Here in the US, Labor Day marks an unofficial end of summer. Perhaps not so much here in Florida, where summer is slow to pack its bags: an unwelcome guest that just won’t take a hint. But I have spent summers in New England and there, you’ll notice a definite shift that drifts in around the First of September. There is, with the arrival of the first of these “Ember Months,” a sudden flagging of interest in the frozen custard stand and other such summery ideas. This year, the First of September also happens to be Labor Day, but Labor Day is a movable holiday, celebrated each year on the First Monday of September. Come Labor Day, those frozen custard thoughts begin shifting toward pumpkin pie thoughts and our sights toward the apples ripening on the trees. Change is in the air.
And then there is the official aspect of Labor Day, a holiday created to acknowledge the contributions of the American worker. The founding of the holiday goes back to the heyday of the American Labor movement and the glorious ideals that went hand in hand with that movement. The first Labor Day celebration was organized by the Central Labor Union and occurred in New York City on September 5, 1882. It was a Tuesday. By 1884, the holiday was moved to its current First Monday of September date and was being celebrated in industrial centers across the country, usually with parades and speeches.
Unions have done great things for this country, but they are also a matter of contention. I have had two experiences with unions that illustrate both ends of the spectrum. There was the time I was working a job in Providence, Rhode Island, and I happened to pick up a broom to sweep the work area and was promptly told to put the broom down, for the sweeping had to be done by union members only. Well. Okay, then. And then there was my grandfather, Arturo, a card carrying member of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union, Local 1, New York, from the 1920s on. That was most of his life. I remember when he was awarded a gold union card on his 50th anniversary with the union. I was a little boy then. The card is still in the frame he placed it in, and it hangs in my grandmother’s old room at my family’s home. I was too young to ask Grandpa what the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Union meant to him. He, too, was probably of two minds about it, but still, I know he was proud of that card, so that seems to say something about his experience. Happy Labor Day.
Image: A postcard of the old Union Printers Home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, built in the 1890s by the International Typographical Union to care for the sick and aging members of the union. Of course this holds some historic interest to letterpress printers like myself. The home is still in operation but is open to all now, not just printers and typographers. This, I think, represents that ideal of the best of what a union can be: an organization that looks out for its members. You pull for me & I’ll pull for you.