Celebrate Labor Day Celebrate Unions

 

Labor Day in the USA and in Canada occurs on the first Monday in September.

The first Labor Day in the United States was observed on September 5, 1882, in Boston, by the Central Labor Union of New York, the nation's first integrated major trade union. It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike. In an attempt to appease the nation's workers, Labor Day is born when President Grover Cleveland fearing further conflict, rushed legislation through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. But the movement for a national Labor Day had already been growing for some time. In September 1892, union workers in New York City took an unpaid day off and marched around Union Square in support of the holiday. Labor Day was adopted then by the Cleveland Administration as a counterweight to May Day, the international day of labor solidarity adopted by the First Congress of the Second Socialist International in 1889 to commemorate the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886. Labor Day from its outset was meant to symbolize the official American labor movement’s commitment to a more moderate form of politics!

The origins of Labour Day in Canada is even older and can be traced back to December 1872 when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto Typographical Union's strike for a 58-hour work-week. Police arrested 24 leaders of the Typographical Union. Labour leaders decided to called for a demonstration on September 3 to protest the arrests. The Toronto Trades and Labour Council began to hold similar celebrations every spring. American Peter J. McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was asked to speak at a labour festival in Toronto, Canada on July 22, 1882. Returning to the United States, McGuire and the Knights of Labor organised a similar parade based on the Canadian event on September 5, 1882.

The history of the American and Canadian movements is rich with examples of the importance of unions to workers. The struggles waged and the gains won by workers demonstrate what can be achieved through organizing in the economic field. We have the unions to thank for a lot of things we take for granted: the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, health and safety standards and the weekend. And studies show that a large union presence in an industry or region can raise wages even for non-union workers. The history of the labor movement proves the Marxian contention that wages are not regulated by any "iron law" but can be modified by organized militant action on the part of the workers. 

 Fox News may rhapsodize on the subject of individualism, but the men and women in the factories and fields know that as individuals they would be as helpless before the mighty corporation that hires them without labor solidarity. The necessity of native-born and foreign workers; black, hispanic and white, to march together on picket lines, to work together on strike committees and hold out together until their demands are won - all this constitutes an object lesson in class solidarity that American and Canadian workers must learn and practice.

As you enjoy this holiday just remember it was paid for by union work and union blood.