the brokerage business.  Banks, however, wanted more profit; lobbyists pressured Congress to relax their regulations; congress complied.  After that, what the banks did was legal, but it wasn’t moral.
 
Here’s what Charlie Reese had to say on the housing market disaster.  “The worst sin, in my opinion, was allowing the sale of mortgages.  No wonder the sleazebags wrote bad mortgages – they were not going to get stuck trying to service them; they were going to dump them on the market.”  And dump them they did. They were sold and resold even internationally so that now we have a worldwide financial crisis. Just last May the BBC reported that credit losses from this housing crisis were massive.  For example, the Deutsche Bank in Germany had to write off 7.5 billion dollars; the Royal Bank of Scotland, 12 billion, and US banks even more.
 
Charlie Reese again, “Congress should simplify matters with laws that say if you’re going to issue a mortgage, you must have the capital and you must retain sole ownership for the life of the mortgage.  That would be the end of the sleazy mortgage-broker industry.”  Reese is probably right, but Gandhi was on to something deeper and more selfish in human nature.  The banking meltdowns, including Bear Sterns and Frannie and Freddy Mac, are tragic examples of “commerce without morality” and the lust for “wealth without work.”
 
Labor Day should be honoring the average worker and the dignity and holiness of work.  American CEO remuneration and the mortgage and housing disasters are far from these ideals.  So is the corruption of some labor unions, which in their own selfishness often ignore the common good. They are all examples of society’s self-centered and self-indulgent greed.  All real work is holy, but avarice and immorality are sins – and not only for Gandhi.
 
Daniel O'Rourke is a married Catholic priest. Retired from the administration at SUNY Fredonia, he lives in Cassadaga, NY.  His column appears in the Observer, Dunkirk, NY on the second and fourth Thursday each month. He has published "The Spirit at Your Back," a book of previous columns. You may purchased it or send comments to orourke@netsync.net.