Monday, September 01, 2003
Labor Day History
From Jim Hightower, Texas writer, activist and rabble-rouser:
From the start, Labor Day was a bottom-up holiday, our only national celebration to be put on the calendar by the working class. It started when feisty Matt McGuire of the Carpenters Union and dauntless William McCabe of the Typographers called for a massive march in New York City to show the strength of laboring people.
Defying bosses and risking their jobs and personal safety, thousands of workers of every trade left work on September 5, 1882, and marched with banners, bands and bravado right up Fifth Avenue, right past the mansions of the Astors, Vanderbilts, and other Robber Barons.
It was not a parade, but a call to arms, the beginning of labor's fight for an eight-hour day at fair pay. The demonstration was so successful that it spread to other cities, and the idea of setting aside a specific day to affirm that laboring people have rights and are creators of wealth took hold. It was a demand for respect, finally achieved in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed the law creating Labor Day. What a nice gesture... except that Ol' Grover had unleashed 12,000 federal troops just days earlier to crush a strike by Pullman rail car workers, killing dozens of union members.
But that's been the story every step of the way in our under-appreciated struggle to establish what's become taken for granted as "The American Way of Life". The 40-hour work week, the wage floor, collective bargaining, retirement security, Medicare, job-safety protections, and so much more that sustains the middle-class possibility for a majority of our people were not provided by the founders in 1776 – and they certainly were not given to us by generous corporate chieftains. Rather, the middle-class framework was built by us – We The People.
posted by chris at 5:35 PM
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