What Labor Day Means

To the Editor:

As summer comes to an end and the celebration of Labor Day is with us again, I reflect on what Labor Day means to me.

In 1882 Peter J. McGuire observed the holiday in Canada. When he returned to New York, McGuire (an American labor leader) organized the first Labor Day celebration on September 5, 1882.

In 1894 both houses of Congress voted unanimously for a national Labor Day Holiday and President Grover Cleveland signed the bill. He signed the bill to appease the nation’s workers for his harsh intervention in the death of two workers by US marshals during the “Pullman Strike.”

Labor Day is a holiday that is not associated with any wars or presidents’ birthdays. Labor Day is a holiday for working families to celebrate the quality of life that past labor leaders have given us.

When asked by a reporter in 1898, “What does labor want? Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, replied:

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

This quote is as relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago.

James Juliano, President

Danbury Central Labor Council

36 Hundred Acres Road, Newtown                       September 1, 2009