America's labor day means?

September 1, 2013

Monday is officially recognized as a federal national holiday. It caused me to think about all of the holidays that our lawmakers have determined Americans should collectively recognize each year. The current list: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

As I thought about this weekend's celebration of Labor Day, it dawned on me that it's our only national holiday that I can't easily explain to foreigners. I mean, I could tell them it was about labor, but exactly what facet of labor, I had no idea.

I could easily explain how each of the others became national holidays and what they are supposed to represent. I would have to be an idiot not to be able to do so — lots of clear hints in the holiday names and the many public events that are held to celebrate each of them.

But Labor Day? Hmmm. When was it actually made a holiday? Why are Americans supposed to celebrate this special day? How have we celebrated it historically?

Here's the background story according to Wikipedia:

Labor Day was officially signed into law by President Grover Cleveland in 1894, a mere six days after approximately 30 workers were killed by federal troops and U.S. marshals during the railways' so-called Pullman strike. Apparently the law creating this new national holiday was rushed through Congress and signed by Cleveland in order to placate angry mobs of union members back when they made up more than a third of all workers. It's been a nationally recognized American holiday ever since.

From what I've observed, most Americans now recognize and celebrate this holiday primarily for other reasons, such as the beginning of the college football season, another big NASCAR race, the second golf tournament in the new PGA FedEx Cup series, an excuse for a family picnic, and, until recently when many schools' fall starting dates were changed, a signal that school was about to resume for millions of American children.

However, perhaps the biggest reason for Labor Day is that it provides a Monday national holiday during which millions of Americans go shopping in order to buy more stuff they don't need with money they can't afford to spend, stimulating the economy in the process. It has become one of the biggest shopping days and largest revenue generators of the year for the retail sector. In other words, Labor Day has become the day that allows retailers to transfer the fruits of others' labor into their own pockets.

What clearly seems to have been lost along the way is much if any connection to honoring workers in our nation. While union leaders originally thought it was a great idea, it was never widely supported by most Americans.

Today only about 11 percent of American workers are union members, 23 million Americans are either out of work or markedly underemployed, nearly 50 million are on food stamps, a fourth of our children are living below the poverty level, millions of jobs having been shipped off to nations with lower labor costs, and our elected leaders have been doing very little to effectively support the labor side of America's wealth-creating equation.

The question we really ought to be asking is: Why isn't this a day of national mourning instead of a celebration? After all, what do most workers, or those who want to work, really have to celebrate?

Since the majority of Americans can no longer honestly celebrate labor during this holiday, perhaps we ought to more properly rename it Shopper's Day, Crony Capitalism Day or the One Percent Labor Beneficiary Day. Almost anything make more sense than Labor Day.