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Picture totally drawn & colored with Paint!
Labor Day
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
Labor Day is the first Monday in September. It was established to celebrate the acheivments of the working class people. A day off dedicated to the working man or woman; the actual founder of the observance is still unclear.
Many people believe that Peter McGuire (secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and also-- AFL, cofounder) was the first to suggest it. Other people believe that Matthew Maguire (machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union) proposed the holiday and it began with a demonstation and picnic on September 5, 1882 in New York. By 1985 many industries were celebrating the holiday.
In 1987, five states (Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Massachussets passed legislation--officially recognizing a Labor Day holiday. Many more states followed with bills declaring an official day of rest for the working man. The United States Congress, on June 28, 1894, passed the act that made the first Monday in September, a National holiday to be celebrated with street parades to exhibit the strength and esprit decorps of the trade and labor organizations. In 1909, the AFL(American Federation of Labor)adopted a resolution that the Sunday before Labor day would be dedicated to the spiritual and educational needs of organized labor.
Today, less emphasis is placed on Parades of workers and town square speeches from the labor organizers. Today we get our speeches from the television and newspapers. Our labor day celebrations are more likely to be family trips and BBQ's. The large town meetings and fellowship of workers has been replaced with more personal days of family get-to-gathers.
Labor Day celebrations have changed and our dependence on organized labor unions is waning. Today's worker does not have the sense of assurrance that they can work for a company for 20-30 years and then retire with a good pension. No, in today's chaotic and rapidly changing workplace, the worker must always be looking toward the possibility of becoming displaced by machinery or their job being outsourced to third world countries or downsizing. Yet, despite this instability our Nation depends on the workers to produce and stabilize the economy.
Labor Day is still needed to remind the people, that they are the workers who make this country great. The workers are the backbone of this economy that allows us to have the little necessities of life...cars, homes, TV's and all of the fun non-essentials...
Freedom to choose what is a necessity and the knowledge that it is available; that is how we are blessed. We are not trapped by insufficient goods in the marketplace or lack of opportunity. It is good that the United States government still acknowledges the fact that we are gifted, with our many political and economic choices--because of our great system of workers.
sutoyou (9/2006)
 sutoyou · Tue Sep 05, 2006 @ 07:52am · 0 Comments |
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