What began as a chip-on-shoulder solidarity demonstration by fledgling labor unions in 1882 soon became a celebration of what courageous organizers of American workers accomplished by sticking together in the face of factory lockouts and the corporate-lackey police brutality of yesteryear.

It took decades to do it — but the unions' achievements came to benefit business ownership and labor alike: By becoming the vigorous and vital component they did, unions became teamworkers in the effort that took our country to victory in two world wars and, for a great stretch of time, made us the world's greatest economic power.

Not bad for an effort that began in the rough-and-tumble days when folks were migrating to cities — from our own farms and from foreign shores. Manual labor, in great numbers, was what it took in those days to raise the buildings, pave the streets and forge the machines that made America. The work was dangerous; the hours were long; the pay was low — take it or leave it ...

The same conditions that spawned Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in Europe led to less-explosive, if equally threatening, agitation for a fairer shake.

Some unions got that and more; the labor-management balance swung toward the former — and with power came corruption. For most organizations, though, it was merely a matter of negotiation — for better base pay, for benefits, for a sensible workweek and for job security — with a velvet glove, the iron fist of a strike only rarely wielded, on union members' own behalf, or in support of those who had to walk off the job to get at least some of what they asked for.

Labor had its detractors, even among the working class — and today only one in eight Americans belongs to a union; one in 12 when it comes to the private sector. That's down from a third of the workforce in the early postwar years.

But work we do — at longer hours, and with less time off than the people of other industrial nations do. For good measure, millions of us work two jobs, both full-time in some cases. Whether that speaks of our zest for work, or being behind the economic eight-ball, we spend a heck of a lot of time on the job.

But there's long been a big push to organize a class of workers who don't fit the stereotype of hod carriers, carpenters, steelworkers and miners: Among today's heaviest hitters among organized labor are the public-employee unions, whose members already had the kind of job security Samuel Gompers would have given his eyeteeth to have seen a century ago.

In today's tough economic times, however, government jobs look barely less shaky than those in the private sector are — so civil-servant and teacher unions, like their real-world counterparts, will be pressed to keep their people on the job as management demands specific evidence of productivity.

Jobs tend to be what the economists call "lagging indicators" of economic improvement — so on this Labor Day, hordes of Americans rely on fast-diminishing unemployment compensation while they wait for responses to their resúmés, which share an in-basket with dozens of others. It's a tough time for today's American labor — yet such "leading indicators" as home, car and appliance purchases offer at least a little promise.

Meanwhile, workers who long have been part of our nation's investing class might find themselves shareholders in cooperatives buying at least some troubled companies.

There may be a new era for labor on the horizon — but today we pause to salute those who organized for a better America, and those whose pride in their work has made our country as strong as it's been. And if your flag isn't up yet this morning, raise it in your fellow working Americans' honor!