Labor Day is upon us. The holiday was born in an era of great upheaval in our nation.

At the turn of the last century, coming out of a Civil War that had nearly severed the nation in two, the Industrial Revolution was creating a workforce that migrated to urban centers. 

The agrarian society that had defined the economy at the time our nation was founded gave way to a society where wealth was created less through land ownership than through manufactured production.

Immigrants flocked to our shores in unprecedented numbers. The youth who had left their fathers’ farms along with the new arrivals often worked long hours for low wages. There was a marked increase in women working outside the home.

Department stores sprang up in cities and clerical workers were needed as well as sales people. The economy boomed as labor groups grew and fought for their rights — sometimes violently, sometimes radically.

There was a widening gap between the workers who labored, often in unsafe conditions, and the owners who prospered.

Eventually, laws were passed to prohibit child labor and to limit the work day to eight hours.

We find ourselves now in another time of great upheaval.

Coming out of a pandemic that not only closed many businesses but caused a shift in cultural norms as everything from public-school classes to high-powered business meetings were conducted through screens, we are in the midst of a Digital Revolution.

 Social norms have radically changed as connections are often made not through communities in a single geographic space — once known as neighborhoods — but rather through online or social-media interactions.

As artificial intelligence — both its promise and its threats — looms over us, hands-on work is no longer the only option.

We live in a time of harsh polarization where common ground is hard to find, even in an acknowledgement of truth.

So what we are celebrating this Labor Day, here in Albany County, New York, is an initiative quietly announced at an Aug. 22 press conference. Quiet, because The Enterprise was the only media to cover the event.

 Daniel McCoy, the county’s executive, praised Albany County and its legislature for wanting to “look at things differently.”

He gave, as an example, the daycare center set up at the county’s nursing home “to get women back in the workforce.”

Albany County, like municipalities across the nation, got large sums from the American Rescue Plan Act. The act was meant to rebuild after the stagnation caused by the pandemic.

The county wisely partnered with the Capital Region Workforce Development Board to create pathways to jobs “for those who need it most,” as McCoy put it.

“We invested a million dollars in the rescue plan funds on a job-training program, giving businesses the opportunity to train their work force to learn and earn money,” McCoy said.

Businesses get up to half of the trainee’s hourly wages — training that a business might otherwise not be able to afford. This, of course, helps the business, especially those businesses that can’t find skilled labor, but it also helps the worker.

Of the 39 people approved for training at 10 businesses, McCoy said, there has been a 100-percent retention rate.

His announcement was greeted with applause by the legislators and business leaders at the event.

To date, about $260,000 has been spent on the program and, McCoy said, there are ample funds to continue in the future.

A second initiative, with a $137,500 investment, is providing staff to help people leaving Albany county’s jail or in the county’s SHIP program.

The Sheriff’s Homeless Improvement Program was started in 2000 by Sheriff Craig Apple to settle homeless people, mostly men, in an unused wing of the jail. This past January, a new wing was opened for homeless women and families.

Carla Johnson, who lives in the SHIP wing, called it “a safe haven.” “Nobody has no idea how many people are under trees, under railroads, in cars …. It’s scary,” she said in January when the new wing was opened.

She also said, “SHIP saved my life … They have been my family. They will continue to be my family when I walk out them doors.”

This is a better response to homelessness than trying to make unhoused people disappear by, for example, sending them out of our nation’s capital or arresting them.

A job is a ticket to society and, if someone can be trained for work, we all benefit.

Another person who spoke in January when the new SHIP wing was opened was Cleveland Pringle who said that, before he came to SHIP, “I was tired and just wanted to die.”

He did not have a job and he was living in abandoned buildings when a friend told him about the sheriff’s program.

“I haven’t looked back,” he said. “All I have done was look forward.” He is back to work now, Pringle said. “So often we always hear so much negativity … And finally, I am part of something good.”

Fifty-four of the 86 people in the county’s re-entry program have found jobs, McCoy reported on Aug. 22.

He noted that, in the long run, the program saves the county money since the participants are not re-offending and also social services aren’t needed.

“Creating a pathway back into the workforce is a powerful tool to improve public safety, breaking the cycle of poverty and crime,” said McCoy. “People who find stable employment are less likely to return to jail, which means safer neighborhoods, less strain on our justice system.”

“It’s more than just a financial investment,” said Brian Williams, who directs the workforce development board. “It’s an investment in people, in businesses, and really in the future of our entire community.”

He also said the average starting wage of those who have completed the program is over $20 an hour with “even higher gains in the technical and skills trades.”

Businesses are strengthened and workers can sustain their families.

“Opportunity must be accessible for everyone,” said Williams, naming “youth, veterans, individuals with disabilities, folks in recovery.”

“They’re changing their lives; they’re changing the fabric of our community for the better,” said Williams, stressing that such change is not accidental.

Darin Cook of Crisafulli Brothers Plumbing and Heating Contractor, one of the businesses participating in the program, said the trades have struggled for a long time trying to find “folks who are trained properly.”

 The county’s program, Cook said, “helps us meet those goals but it also gives the folks who come to work for us a hand up to be able to start a career — it’s a lifelong career.”

Joanne Cunningham, who chairs the county legislature, may have said it best. She called workforce development “the mother’s milk of economic development — it is the core, the centerpiece; it makes everything happen.”

We are grateful to live in a progressive county that sees the worth of training people for a better life rather than letting them languish.

McCoy urged those seeking employment, “Go to our website; something might spark you inside to give you an opportunity to look at a job that you normally might have not looked at, thinking you didn’t have a skill set.”

He said to those who “did time in jail” or who “just didn’t like education” — “we’ve got you covered. We have you. We have you … You’ve just got to be willing to take the first step.”

We second those words — take the first step; there’s no telling where the journey may lead you.

So on this Labor Day, we feel hope. We thank Albany County for the opportunity to feel that.

We don’t know, a century hence, when people look back on our post-pandemic era of upheaval, how they will see the dawning of this new era.

But we do know, here and now, that labor matters and that every person deserves a chance at the dignity that comes with a job.