A Labor Day Reflection

The last lazy days of summer—and a history of struggle to improve conditions for working people

Last September, for the first time ever, a sitting American president joined the picket line of striking workers. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

It’s fitting that Kamala Harris is scheduled to attend a Labor Day event in Detroit today, possibly a Labor Day parade highlighting union members that dates back to 1915. Both the vice president and President Joe Biden have taken great pride in reinvigorating support for union workers as a critical ingredient for securing a thriving middle class (showcased by the president joining a picket line last year). It’s no wonder most labor organizations have reciprocated by endorsing Harris now, including the United Auto Workers which is headquartered in Detroit and saw its fiery president Shawn Fein speak at the Democratic National Convention.

I’m sharing here the Labor Day story I published last year, which includes a a personal reflection and highlights the critical history of labor in achieving one of the central components of our modern life—the 40-hour workweek. A year ago, there was a promise from the administration to improve the economic conditions of low salaried workers who were not receiving extra pay for working more than 40 hours. Now, as of July, a new rule took effect to ensure additional compensation and protections for millions of these workers.

“This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time,” said Julie Su, Department of Labor acting secretary. “The Biden-Harris administration is following through on our promise to raise the bar for workers who help lay the foundation for our economic prosperity.”

As I note below, this reflects the thinking all the way back in 1886 when the battle for an eight-hour workday and a better life was just beginning. The slogan then:“Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will.”

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Growing up in the Midwest, Labor Day was always emotionally complicated. This was the unofficial end of the summer, the beginning of the end of those golden, radiant days of light and liberty. The day after we’d go back to school.

My family would always have a barbecue. And while there were other times we had hot dogs and hamburgers, grilled chicken and chips, ice cream and pie, they always tasted better on Labor Day—almost as if this was a final meal before the boom came down. This was farewell to the lazy days of summer fun. This was a happy-sad day.

As a Chicago kid, it never really dawned on me to reflect on how Labor Day was a holiday to commemorate the hard work of men and women. I honestly didn’t think about how many adults might need a Monday off or how exactly this holiday was meant to commemorate workers and labor history. That would come later when I studied labor history and covered labor as a budding reporter.

As a graduate student, I was particularly drawn to Chicago’s Haymarket Riot, also known as the Haymarket Massacre, on May 4, 1886. The event emerged out of a national strike, involving over 300,000 workers across the country, that started on May 1 to advocate for an eight-hour workday. It also followed a violent confrontation on May 3 when striking workers at the McCormack Reaper Works in Chicago attacked scabs and several hundred policemen responded brutally, leading to the deaths of two workers.

In protest, the International Working People’s Association, an anarchist group seeking to empower the working class, called for a protest on May 4 at Haymarket Square. Among the attendees was Carter Harrison, the sympathetic Chicago mayor, and Albert Parsons, the group’s leader (a former Confederate soldier who, intriguingly, became a radical Republican and married a former slave).

Not long after the mayor departed, calling the event peaceful, someone in the crowd threw a dynamite bomb after the large contingent of police sought to disperse the demonstrators. By the time police gunfire was over, eight officers were dead and dozens of police and civilians were injured.

In response, eight anarchists and foreign workers were rounded up, all of whom had alibis (only two were even there that day). While none were identified as the bomber, their inflammatory speeches led to their being charged as accessories to the murder.

After a hasty, partisan trial, in which all 12 jurors acknowledged they were prejudiced against the defendants, the jury reached a guilty verdict in three hours and seven of the men were sentenced to hang for their crimes. (Four were hanged the next year, one committed suicide in prison and two were eventually pardoned.)

The events of those first days of May—both the battle for workers’ rights and specifically the push for a shortened eight-hour workday—became an inspiration for the globally celebrated May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day. In America, the first Labor Day celebration organized by labor activists was in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882; by 1894, 24 states had recognized the holiday. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland made it a national holiday on the first Monday every September.

But the launching of a federal holiday didn’t mean the eight-hour workday quickly followed suit. An 1890 government report tracking manufacturing employees found that they were still working on average 100 hours a week.

It would be decades before significant change was visible, requiring the hard work of labor unions and other supporters to turn the cry for change into policy and practice. In 1916, Congress passed a federal law establishing an eight-hour workday for interstate railroad workers, and the Supreme Court agreed that was constitutional the following year.

In 1926, Ford Motor Company instituted a five-day, 40-hour workweek. Founder Henry Ford insisted, “It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege.” He saw the benefit for business: “People who have more leisure must have more clothes…eat a greater variety of food…require more transportation in vehicles.”

It wasn’t until 1938—more than a half century after the Haymarket Riot and the national strikes for eight-hour workdays—when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which limited the workweek to 44 hours, and then amended the lawtwo years later to 40 hours.

These days the 40-hour workweek is so ingrained in our thinking that it is remarkable to realize how long and fierce the struggle was to secure it. But let’s not doubt similar battles are still ongoing.

The Biden administration—led by a president focused on increasing the prosperity of working people—is currently proposing that some 3.6 million salaried workers who earn less than $55,000 a year should receive overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Here’s how acting Labor Secretary Julie Su put it last week: “For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers’ rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones,” she said in a statement. “I’ve heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don’t come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices.”

Her words are a reminder of how vital it is to have compassionate leadership deciding labor policy. And her underlying message sounds a lot like the slogan from 137 years ago, in 1886, when labor activists were building their eight-hour day movement: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will.”

May you enjoy this well-earned Labor Day holiday.

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