Now that another Labour Day weekend has come and gone, perhaps the time has come to rename it so it more represents reality.
How about Entitlement Day?
Those who truly enjoyed the holiday long weekend were hardly rank-and-file types. They were bankers, and every well-paid and overly-entitled civil servant across this nation. They were teachers, and judges and lawyers.
But there was no day off for the mom-and-pop businesses trying to pay for their children’s education. The self-employed worked if they could work because no one pays them for not working. Many many shops remained open. Newspapers published. Radio stations went to air. TV too.
Life for the unentitled went on.
Canada’s Labour Day, proclaimed in the 1880s, no longer represents the blue-collar world to which it was born. What labour unions achieved in their early years is admirable, but the unions of today are anachronisms.
In 2012, unions are like buggy whips and their executives like snake-oil salesman.
This is hardly worth celebrating but, then again, neither would Entitlement Day.
Unless, of course, you are among the entitled.
Categories: General