Labor Daze

Man vs. Rat by rollerboogie on Flickr.

As Labor Day will soon be upon us, the New York Times City Room has a short piece about labor then and now called When Labor Had Muscle, and Flexed It. New York City was on the leading edge of recognizing labor–the first Labor Day parade took place in New York City in 1882, and New York State was the first to pass legislation to make the day an official holiday.

The piece also highlights early warnings that Labor Day would become an excuse for barbeques and department store sales like this from Samuel Gompers in 1907:

“Labor Day without demonstrations, parades and meetings, will as sure as the sun rises and sets lose its distinctive characteristic and simply become a holiday for jollification, without other purpose, design or result.”

In fact, the holiday did quickly evolve from a day of action to one of rest and relaxation even by the early twentieth century. If you’re giving people a day off, it’s a lot harder to get them to come out and march when they know that they could be “jollificating” with friends and family.

Marches or not, New York City’s labor movement has been steadily losing members and clout–what would DC37’s Victor Gotbaum, IBEW and NYC CLC’s Harry Van Arsdale, and teachers’ union head Albert Shanker think?

District Council 37 | www.dc37.net
NYC Central Labor Council | www.nycclc.org