An Oxymoron?

by Jim Evans

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of 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.”

— Samuel Gompers

Founder/President

American Federation of Labor

It was a creation of the labor movement in the late 1800s as a national tribute to the contributions of workers to the “strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Today, most Americans probably recognize Labor Day as just another holiday.

Historians still argue about the origins of Labor Day. Some say it was first suggested by Peter J. McGuire, a New York City carpenter and one of the founders of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.

Others say that Matthew Macguire, a machinist and later secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., was the first to propose it. Perhaps the irony is that both have the same last name, albeit spelled differently.

Regardless of whether McGuire or Mac-Guire was the first to advance the notion, the first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, under the auspices of the Central Labor Union.

Two years later, in 1884, President Grover Cleveland signed a bill making Labor Day a national holiday to be observed on the first Monday in September. It is observed in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Australia (although it is known as “Eight Hour Day” in the latter).

In 1898, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, called the new holiday “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”

Gompers probably would roll over in his grave if he could see how Labor Day is celebrated today — especially the part about laying down their tools of labor for a holiday!

Labor Day has become more identified in recent times with the last weekend of summer rather than for political organizing, as in Gompers’ day. Of course, fewer Americans belong to labor unions now, too.

Ironically, Labor Day has become most identified as another major shopping weekend where retailers across the country attempt to pry us from our homes, from the beaches, from the picnic grounds, and from our leisure activities to take advantage of discount prices and sales.

It is a three-day weekend where more people are required to work to meet the in-creasing demand for commerce and economic growth. The holiday originally designed to give U.S. workers a day off has become just another day of “business as usual.”