Labor Day 2025
by Lynn Vanderhoff
As a youngster I didn’t understand what Labor Day was all about. My father’s birthday was September 4th, so his birthday party was always held on the first Monday of that month. To me it was just a big family gathering. In later years I realized it was much, much more than a birthday party and weekend sales specials.
On Sept. 5, 1882, thousands of union laborers marched in New York City to protest deplorable working conditions amid the Industrial Revolution: Workers, including children as young as five years old, labored in unsafe factories, farms, mills and mines for 12 hours or more per day, seven days a week, often without breaks, fresh air or even clean water. Many workers risked their jobs and livelihoods in order to march.
At the 1885 American Federation of Labor convention, union members pushed the radical adoption of an 8-hour workday. While negotiations were underway the AFL advocated the use of a strike to enforce this demand be recognized. May 1st was selected as a date for coordinated strike action.
In early May 1886, a labor protest rally in Chicago turned into the Haymarket Riot. Police fired into a crowd, killing at least two but possibly six protesters and injured several others in a peaceful rally demanding an 8-hour workday and safe conditions. The following evening, at the end of a rally peacefully protesting police brutality, an unidentified individual threw a bomb, killing seven cops and at least four protesters. More protests followed, some condemning the slayings and others slamming police brutality. Gunfire broke out, wounding sixty cops and even more civilians. The outrage and unrest led to the convictions of eight alleged anarchists, with four who were hung.
The event inspired an international gathering of socialists in Paris to declare the 1st of May, May Day, a holiday honoring workers’ rights. Now known as International Workers’ Day, the holiday is celebrated in many countries around the world.
The Pullman Palace Car Company cut wages following an economic depression in the early 1890s, leading many railroad workers to join the American Railway Union. The union supported the workers with a strike against Pullman. After the striking workers were punished, the entire ARU went on strike, and within days, 125,000 railroad workers quit their jobs.
President Grover Cleveland sent in troops and U.S. Marshals, claiming that the railroad strike interfered with mail delivery. As a result, 13 workers were killed and nearly 60 were injured. Cleveland began to show support for the Labor Movement afterward. Since the Since European Socialists adopted May 1st for their Labor Day, and the date coincided closely with the Haymarket Riots and its anarchistic connection, Cleveland designated September 1st as the first federal Labor Day in 1894. The Labor Day holiday was a conciliatory gesture to labor and a less radical alternative to International Workers’ Day. Company owners began to accept workers’ demands for better treatment as time passed.
The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act limited child labor, set a minimum wage, and mandated a shorter workweek with overtime pay for longer shifts during the New Deal. The average workweek had shrunk to five eight-hour days by the 1940s. This was in large part to the first female Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, who served from 1933-1945.
As far as we have come from the Industrial Revolution, there is still work to be done on labor issues. A stagnant federal minimum wage, increased corporate demands on employees, reduced governmental oversight in support of employees’ rights and safety, and child labor violations are pressures we need to continue to address.
So, this Labor Day holiday, when you are shopping for sales or celebrating with a big family gathering, keep in mind that in February of 2023, the U.S. Labor Department reported a 69% increase in child labor in the U.S. since 2018.
Honor the workers who gave their blood, sweat, tears, livelihoods, and in some cases, lives to afford us a better work environment. And remember to continue the fight to bring a better life for all!