Why Do We Celebrate Labor Day?

Most of us think of Labor day as the end of summer, I know that as a child Labor day signaled the final day before school and I hated it. But why does the holiday exist at all? Do you know? I didn’t.

The holiday was first celebrated on September the fifth, 1882 in New York, but it didn’t become a federal holiday until 1894. Blame it on the railroad or on Chicago. Blame it on Pullman or on Grover Cleveland. Whomever you blame it on, don’t blame it on me, I wasn’t there.

The Pullman Strike was a nationwide conflict between the railroads and labor unions in Pullman, Illinois beginning May 11th in 1894. That was the day Pullman Palace Car Company employees began a “wild cat strike,” meaning they did so without the authorization of their union officials. Approximately 3,000 employees turned to striking in response to wage reductions. This Strike brought west Chicago traffic to a standstill. And, as word spread throughout the country of the strike other members of the union joined in, at its peak, the strike involved 250,000 workers in 27 states.

Pres. Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to step in because the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail, though his cabinet debated whether he had the authority to do so. The military involvement only led to outbreaks of violence. In the end, official reports concluded that 13 union members died, and 57 were wounded. With inflation to 2010, the estimated property damage incurred by the rail workers is over $8 million.

Cleveland rushed the holiday through legislation after the Pullman Strike as an appeasement to the labor unions. Congress unanimously signed the holiday into Law six days after the end of the strike.

September was chosen as America’s labor day because, while the Pullman strike occurred in May, May Day is seen internationally as a “labour day” and Cleveland did not want to cause negative emotions to arise with any possible relation to the Haymarket Affair which occurred in Chicago in 1886. It is considered the origin of May Day as an observed Labour Day.

And if you don’t care about that at all, for some Labor Day is a great day because it marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons. The NCAA traditionally playing their first games in the week before Labor day and the NFL kicking off for the first time the following Thursday.