With Labor Day fast approaching, people in Washington are enjoying the waning days of summer and getting ready for the coming school year. In the midst of last-minute family outings and back-to-school shopping, most people have little time to recall what this national day commemorates.

The first Labor Day was celebrated with picnics, parades and speeches in New York in 1882. The idea soon spread to other states and in 1894 Congress recognized it as a national holiday. Today, the U.S. Department of Labor aptly calls the observance "a tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well being of our country."

If we tend to forget the original meaning of Labor Day, how much more do we overlook one valuable yet under appreciated segment of our nation's workforce, temporary workers. They are students and homemakers, recent immigrants and new citizens, people between jobs and permanent part-timers.

For many laid off workers, a temporary job is the best path back to full-time employment. For others, a temporary position frees their time for other interests. The temporary labor market is a reflection of how free citizens pursue their own goals in life. Everyone has the right to work, not work, or work less, as they choose. The temporary labor market makes these highly personal economic choices possible.

The key to the temporary labor market is the job-finding agencies that bring workers and employers together for the benefit of both. Labor Ready, for example, is a successful nationwide placement firm headquartered in Tacoma. The company operates some 750 neighborhood storefront offices across the country where anyone can walk in and sign up for work. As requests from employers come in, workers are matched with specific jobs and sent to the business or jobsite. Typical jobs include worksite preparation, homebuilding, food packing, landscaping and light manufacturing. At the end of the day workers return to the placement company's office and receive a paycheck.

The placement company handles all the paperwork, complies with federal and state regulations and makes the required payroll deductions. Temporary placement companies operate by a simple code. They require only that workers show up on time, drug-and-alcohol free and willing to work. Employers get reliable workers with a minimum of red tape. Workers get the chance to work where they want and when they want. The system is entirely voluntary and, like most good ideas, is elegantly simple: Work today, get paid today.

And, like many good ideas, the temporary labor market has its detractors. Traditional labor unions in particular don't like flexible work arrangements, because these jobs exist outside the conventional union structure. Their ideal is that every employer should use unionized workers and no others. Rather than accept a vibrant temporary workforce, unions are trying to use the force of the state to foreclose what they see as competition.

Because temporary labor is voluntary, it is difficult for opponents to ask the government to ban it outright. They seek instead to burden it with as many regulatory barriers as possible. One lawsuit seeks to bar workers from paying a minimal fee to cash their paychecks in the dispatch office at end of the day. The move would force workers to wait a day and go to a bank or to a costly check-cashing store. Opponents seem to forget, or don't care, that many temporary workers are low-income and do not have bank accounts.

Temporary labor opponents also want to force closure of heated waiting rooms where workers gather to seek work. They say workers should be paid while they wait for job assignments. Since few businesses can afford to pay people for not working, job seekers would be left to congregate on street corners while waiting for work opportunities. Temporary placement companies often provide workers with hard hats, work boots, dust-masks and eye-protection for free. Temporary labor opponents say workers should not be held responsible for lost or broken equipment, meaning that in the future workers may have to provide important safety gear themselves.

Together these lawsuits add up to a coordinated assault on the temporary labor market. Adverse rulings by the courts would come with a high cost. Employers would lose important information about where to find able and willing workers. Our state's economy would become more hostile to small businesses and to innovative start-up firms. Worst of all, the most vulnerable in our communities would lose vital job opportunities, forcing them onto public assistance or leaving them vulnerable to the underground labor market.

It is smart public policy to let the temporary labor market operate freely and efficiently. It is the quickest way for our economy to recover, while creating choice and opportunity for thousands of hard-working men and women. In our country, a chance to work is a chance to succeed. That is what Labor Day is all about.