Where There’s Work, There’s Worth

 

I’ve just gone to a funeral of someone I love dearly, and the process is a lot more demanding for the community in Kotzebue than it is in other places. From building the casket to cleaning up after the potluck. I didn’t realize how different the process was until I went to a funeral in Nome. While I was certainly grateful that someone took care of the digging and burial for us, I appreciate it when a community gets together to help each other out. I feel like community is something a lot of people are missing out in the modern world.

 

Like a funeral in rural Alaska, Labor Day is also a community effort. The holiday was created to advocate for worker’s rights. Unions fought for and won the weekend, along with the 40-hour work week. Workers fought against child labor, with kids getting paid cheaply for their work, stunting their intellectual development. Though the days of parades and advocacy on Labor Day seem to be a thing of the past, just like community involvement in funerals outside Rural Alaska.

 

Organized labor has lost a great amount of power in the United States, and that came with the decline of union membership, from a high of 40 percent of the workforce being a member of a union down to 11 percent today. As much as we celebrate democracy we mainly participate by choosing who represents us in government, while many workplaces operate like monarchies. People want a psychologically safe workplace, not one where they are viewed as replaceable tools.

 

Capitalism has disrupted our traditional way of life, and that’s true for everyone around the world. We didn’t always have jobs that kept us away from our families. Culture requires sacrifice, the workplace having a culture all its own, and it’s different from company to company. Before Inupiat people would give seals a drink of water after a successful hunt, appreciating a being, who is spiritually on the same level as themselves, who is being sacrificed for the well-being their community. Now people are expected to go to work, and sacrifice time with their family, and perhaps even the ability to make their own.

 

Solidarity is something missing in our culture today, with rampant hyper individualism, algorithms keeping people hooked on applications, and nihilism. But humans have not climbed to the top of the food chain because we’re the strongest or fastest animal. Rather, we are where we’re at today because of our ability to work together to solve problems. And that’s what Labor Day is all about, everyday people working together to keep our world going.

 

The Green Party celebrates solidarity and wants to be involved in facilitating that this year, organizing Labor Day events in Kotzebue, Alaska. While we understand there’s a lot to be angry about, we feel the climate and democratic crisis is even more reason we need to come together this year, and every year going forward. We recognize there are issues that we can only solve by working together, like climate devastation or replacing this economic system that is past its sell by date, there are more ways to measure how well we are doing than with financial capital alone, like human, social and resource capital.

 

Labor Day isn’t a Green Party holiday, and we’re excited to do our part in helping to make these events happen. We’re looking to work in solidarity with other organizations like NW Arctic Takes Action, a local group who oppose the growing authoritarianism in this country. And we’d like to thank The City of Kotzebue for weaving the fee for The Youth Center. We’re visiting everyone in town this August to let people know that Labor Day is going to be different this year. The workers in Kotzebue are worth investing in, and I’m looking forward to showing appreciation for them.

 

Our way of life is in danger, as Kotzebue has been impacted greatly so far by climate devastation, and more is to come. Humanity needs to look at our limits of separation with Earth, and how our actions impact the environment. Unfortunately, our leadership fails to see how we are parts within a whole. How often do we measure only financial capital, ignoring human or social capital? We have several cable television channels that are looking at how well DOW Jones or S&P 500 are doing. Our economic system didn’t get where it’s at because it was driven by people looking for short-term gains.

 

People are worth investing in, and we feel that they should be considered more in our economic system. Democracy shouldn’t just happen in ads and on election day but also needs to be extended into the workplace. We need an economic system that considers human capital along with financial capital. Labor is not a pillar of our society that we should ignore. Workers have built this world, and we’re going to need them to save this one as well. Who knows what the damage to Kotzebue would have been if someone hadn’t built our sea wall. What kind of society would we become if there wasn’t someone out there getting their hands dirty every day?