The Moon Pie is a distinctive pastry treat dating back to the First World War, predating Chattanooga’s other contribution to snacking, the Krystal burger, by about 15 years.  Part of what makes the Moon Pie distinctive is its origin story, as recounted by Moon Pie chronicler Ronald Dickson. Chattanooga Bakery route salesman Earl Mitchell is said to have been visiting company stores in Appalachian mining country, asking what miners might enjoy snacking on. They were of various opinions, but all agreed that it had to be something filling that wouldn’t overfill their lunch buckets. Mitchell is said to have inquired once how big the snack should be, whereupon a miner framed the rising moon with outstretched encircling fingers and said, “That big.”

What came to be called a pie was really a blue-collar S’more; graham crackers sandwiching marshmallow crème and the whole matter dunked in chocolate. Countless millions of Moon Pies have rolled off Lookout Mountain since 1917 (with fathoms of Royal Crown Cola to wash them down).

We applaud the working-class heritage of the venerable Moon Pie. We just wish there were something else around here with which to honor working people.

It is an integral part of the annual Labor Day celebration at Tannehill Park, where the highlight of the afternoon will be a Moon Pie eating contest — sponsored, heretically, by Pepsi — during which contestants will challenge the current world record: 16 double-deckers in 10 minutes, as nearly as we can figure.

There will be no salutes to Samuel Gompers, no singalong of “The Union Keeps Us Strong,” no stirring speeches honoring the contributions of working people to American society. It’s as though we’ve outsourced the holiday.

Labor Day was once a day for pageantry and fanfaronade in a Magic City teeming with all manner of union labor. In the mills, foundries and mines that comprised the steel industry in the “Pittsburgh of the South,” blacks and whites once found common cause in organizations such as the Knights of Labor or the Greenback Labor Party. Racial barriers may have delineated life outside the plant, but inside its walls, shared labor broke them down, and therein existed a level of interracial cooperation that many employers did their level best to undermine.

In 1908, more than 20,000 miners of all colors in the Birmingham District went on strike after TCI, biggest mule among local steelmakers, resolved to end the influence of the United Mineworkers of America.

Work stopped and pickets went up, which led to armed retaliation and eventually the declaration of martial law by then-Governor B. B. Comer. After at least one lynching of a union worker by company goons, the strike was broken when Comer told UMW leaders their efforts to promote equality among workers would not stand. He then sent in soldiers to evict strikers from makeshift tent cities in the coalfields where they were living.

The sticking point, then as now, was good wages and the reluctance of profit-incentivized management to pay them. It’s hard to imagine now, but once upon a time in America, the union movement existed solely to better the working conditions of its members, not its executives. That could be one reason union membership has been on a downward track since the 50’s, when roughly one in three workers carried a union card. Last year only 12.4 percent of employed workers nationwide belonged to a union, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There are other reasons union influence has declined, including corporate relocation of jobs overseas and the successful efforts of many large corporations to prevent unionization of workforces. Even with a union-friendly president and a sympathetic Democratic majority in Congress, though, unions are no closer to seeing the passage of a “card check” bill that would expedite unionization efforts by allowing employees to simply sign cards requesting to be organized.

Certainly an effective union can improve working conditions and workers’ pay, but in a toxic economy, even the best can do little more than hold the line for its members. Terence O’ Sullivan of the Laborers’ International Union estimates that 80 percent of increases they’ve managed to negotiate recently have gone to pay for increases in the cost of health care.

And whaddya know. We’re back to that.

August closes out the most contentious and least substantive month in American political wrangling since Daniel Webster was a bank director. Altogether too much sound and a surfeit of fury still signify nothing when it comes to enlightening the body politic about the cancerous growth of the health care industry. The insurance lobby has enjoyed a significant return on its investment in rabble-rousing this month. Solons return to Washington browbeaten by constituents hopped up on canned rhetoric even as polls suggest the general support for reform is dwindling. Well played, Freedom Works.

Facts, however, remain a formidable impediment to the power of idiocy. As Hollerin’ Howard Dean, a sure-‘nough doctor and author of a very smart book entitled Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform has observed, “Our real challenge is dealing with the extraordinary damage that the private health insurance system has done to countless Americans who thought they had health insurance, faithfully paying huge amounts of money into the system over many years, only to find that their insurance company refused to stand behind them when they needed it most.” Yep, the death panels Sarah Palin should be squawking about aren’t in Washington, but in the claims adjuster’s offices at Blue Cross or United Healthcare.

Working people have a lot to worry about on the day dedicated to celebrating the importance of their work. Maybe they don’t need a lot of speeches and parades after all. The best thing might be to just take the day off, get away from worries for a little while and maybe visit a shady park where there’s barbecue, good music and a lot of people stuffing their faces with the working stiff’s favorite, Chattanooga Bakery Moon Pies.

 The 18th annual Labor Day celebration and Moon Pie Eating Contest at Tannehill will be held on Monday, Sept. 7. A complete schedule of events is online at www.tannehill.org.

Courtney Haden is a Birmingham Weekly columnist. Write to courtney@bhamweekly.com.