The First of May(caution-- NSFW), besides being widely celebrated for the onset of truly springlike weather, is also the original Labor Day. According to Howard Zinn in The People's History of the United States, "By the spring of 1886, the movement for an eight-hour day had grown. On May 1, the American Federation of Labor, now five years old, called for nationwide strikes wherever the eight-hour day was refused."
That strike and ensuing events led to the Haymarket Affair, which gained international attention in the labor movement. The First of May became an annual opportunity for progressive organizations to demonstrate for better working conditions and social justice. In the U.S., of course, the idea of a "Labor Day" was eventually co-opted into a federal holiday in late summer with only the most tenuous ties to any progressive agenda.
As an educator in a public university and a former hospital nurse, I live in a funny place vis-a-vis labor relations.
At least once a week I mumble (in that kind of mumble which sometimes sounds more like a snarl verging on a tiny rant) that everyone in academia should have to do a decade of shiftwork before they get to teach in a university. Nurses in acute care settings work their asses off every day. They deal with assaultive patients and family members. They pick up and move around people of all shapes and sizes. They work with tiny dangerous materials like needles with other people's blood on them and syringes with toxic chemicals in them. They work around big dangerous equipment like x-ray machines and MRIs.
In many facilities, nurses routinely work ten- and twelve-hour shifts. "Three twelves" is a fairly typical nursing workweek. A lot of units have some kind of arrangement that doesn't quite meet legal definitions of forced overtime, but which results in nurses staying past the end of their scheduled shift in four-hour increments. In theory, the workplace protections won by our predecessors in the labor movement apply to hospital nurses. We're supposed to get a ten-minute break for every four hours on the job and a half-hour break for every eight hours. Ask a nurse sometime how those breaks tend to work out in real life.
Some years ago, I realized that I didn't have to plan my career around when I could afford to have my knees replaced. I went back to grad school and got myself situated to transition into my current role as a nurse educator in a university setting. Most nurses have a passion for patient care; relatively few get a kick out of the scholarly role. So here I am now, with "assistant professor" next to my name and a very different set of workplace concerns.
My knees are much better now. I have yet to plan an interaction in this work setting around keeping a clear path to the door in case someone becomes assaultive. I can nearly always take a bathroom break whenever I need to. It's hard to say how many hours a week I work, since there is no time clock and my professional life extends into the community in all kinds of ways.
So what am I, in labor terms? We educators are not "unskilled laborers," nor do we tend to think of ourselves as members of "skilled trades" like electricians, carpenters and plumbers. We tend to think of ourselves as professionals-- you know, that class of workers who have some characteristic that isn't skill but still involves extensive training and work.
What kind of laborer are you? What kind of laborer do you think you ought to be recognized as? What kind of laborer do your colleagues seem to think they are? What about the community around you-- what kind of worker do they think you are?
Small edit to clarify the poll: The first option should be read in a tone of bitter, bitter snark.