Labor & Labor Day
On May 3, 1886, unarmed strikers clashed with police at Chicago’s McCormick Reaper Works factory. The deaths of six workers became a call for direct action, and a public rally was called for the following day to be held in Haymarket Square. Again, the police and the strikers clashed, but this time, a bomb was thrown, resulting in the death of seven police officers and multiple other injuries. The police, uncertain about the source of the bomb, fired into the crowd, killing four of the demonstrators.
This watershed moment in American history would come to be known as the Haymarket Affair and would be the impetus for nationwide labor reforms. Some of those sweeping changes included the establishment of the standard eight-hour workday, improved working conditions, a six-day workweek, and equitable wages.
Although the first official Labor Day was in New York in 1882, in the form of a strike by the city’s Central Labor Union, the Haymarket Affair, which exposed the flaws in the American labor system to the masses, was the catalyst for its creation. In 1887, Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey declared a special legal holiday in September to celebrate workers. Within 12 years, half of the states in the country recognized Labor Day as a holiday. It became a national holiday in 1894 when Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day bill into law.
Originally, the holiday was meant to provide a respite from long working hours and little time off. Although the battle over these issues may have been won long ago, we see it more today than ever before. Highly skilled white-collar workers, many of whom are constantly connected to work, feel as overwhelmed as the trade unionists and laborers of the nineteenth century. The ubiquitous connectivity of the modern workplace means we are never fully off from work. This uniquely American, puritan-rooted prioritization and idolization of “hard work” means that American workers work 7 weeks more than our counterparts in developed countries do each year.
Other countries are actively working to improve labor conditions for white-collar workers, realizing that protocols that worked for a manufacturing economy no longer address the needs of the information economy. Just last week, workers in Australia gained the legal right to ignore emails, calls, and text messages from their bosses outside of work hours. Within the European Union, most countries’ labor laws protect the workers, not the employers. They are designed to ensure that employees have access to robust social protections, including universal healthcare, paid parental leave, and retirement benefits. In the US, the focus has traditionally been on productivity and results at the expense of the employee.
Please disconnect this weekend. Put away the laptop, ignore emails from overseas counterparts, and enjoy time doing what you love. As you enjoy your long weekend, take a moment to think about the American labor movement and the contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States.