However, Labor Day was the final result of many movements involving workers and management. I refer to the Haymarket Affair in 1886. Basically the workers organized into labor unions and forced the adaptation of the 8 hour work day. Up until the movement, most workers, mainly immigrant labor force worked typically 60 hours, six days a week.
Without the uprising of America's workers some 130 years ago, imagine where we might be today. Think of all the sacrifices our forefathers made, both in blood and protesting peacefully.
From wiki: No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886, but the consequences are still being felt today. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance," according to labor studies professor William J. Adelman.
Following the Civil War, particularly following the Depression of 1873–79, there was a rapid expansion of industrial production in the United States. Chicago was a major industrial center and tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were employed at about $1.50 a day. American workers worked on average slightly over 60 hours, during a six-day work week.[12]The city became a center for many attempts to organize labor's demands for better working conditions.[13]Employers responded with anti-union measures, such as firing and blacklisting union members, locking out workers, recruiting strikebreakers; employing spies, thugs, and private security forces and exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers.[14]Mainstream newspapers supported business interests, and were opposed by the labor and immigrant press.[15]During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations were active. Membership of the Knights of Labor, which rejected socialism and radicalism, but supported the 8-hour work day, grew from 70,000 in 1884 to over 700,000 by 1886.[16]In Chicago, the anarchist movement of several thousand, mostly immigrant, workers centered about the German-language newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung("Workers' Times"), edited by August Spies. Other anarchists operated a militant revolutionary force with an armed section that was equipped with guns and explosives. Its revolutionary strategy centered around the belief that successful operations against the police and the seizure of major industrial centers would result in massive public support by workers, start a revolution, destroy capitalism, and establish a socialist economy.[17]
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Sound familiar? Today's millennials think they invented the anarcharist's movement, antifa, and or the peaceful demonstrations against our government and its leaders. But no, dear reader, resistance harkens back to the beginning of our country and continues today and into tomorrow. So, tomorrow while you are enjoying your Labor Day festivities, take a moment to reflect on the heros of 1886 and beyond. We are fortunate to live in such a diverse and wonderful country despite its flaws and growing pains.
HAPPY LABOR DAY ALL.
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