Labor day

Monday is Labor Day -- a federal holiday that’s celebrated in all 50 states, the Territories and U.S. Possessions.

School kids in Mesquite get a well-deserved three-day weekend after a grueling five days in the classrooms.

There’ll be no postal delivery or pickup. All government offices will be closed – giving city workers a four-day weekend to prepare for their next three days of work.

Banks, credit unions and any other financial institutions also will shut down Monday.

If that inconveniences you, blame it on Canada. That was the source of inspiration for our Labor Day holiday.

Or maybe you should just blame it on American socialists. And Lordy knows, we’ve never had a shortage of socialists in this country, going back to some of our “communal” colonists.

One noteworthy socialist back in the 19th Century was Peter J. McGuire.

In 1873 Pete was an agitator in the growing movement to protect workers from exploitive, evil industrialists. We don’t know for sure that they were evil… but they were exploitive. Pete worked with the Committee for Public Safety in New York City, which was advocating unemployment benefits for laid-off workers.

After his arrest during a sit-in at the New York police commissioner's office, he became even more active and helped found the Social Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America.

The group agitated for a national socialistic party and trade union protections in the U.S. It was a time of general unrest and sporadic violence even without Fox News and the Tea Party to blame it on.

Maybe the threat of violence drove Pete north to visit labor activists in Canada.

Canadians, the slackers, were demanding a nine-hour workday, and in 1872 got their wish with the Trade Union Act.

They celebrated with a big parade, which became a national holiday. Pete was inspired during his visit in 1882, and rushed home to New York City to organize a similar event there.

The first American Labor Day was celebrated in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882, at Pete’s instigation.

But although the parade was local, the labor unrest was not.

In 1884 during the Pullman Strike, which affected 27 states at its peak, U.S. marshals and military were dispatched to keep the peace, and in the peaceful process killed several workers.

President Grover Cleveland realized the seriousness of having a problem with organized workers who vote. He wanted to placate them as much as possible, so within days of the Pullman Strike ending, he asked Congress for a bill declaring a national Labor Day. He signed it into law six days after the disastrous strike ended.

That first proposal called for street parades to celebrate workers and their families and show the strength of the trade and labor organizations in America. The political speeches were added later to the holiday.

And even later, Labor Day slid into today’s final celebration of All That Is Summer.

American workers embraced Labor Day, now the first Monday in September. But most of the rest of the world celebrates its labor day on May 1.

Blame that date on the Chicago cops and an unidentified bomb thrower.

Workers of all kinds -- common laborers, merchants, tradesmen and immigrants who had to settle for any kind of work they could find -- declared a three-day strike in the Windy City in late April 1886.

Police shot and killed four workers protesting at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant in Chicago on April 30. Organizers called for a peaceful march the next day, May 1, at Haymarket Square.

Labor activists spoke to the huge crowd, which did remain peaceful.

Police lines standing by were finally given the order to clear the square. As they slowly marched forward, they met little resistance as the crowd began to break up.

But then, someone threw a bomb into the police line. The riot following the explosion left at least a dozen people dead, including seven police officers.

The Chicago cops were quick to act and arrested eight known anarchists, although there was not a lot of evidence linking them to the bombing.

The eight were tried and convicted on little more than their political beliefs. Then they were hanged in public.

The death of the "Haymarket Martyrs" infuriated the labor movement activists across the globe. As more anger grew against American capitalists, May 1 became the date for International Workers' Day, especially in socialistic countries.

Another turning point in the international workers revolution came in 1891 when Pope Leo III published his “Rerum Novarum” encyclical, in which he laid out the Church's new position "On the Condition of the Working Classes."

Pope Leo called for workers to be paid a living wage, work fewer hours and have the right to organize. He wanted to ban or limit child labor and said the state had the duty to regulate labor conditions.

Governments did eventually act – even in the non-papist U.S. of A.

The Progressive Movement in this country acted to ban child labor, set a reasonable work week and passed most of our anti-monopoly laws.

McGuire again led the parade, focusing on expanding unionism and branding it forever as corrupt. He founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and was an early officer in the AFL. He was charged with embezzling $10,000 from the carpenters' union in 1901 and voted out of office the next year. Many of his long-term supporters said the charges were trumped up.

He died in 1906 of complications caused by his chronic alcoholism.

But don't think the international labor revolution died with these early pioneers. Strong unions in European countries have added to the burdens of the socialistic governments there, making it hard for officials to keep the promises made to attract and appease the union vote.

And you've only to look to today's headlines to see the continuing struggle by the unions and reawakening labor movement in America, although our early, rabble-rousing, socialistic organizers are all gone now.

But Lordy knows, there's never been a shortage of socialists in this country, and there’s no sign we’re running out of them, at least not until 2012.

source-http://www.mesquitelocalnews.com/viewnews.php?newsid=8284&id=161