For most everyone in Bermuda Labour Day marks the unofficial end of summer.

Today’s public holiday amounts to a festive last hurrah for the season, one marked by beaches, boats and barbecues.

However, it is important to always bear in mind what Labour Day actually represents: it is a day of recognition for generations of hard-working Bermudians who sacrificed not only to provide their families with a better life but to make this island a better place — to in fact make it the island we so cherish today.

And the role of Bermuda’s organised labour movement in bettering the overall welfare of this community should never be forgotten or gainsaid. It became a powerful and necessary engine for social progress on this sometimes hidebound island.

Just how resistant to even the most fundamental and long overdue social change we could be was underscored by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in a paper prepared in the immediate post-Second World War period.

It was prompted by Bermuda Workers’ Association efforts led by the galvanising reformer Dr E.F. Gordon to have Britain investigate social conditions on the island “on behalf of the great majority of the underprivileged and suffering inhabitants.”

Indeed, it was a time when working Bermudians were too often excluded, too often exploited, regarded as unequal, and not uncommonly treated as inferiors.

The respected Royal Institute concluded many of the practices highlighted by the Workers Association, forerunner to today’s Bermuda Industrial Union, were unacceptable in the modern world and required urgent redress.

These ranged from the lack of negotiating rights for trade unions to an ongoing failure to extend full political and civic rights to black Bermudians.

“No part of the modern world, however small, can isolate itself from world events,” said the Royal Institute, which recommended London begin applying leverage to Bermudian authorities to implement a comprehensive programme of political and social reform. “ … But in many aspects of its economic, political and social life, Bermuda, even until the ’30s of this century, managed to preserve an isolation from the trend of modern political and social thought.

“… It is a question of how far this policy of being in the world but not of the world is due to an isolationism and defensiveness to outside criticism inherent in most islanders; but the slogan is ‘Bermuda is different’ has been, and still is, the conservative Bermudian’s chief explanation why he resists tendencies predominant elsewhere.”

As a direct consequence of the Workers’ Association efforts, reform in Bermuda gathered an irresistible momentum that could not be contained let alone stopped. Change arrived on an accelerated timetable throughout the 1950s and ‘60s, no matter how much foot-dragging some of the reactionary elements arrayed against it engaged in.

The reality is Bermuda’s labour unions have never been narrowly self-seeking groups. They have helped to raise wages and living standards for all Bermudians.

Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the workplace.

And with their broader political and social activities they have helped to extend justice and democracy throughout the entire community.

As a result the life of not just the working Bermudian but every Bermudian in our contemporary society is a world away from where it was 70 years ago when Dr Gordon and the Workers’ Association took up the banner of civil liberties, civil rights and progressive values

Bermuda is an altogether more equitable, inclusive and compassionate society than it once was thanks to the labour movement.

In today’s perilous economic times, of course, the labour movement still has an essential role to play to maintain and fortify the many gains it helped to secure over the last seven decades.

And in order to safeguard the rights which have already been won as well as to assure new ones in the future, the labour movement must play its role in ensuring the prosperity and competitiveness of Bermudian industry and enterprise.

In post-recessionary Bermuda we are all travelling the road of economic and social wellbeing together, with a common destination and common goals in mind.

So it’s in all of our interests to see there is more partnership than conflict between the labour movement and both employers and government in the foreseeable future as we attempt to finally move beyond an extended period of economic crisis and decline.

BIU president Chris Furbert said as much in his keynote address at the union’s Labour Day banquet on Friday, concluding: “The time has come for us to create a pathway to unity that will truly bring back unity to the community.”

He’s absolutely right. Increased unity is indispensable moving forward, both in the wider community and in his own field of industrial relations.

There will naturally be disagreements about how best to achieve improved co-operation and consultation between labour and the private sector and government. But the fact is we cannot run the risk of any further all-out confrontations at this delicate juncture.

Instability is anathema to the foreign investments we all rely on — big money has long been notorious for being the world’s biggest coward. And Bermuda’s only export product is our reputation for stability and quality that draws international investment money into both the offshore financial services and tourism-related sectors of our economy.

We simply cannot endanger that reputation by way of sometimes ill-considered industrial action and civil unrest in pursuit of limited and short-term gains. For ultimately such turmoil only serves to undermine the very economic and social security Bermuda’s labour movement seeks.

While we enjoy the beaches and barbecues today, while we spend time with family and friends, do take a moment to look back and reflect on how far we as a community have come thanks, in no small part, to the labour movement.

And then spare a thought for Bermuda’s challenging future and how much further we still have to go — particularly on the industrial front — in order to secure it.