Enjoying the Labor Day Weekend?

It is Labor Day Weekend here in the US and I think we should celebrate by understanding the origins of the holiday. It was made a Federal holiday in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland and passed unanimously by Congress in 6 days. Why such a record breaking time? There were fears of general unrest about the deaths of 13 individual workers and the wounding of 57 others by the US Military and Federal Marshals over the Pullman Strike as well as the then questionable Constitutionality of the President sending in Federal forces to break up a strike.


The Pullman Strike was a refusal to move trains pulling Pullman Railcars in sympathy for the workers in the company owned town of Pullman, Illinois who had their wages cut due to the slow down in purchases a result of the Gold Panic of 1893 plus they still had 12 hour workdays and no decrease in rent of their homes in the company owned town. As an aside, you may understand this a little better if you consider the lyrics of Tennessee Ernie Ford's song Sixteen Tons.

Many of the workers that built the Pullman Railcars were members of the American Railway Union, which led to the switch operator’s refusal to switch the trains, effectively shutting down the entire West Coast traffic. The threat was then made that if any punishment were to come to the switch operators, the entire ARU would walk.

Look at the people today that have to work the holiday. With the exception of necessary services of fire, police and medical care; the majority of those that have to work are the low paid that could not afford the day off without pay. The majority of those that could afford an unpaid day off are the ones that receive it as a paid holiday.

It should be pointed out the ones being honored by the Labor Day Holiday are the ones that could most likely afford to arm themselves and create the civil unrest that both President Cleveland and the Congress at the time feared could happen.



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