Monday Morning Motivational Message - The Origin Of Labor Day

How often do you engage in labor?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says people labor (work) about 8 hours per workday, but nobody actually works for an entire eight hours.

An unscientific survey conducted by the anonymous workplace community, Blind, found that 45% of respondents indicated they labor 4 hours per work day.

With today being the national holiday, Labor Day, in the United States, I was curious how the day off work started.

​In 1894, Congress voted the first Monday in September was to be designated a national holiday to honor the nation's workforce for their contribution to the national economy. This holiday has come to be known as, Labor Day.

But if we dig a little deeper, Labor Day in the United States is rooted in a deadly protest between police and labor activists called the Haymarket Affair or Haymarket Massacre that occurred in Chicago on May 4, 1886.

The incident was sparked when local law enforcement intervened to intimidate strikers during a union action at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company that was part of a national labor effort to secure an eight-hour workday.

A pipe bomb was thrown by an unidentified striker and the police responded with gunfire. Seven police officers were killed and sixty were wounded, while it is estimated civilian casualties amounted to 4-8 dead and 30-40 injured.

In our post-COVID society, the four-day work week is gaining momentum. A 2023 article in Forbes found that 56% of the 125 million full-time U.S. workers believe they don't have to be in the workplace any longer to accomplish their job, while a 2023 Washington Post article found that while many employees are returning to the office, but are only staying for a few hours.

So on this 130th Labor Day, enjoy your end-of-summer celebration, but also remember the many, on both sides of the labor issue, who were injured or lost their lives working for something they believed in.