Journal Inquirer. com
Published: Thursday, June 4, 2009 12:09 PM EDT
Work: The elephant in the room
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Work is a part of everyone’s life and, for some, work is life. A common question most people ask or are asked is “What do you do for a living?” We come home to the family dinner table and talk about our day at work. Friday happy hours — when the office staff leaves work to decompress — are filled with banter about work. Most of who we are, what we do, and where we go revolves around our work. Some love it and some hate it, while others wish they had a job so they could have an opinion. I can’t think of another topic that is so constantly plugged into conversations and our everyday lives.

You would think that a topic so deeply embedded in our lives might find its spot in the media. Maybe a column or section dedicated to working people and workplace issues. Perhaps a regular news report or update highlighting something about the only thing some of us do more than sleep. The media regularly covers business but that news is more about the businesses themselves, less about the people behind the scenes who get the job done. Many newspapers used to have labor or workplace reporters who knew about the issues and wrote stories every day. They covered unions and strikes and reported on all of the workforce data offered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But they, like retirement-income-producing pension plans, have become extinct. Radio doesn’t cover much on the workplace. And television has relegated work coverage to sitcoms like “The Office.”

The time has come for the news media to cover the work people do. As newspapers scramble to find ways to appeal to more readers, maybe it is a good idea to focus on a common element in America — our jobs and the decisions that affect them. So right here in this spot I’m going to try something that for the moment can only be described as “different.” I’m not exactly blazing a new trail. In reality, I’m just uncovering the overgrown and neglected trail on which some of the media used to trek. I will use this space to explore topics that have to do with your job, working peers, and work environment. Suggestions for topics are welcome. You may ask what gives me the credentials to pen a column focused on work. Maybe it’s that I’m a workaholic in recovery. Or that my involvement in the labor movement since 1978 has given me a perspective to offer. There’s a bit of experience I have as a political activist. Or maybe my involvement in philanthropy, or media and communications, might add insight to the mix. It’s been my goal to write a column like this for at least 20 years.

I have surely paid attention in Connecticut, around the nation, and even in a few other countries — observing working people and workplace issues and the ever-evolving dynamic as our close-to-home economy has shifted globally. As Yogi Berra used to say, “You can observe a lot by watching.” We can do a bit more here than watch or observe. We can burn some ink in this spot and explore some topics about Connecticut At Work and try to become concept pioneers on the pages of the Journal Inquirer, and hopefully engage you in the process. (By the way, I can’t think of a better newspaper to host this forum, given the JI’s history of swimming against the tide of corporate conglomerated media.) And while we’re busting boundaries we can act locally and also observe globally.

There is a big world of work that should be interesting to explore. What work and middle-class life successes and stresses can be found in Thailand or Sweden? Is it all that different for the Smiths and Joneses in developing nations? Or the so-called socialist ones? Let’s talk about it here. I hope it all sounds like an exciting adventure with some interesting or entertaining perspectives — and I hope it works for you.

Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.