Senator O'Mara's weekly column 'From the Capitol -- for the week of September 1, 2025 -- "Celebrating Local Workers and Securing the Future"

Senator O'Mara offers his weekly perspective on many of the key challenges and issues facing the Legislature, as well as on legislative actions, local initiatives, state programs and policies, and more.  Stop back every Monday for Senator O'Mara's latest column...

This week, "Celebrating local workers and securing the future"

Labor Day has always been a meaningful and steadfast day of tribute across this region, a region that has been built on, and where we have long honored, a deep-rooted respect for so many of the foundations of this nation: agriculture and craftsmanship, manufacturing and small business, tourism and hospitality, outdoors and recreation, education and health care, and on through the anchors of the modern high-tech economy in research and development, and technology.

It is a remarkable local history of working men and women, and a great source of pride for all of us.

Recently in Elmira, I had the opportunity to join a number of my state and local legislative colleagues, and other community leaders, to help celebrate the amazing 150th Anniversary of I.D. Booth, a longstanding distributor of plumbing, heating, industrial, steel, and electrical supplies. It is one of Upstate New York's proudest legacies. Founded in 1875, I.D. Booth today represents six generations of family leadership and a proud tradition of working excellence, quality, service, community strength, and family values.

More recently, just late last week in fact, the first high-speed rail trains made in America began running along the Northeast Corridor. And when I say made in America, I proudly say that these rail cars were made in Hornell at the Alstom facility there that boasts of a 170-year history of train manufacturing and repair. Hornell is recognized as America's center of rail manufacturing excellence, and the Alstom plant is the largest train manufacturing site in North America. Above all, it is one of our nation's finest workforces.

As Alstom noted last week, "Many employees' roots at the plant stretch back generations, creating a blend of tradition, craftsmanship and innovation that continues to move the American rail industry forward."

These are just a few examples of the numerous occasions I have to help celebrate our local and regional industries, manufacturers and small businesses and, most importantly, the local workforces who help these enterprises succeed and ensure the ongoing strength and pride of so many communities.

We do well every year to recall and pay tribute to all of the workers across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, throughout New York State, and all across America who day after day, year after year, generation after generation, build, care for, educate, grow, manufacture, protect and serve and strengthen our communities in so many different ways through so many different walks of life.

We are grateful for your dedication, your perseverance, and your excellence. The first Labor Day celebration in the United States was a parade in New York City in 1882. In 1887, New York was one of the first four states to establish a Labor Day holiday.

In its overview, the U.S. Department of Labor frames the historical significance of Labor Day this way: "The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership -- the American worker."

This tribute remains especially poignant this year, in the aftermath of several years which have taken an enormous toll on workers in so many fields but where American workers, here at home and across this land, have kept us going.

"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing," Theodore Roosevelt said at the turn of the 20th century.

That is the opportunity that we seek to keep building. As legislators, it means that government faces a particular challenge and responsibility moving forward to help workers and local economies continue growing and prospering. This sense of responsibility is held together with so many colleagues, at every level, to pursue the goals we share for the future of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes.

Without question, it demands a renewal of New York State government's commitment to economic growth, job creation, and fiscal responsibility -- in other words, to opening the doors to a stronger future for workers. This fundamental focus has lost its way in recent years in New York -- and remains at risk. However, the pledge continues this Labor Day to keep working to ensure that it finds its place again in this government in the months and years ahead.