I spent part of this Labor Day reading about the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a business that stood in New York City nearly 100 years ago.

That company’s factory was the scene of one of the worst disasters that occurred in this country since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution—146 garment workers, many of them young women, died in a fire that began on a March afternoon in 1911.

These workers had toiled in conditions that most of us would consider inhumane- fire inspections and precautions were inadequate, hours were long and wages were low, and accidents were common.

And when an accident did occur, even a preventable one such as, perhaps, a hastily discarded cigarette setting fire to a stack of papers, there were no safeguards to stop it from spreading.

After the 1911 fire occurred, in the aftermath of protests by horrified families, fellow workers and local activists, the New York legislature created a commission to investigate the city’s sweatshop practices; ultimately, the commission’s conclusions and recommendations led to labor laws that would protect the health and well-being of American workers.

I read about this in a newspaper created by my daughter, as part of a project she was completing for school.  She wrote feature stories, advertisements and editorials based on the culture that surrounded the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, and discovered as she did so that times were heart-breakingly tough for a lot of people then, people who were just trying to find a way to work at a job that would enable them to survive.

There is an expression: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This week our president spoke about Labor Day, about the economic hardships being endured by millions of Americans who are currently out of work.

President Obama cited greed and recklessness as two factors that have contributed to the economy’s downturn, as two impulses that led some companies and legislators to be more concerned for the bottom line than for the benefit of their workers.

Right now American workers are still caught in the worst recession, Obama pointed out, since the Great Depression.

Everyone has a different idea of what will help us transcend an economy that has left many feeling hopeless, that has led to the loss of jobs and homes and the dream of a better future.

Goochland has certainly not been immune; our county’s leaders and citizens have expressed a continued concern for how our resources can be responsibly retained and expanded.

Just as Labor Day is a time to acknowledge the sacrifices of our country’s workers, it is a time to also think about those who are not working, and to ask ourselves, and our appointed and elected officials, “What can we do about it?”

And as you ask those questions, think about the answers you hear and the ones that you give, about how you want this county and this country to be shaped as it emerges from this recession.

Because we aren’t all responsible for contributing to the problem—but we can all be responsible for contributing to the solution.