The
History of Labor DayLabor Day is the celebration of the value and dignity of work, and its role in the American way of life.
Find out the origins of the holiday that celebrates the successes of the
Activism
Issues
www.AlternativeNewsResource.org/
Site map
Labor Day
Labor Day in Portland Oregon
The history
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
In 1884, the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date.
The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. The first state bill was introduced into the New York Legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on Feb. 21, 1887.
In 1894, Congress passed legislation making Labor Day a national holiday.
The
History of Labor DayHow Should we Celebrate Labor Day?
by Charlie Cray, the director of the
Center for Corporate Policy in Washington, DC. He
helped establish
Halliburton Watch, co-authored
The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy
(Berrett-Koehler), former associate editor of
Multinational Monitor magazine.
Samuel
Gompers once said, "All other holidays are in a more or less degree
connected with conflicts, and battles and man's prowess over man, of strife
and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over
another. Labor Day ... is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect,
race or nation."
So what should we do on Labor Day, besides taking time out from shopping and
golfing and watching the ball games and going to the beach to watch a parade
in honor the folks who brought us the weekend? (The first Labor Day Parade
was organized by the New York City Central Labor Union in 1882).
Should we fester in our resentments about the one-sided class war that has
elevated the average CEO's pay to
411 times the average worker or grouse about how the minimum wage would
be $22.61 per hour if it had risen at the same rate as CEO pay since 1990?
Or should we try to figure out what to do about it besides organizing a
quixotic campaign to repeal Taft-Hartley and other structural impediments to
organizing that have shrunk unions to about 11 percent of the workforce?
Perhaps
the least we can do is read a little bit about the history of labor from
Haymarket, to Detroit in the 1930s, to Hormel, Decatur, the
prison-industrial complex, the Battle of Seattle, Wal-Mart, etc.
Or maybe we should stop and think about how spiritually sick we workaholic
Americans are.
I mean, have you ever asked yourself how many "successful" people you know
who are genuinely happy, except perhaps in the moments of ecstasy that their
addictions and gluttony bring?
Ever known a super-ambitious careerist who was content? The kids of the rich
might be fairly content
people (but they didn't have to work for it), and there are many content
professionals who manage to carve out a decent living while doing what they
like, even in the service to others. But I wonder how many super-rich people
are truly happy.
As a kid I had a friend whose father owned one of the biggest private
manufacturing firms in Chicago. I remember the first time I met him he was
throwing a tantrum about the Teamsters. Didn't seem that happy to me. Then I
noticed that there was a lock on their refrigerator. When his kids defied
his orders not to eat between meals he applied the same tactics he used at
work -- locked them out of the refrigerator!
The History of Labor Day
Another
thought: We all have the union movement to thank for many things including
weekends, the 8 hour workday, overtime pay, the fact that scaffolds don't
fall on our head as we're walking down the sidewalk, etc.
But what about challenging the work ethic itself, especially since for so
many people the economy is not really doing much good?
After all, what's the whole point of work? To grow the economy? Why is a
bigger GNP so important when we know that "trickle-down" economics is a
farce and that the blind devotion to GNP on a limited planet has meant a
system of planning that ignores things like global warming -- i.e. is
practically suicidal. Any who says the GNP is the best measure of a
successful economy when it goes up everytime there's a car crash?
So what's the point? Whatever happened to the Right to Be Lazy? Isn't
mindless growth (instead of real intelligent design - you know like
electric cars) the reason why we are trying to control Iraq's oil and why
we're driving the climate over the cliff of irreversibility? Doesn't that
make you think that working as a cog in today's economic machinery is, well,
kind of futile, especially for people who find themselves stuck making
weapons or using them in a war that makes no sense?
The great philosopher George Carlin once said, "We like war, because we're
good at it. ... And it's a good thing we are -- we're not very good at
anything else anymore. Can't build a decent car, can't make a TV or a VCR
worth a fuck. Got no steel industry left. Can't educate our young people.
Can't provide health care to old people. But we can bomb the shit out of
your country all right. Especially if your country is full of brown people.
That's our new job in the world."
In an economy of death, why do we call a group protest against the job a
"sick out" when it seems like the healthiest thing we can do? Isn't it one
of the best inventions that organized labor has given us in the last few
years?
Come to think of it, why limit our "holidays" to one day?
Have you ever noticed how many poor people (at least those not suffering
from famine, war and pestilence) are much happier than the rich? Maybe it's
because they're not trying to control things they can't control, like other
people, or make war to control other people's resources and justify it with
some twisted rationale that they in turn force the rest of us to adopt.
A man in India once told me: "we have everything you don't have, because we
have nothing that you have."
Maybe some poor people are happier because they don't wear something around
their neck that cuts off the circulation to their brains for 40 hours a
week.
How Should we Celebrate Labor Day?
(4 comments)
Click here
to comment
Union resources
Opportunities for Activism
Resources for local and global labor news...
Current Union News
Issues of Interest to Union Members...
Activism, Alternative News, Activism Newsletter, Blues, Capital Punishment, Cartoons, Children's Page, Computer Resources, Coretta, Creative Art, Employment, Environment, Human Rights, Impeach, International Peace Resources, Harley, Issues, Jefferson, Library, Logic, Martin, Middle East, News, Oregon News, Peace News, Peace Portal, Peace Resources, Political Communication, Rhetoric, Road to Peace, Tutor, Resource Link, Union Resources, Women's Resources, Writing Resource ... or
mail: info@writingresource.org or tim@peaceresource.com