Labor Day activities reflect changing eras
Posted on Tuesday, September 5, 2006
FAYETTEVILLE - Greg Tabor and his family celebrated the conclusion of Labor Day weekend like many others on a gloomy Monday afternoon.
They went shopping at the Northwest Arkansas Mall to avoid the drizzle outside and discussed what movie they planned to see over lunch at Taco Bell.
"That's what our Labor Day means,"Tabor said. "Kicking back, and knowing we don't have to work for the next three days."
But Tabor also knew it represented something historic.
Labor Day, the day people traditionally spend enjoying their respite from the office, is a tribute to American workers. Responding to pressure for workers' rights reform from the labor union movement, the federal government established the holiday more than 100 years ago.
"That's a bit of irony,"said Leon Fink, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "It's come more to highlight leisure and consumption as opposed to work and production."
President Grover Cleveland established the day in 1894 in response to the growing labor movement during the Industrial Revolution. The first Labor Day was held by the Central Labor Union. Thousands of workers marched in New York City advocating worker's rights such as an eight-hour work day, higher wages and no child labor, Fink said.
Establishing a national holiday was the government's attempt to appease the labor unions, he said.
"It began from below with mass parades and marches,"Fink said. "Workers were also organizing politically, and that's why President Cleveland tried to co-opt the movement's power by throwing them a bone."
Corporations have established better working conditions for their employees over the decades, including a five-day work week and eight-hour days, as opposed to unlimited hours with no overtime, Fink said.
But the issue of workers'rights is still relevant today on an international scale, said Gary Chaison, professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worchester, Mass. Market globalization has resulted in many U. S. corporations outsourcing jobs overseas, he said.
Union membership losses also make it difficult for workers to organize, he said. In the 1950 s, labor unions represented about 40 percent of the country's work force. In 2006, about 15. 5 percent of the work force in the U. S. belonged to a union, according to the U. S. Department of Labor.
The decrease in membership and affiliation with labor unions increases ambivalence toward the holiday, Chaison said.
"Unions are not sure of their goals,"Chaison said. "Workers don't identify strongly with labor unions anymore."
Unions are reorganizing in response to the decrease, said Stewart Acuss, national organizing director for the AFL-CIO in Washington.
Acuss used to find strength in the manufacturing and mining industries. But as the economy shifts from one of production to one of information, unions must look for membership elsewhere, he said.
The organization and its affiliates have designated $ 150 million to a reorganization effort that will target new occupations in the work force, including child care, construction and health care, he said.
"It's exactly what we had to do before,"Acuss said. "The Industrial Revolution after the Civil War moved the country from a craft-and-skill guild to industrialization, and now we have to do the same thing today."Chaison and Fink said taking the holiday to refuel before another work day reflects the labor movement's success in establishing workers' rights. The day was designed to celebrate workers, and a day off provides a good source of celebration, Chaison said. Fink planned to watch a Chicago White Sox baseball game. Acuss attended two rallies and a march in Vermont. Tabor, along with his wife, Shelley, and 8-year-old son, Kyler, took the family to a movie after they finished lunch at the mall.
To contact this reporter: lboch@arkansasonline. com Labor Day history
Labor Day is believed to have been first proposed by Peter McGuire, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor.
Labor Day was first celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York and was organized by the Central Labor Union.
Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, after President Grover Cleveland signed a bill designating the holiday for the first Monday in September. Facts and figures
Labor union membership represented about 40 percent of the country's work force in the 1950 s. In 2006, roughly 15. 5 percent of the work force belonged to a union.
In 2005, public-sector workers had a membership rate four times higher than the membership rate for privatesector workers.
There were 151 million people at least 16 years old in the U. S. labor force in May 2006. Source: The Heritage Foundation, U. S. Census Bureau, U. S. Department of
Labor and U. S. Department of State
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