Photo source: NY Times, September 6, 1882
My daughter, a junior in high school, signed up to take AP US History this year. Since I admittedly skipped out on history in high school (and have regretted it ever since), I committed to learn something this year along with her! What better place to start than the true meaning of Labor Day?
For most people, Labor Day marks the end of summer and the start of the school year and includes such “traditions” as shopping and barbecuing. However, the holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different from what it has become. Their goals were: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time. The first Labor Day, New York City in 1882, was hardly a national holiday. Workers had to strike, under the direction of that city’s Central Labor Union, to celebrate it.
Labor Day came about because workers felt they were spending too many hours and days on the job. In the 1830s, manufacturing workers were putting in 70-hour work weeks on average. Union organizers focused on getting a shorter eight-hour work day, a six-day workweek, and getting workers more days off, such as the Labor Day holiday. Politicians and business owners were in favor of giving workers more time off to turn them from the working class into the consuming class. If they had no free time, they were not able to spend their wages on traveling, entertaining or dining out. It became a national holiday in June 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day bill into law.
Flash forward nearly 125 years later and ask yourself, have we lost the spirit of Labor Day? Recall we were to have been solving the problem of long working hours and no time off. We may have won the battle over those issues for manufacturing workers long ago but we’ve definitely lost the war when it comes to highly skilled white-collar workers who are constantly connected to work.
Since I’ve started my own business, my mantra has been find your work-life blend! On the eve of Labor Day, this couldn’t be more timely. I talked to at least two people in the past week that are still in corporate America and one of them is actually working 60-70 hours/week and the other one complained because he wasn’t getting a standard 50 hour work week any longer. Really? Take it from someone who feels like she missed out on far too many precious moments by working all the time. It’s never too late to change your labor to love. Give yourself a day off. Shut off your phone, computer and other electronic devices that connect you to the daily grind. Enjoy the holiday with family and friends and celebrate its true meaning. Gotta go, have a family barbecue to plan!
