Although we recently saw the creation of a new federal holiday (Juneteenth), it’s quite rare for one to be added to the calendar. There are only twelve official federal holidays, and most of them have been around for quite some time. Among the newer holidays is, surprisingly, Labor Day.
Labor Day started finding state recognition in 1887, but wasn’t made a federal holiday until 1894. This holiday is always celebrated on the first Monday of September and was designed to recognize the American Labor movement and their work to create fair conditions for workers nationwide.
But the holiday wasn’t always lauded as the final day of Summer. In fact, many people were initially against the idea due to its association with the May Day riots, anarchy, and Communism. If that sounds crazy to you, well, it actually isn’t.
To understand why Labor Day became a holiday, you first have to understand what was happening in America at the time. During the 1800s there was a huge push for laborers rights in America. Protests, walkouts, and strikes were constantly in the news, as was “unionization.” To laborers, unionization was necessary. Most US Citizens had to work in blue collar positions at the time, and the pay was often hardly enough to live on. Most of the work was often backbreaking and in extremely hazardous conditions. And if you got injured or sick on the job, you often lost your position and had to find new work.
By banding together, union leaders were able to negotiate fairer conditions and job security for their workers under the threat of a nationwide strike. This created competition among employers who needed to adapt if they wanted to have anyone to hire to begin with, which inspired the creation of even more unions.
Unfortunately, the elite in America weren’t too fond of unions. It meant that they had less control over their bottom line and had to cut into their profits to ensure employees were actually getting their fair share. But do you know who was fond of unions? Canada.
In Canada unions were actually illegal. But workers saw what was happening in the United States and wanted the same for themselves—so they marched. Thousands of Canadian workers (and some US union leaders) marched in May to the Prime Minister’s house asking to end the ban on unions and… well. It worked! It worked so well that Americans started to do the same.
May day parades began to celebrate labor unions and it became custom for blue collar workers to “ditch” and protest on May 1st annually. The main goal at this time was to increase pay, end child labor, and to standardize the eight-hour workday.
While some states honored the laborer’s right to peaceful protest, in some places they were met with police force. Often times the police were called in by the business owners suffering at the hands of the strike. They labeled the strikers as anarchists who were trying to disrupt the government.
This all came to a head in 1886, where labor unions organized a longer strike in the American Midwest in order to mandate an eight-hour workday. On May 3rd, 1886, the third day of the protest, a policeman fired into the crowd, killing one and injuring several other protesters. This was an attempt to intimidate strikers and encourage “scabs.” Unfortunately, it worked, and on the fourth day, the protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square only 300 protesters showed up. They weren’t deterred and continued to rally and give speeches and encourage workers to strike.
Under pressure from President Grover Cleveland, the entire Chicago police force was ordered to march into the crowd. 200 police officers showed up to disperse the protesters, as they marched toward the crowd a ceramic bomb was thrown into their path. It detonated, killing four police officers and wounding up to 60. The protesters began to flee. Police officers began to fire wildly into the crowd. When the dust settled 4 police officers and between 4-8 civilians were killed. Over 100 people were hospitalized.
During the investigation, detectives discovered a radical anarchy group to be behind the bombing. While there are conspiracies suggesting it was a different agency, they found bombmaking equipment in the group’s home. This led to nationwide pandemonium as a wave of fear spread across the United States. Anarchism became a nationwide boogieman.
Labor parties across the US were quick to distance themselves from Chicago. The event was not seen as a tragedy, but instead as a warning. The unions of Chicago were left in shambles, in order to pick up the pieces, the Labor Party of Chicago was formed and they made an effort to unite peaceful unions under one banner.
While unions continued to fight for more rights, in 1893 the US was pulled away and forced to face a massive economic depression. This led to massive layoffs, which led to even worse working conditions. At this point, only the strongest unions could survive and maintain work for their members.
Thousands of protests and demonstrations were taking place nationwide in the country’s urban centers. One of the largest was in Cleveland, where the city faced massive unrest due to the closure of local railways and banks. A year into the depression, the city’s laborers held a May Day protest—that night 4,000 unemployed people took to the streets in an effort to arrange a citywide strike. While they were largely successful, the mob lost over half its members when they met with the police and their leader was arrested.
While the rioters were simply the disgruntled masses, media was quick to paint them as Communists, as the rioters were pleading for the addition of public works projects to help them survive. This created America’s first Red Scare, and much of the anti-anarchy sentiment was transposed onto the Communists. This, coupled with the Pullman strike, led journalists to start investigating deeper into labor unions, proving that they weren’t associated with any hidden radical political ideology.
Over time, more and more evidence was found that pointed to the unsafe and unfair working conditions many laborers faced. The nation was able to finally rally behind laborers. State after state began making Labor Day an official holiday. By 1896, over 30 states had begun celebrating it, leaving Grover Cleveland no choice but to make it an official holiday. Many labor leaders pushed for the day to be on May 1st, but others suggested September as there were no federal holidays then. Fearing that the day would be associated with the riots, Cleveland made the first Monday of September, Labor Day.
Unfortunately, the battle was not over. Child Labor laws were not passed until 1938, and it wasn't until 1916 that the eight-hour workday became a federal law, and even then, it wasn't enforced until the New Deal in 1937. Equal pay and a livable wage are battles we’re still fighting. Recently we've seen dozens of protests demanding safer working conditions, especially during the onset of the Corona Virus where many individuals were not given proper protective equipment. But it’s not all bad news. Anti-union sentiment is at an all-time low and Americans across the nation get to enjoy Labor Day as their final summer holiday.