WASHINGTON —
Happy Labor Day, family! This is the day of the year where we honor the many contributions and sacrifices of the working men and women of America by taking the day off to put some meat on the grill and move our white pants to the back of the closet until next March.
That's for the rest of y'all, my closet can't afford those kind of losses.
Labor Day’s origins begin in the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s. It was hard being a worker back then. They regularly put in 12-hour days, 7 days a week, in hazardous work environments. There was no OSHA. And the pay was whatever their employers chose to give them. Usually, the least they could get away with.
In the absence of HR departments, workers formed labor unions, the leaders of which organized strikes and rallies in protest of these conditions. There was violence, riots that saw battles between workers, hired strike busters and police. On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers walked off the job in New York City to march the streets, protesting the unjust working conditions they were forced to endure.
This was the first ever Labor Day parade, and planted the idea of the workingman’s holiday, to be celebrated annually on the first Monday in September.
It was 12 years later that Congress legalized things following another strike that ended in violence -- the American Railroad Union’s boycott of Pullman Railway cars in response to a wage cut. The strike grew to 250,000 workers across 27 states.
To break the strike, the government sent troops, resulting in riots and the deaths of workers. In the aftermath, in attempt to calm things and have a make good moment with American workers, Congress passed the act that Grover Cleveland signed into law on June 28, 1894, making Labor Day a legal holiday.
You need to keep all this mind the next time the alarm goes off. The ghosts of workers past are laughing at you complaining about being tired of having to get up.
No matter how rough you think your workplace is, it’s not pre-labor movement rough, I guarantee. You’ve got protections now, and it’s because of those ghosts. They did the heavy lifting so we wouldn’t have to.
Enjoy your day off! And be sure to raise a barbecued rib or two up for them