Why We Celebrate Labor Day

Child laborer in a factory

By Craig Woodard

The very first Labor Day was celebrated on September 5, 1882, in New York City with a parade, picnic and speeches. Labor Day became a tradition, a celebration and gathering of several different trade groups and unions, in a show of strength and solidarity. Now the holiday is celebrated by the vast majority of workers across the nation.

The idea first became public in 1882 when several New York unions decided to show how many workers had joined their ranks, and to convince others to become union members. At least 20,000 people were in attendance. By 1887 union membership was spreading throughout the US, and other regions were celebrating Labor Day as a state holiday, including Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. It didn’t become a national holiday until June 28.1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law to make the first Monday in September the official national Labor Day holiday.

How we got here.

As we celebrate the 131st national labor day, let’s take a look at some of the greatest achievements of labor over the past 151 years. As you are all aware, the 5 day 40hr week and the 8hr day and the weekend did not exist until workers started to balk at the unreasonable demands being placed on them by some very unscrupulous employers, not to say all employers were bad people, but workers were, at times, being taken advantage of and treated poorly. Leading to the creation of the very first trade union in the US “The Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers” (shoemakers) formed in Philadelphia on May1 1794, that’s a whole century before the first Labor Day celebration.

The eight hour workday. In 1866 the National Labor Union or NLU was the first organization to call for the eight-hour workday. In 1933, the eight-hour workday, and the 40-hour week were signed into law as a part of the National Industrial Recovery by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The bill was a key part of the New Deal, he;ping to end the Great Depression. It took a great deal of strife and protesting by Unions to get this accomplished. Prior to this period of time, it was normal for workers to work 10-16 hours a day 7 days a week! Including children! If you think they were collecting overtime pay, think again! They were barely getting by (the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law by FDR on October 24, 1938, establishing a minimum wage of 25 cents per hour!) The Fair Labor Standards Act also prohibited the employment of minors and established the payment of overtime, giving a big boost to working class Americans! But it didn’t come without pain and suffering.

The Haymarket Affair in Chicago 1886. This tragic event is one of many examples of violence and loss of life that occurred in the early years of labor disputes. A bomb was thrown at police during a nonviolent protest over the eight hour workday killing three officers an protesters.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers lost their lives when a fire broke out in a sweatshop in New York City. It was discovered later that the doors had been locked to prevent the workers from leaving. Although not related to a labor dispute, it was a tragedy that could have been avoided by having the proper safeguards in place!

The Ludlow massacre. On April 20, 1914, approximately 21 people were killed—mostly women and children sleeping in tents when the guards hired by the mine set fire to the tents and shot them down with machine guns. Later referred to as “the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history” —Howard Zinn. 199 more perished from the violence brought about in this struggle in Colorado in the early 20th Century

Columbine Mine Massacre. In Colorado in November 1927 six miners were killed, in a dispute between labor and corporate owners. Another example of needless violence!

It saddens me to think about these labor disputes and how much blood was actually shed to enable us to have a good paying job, a stable life and a future full of promise, a good pension, decent healthcare, shelter and time to spend with our loved ones.

That’s what the struggle is about—what it‘s always been about. Lets not let some joker born with a silver spoon in his mouth steal that away from us! Folks have died for us! Their sacrifice has value! We have value!

Let’s not rest until we can secure a livable future for our children and grandchildren through peaceful, purposeful protest and demonstration. There are plenty more examples of the violence and stories of labor uprising throughout history, I encourage everyone to look them up, I just touched on the few that I knew about. I fear someday this great resource we call the internet may be taken down or corrupted or our access eliminated.