New York City Construction Unions Wish Everyone a Happy and Peaceful Labor Day
It started in 1882 as a bold statement against the power of the wealthy class. Today Labor Day remains a bold statement by working people that they have power and that we can and will use it.
Labor Day 2024 marks America’s 142nd official celebration of the men and women who comprise our vast working class. From its beginning, Labor Day was a day acknowledging the heroic contributions that working people — and unions — have made to this nation.
It Started in 1882
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, and was planned by the Central Labor Union, led at the time by founding member Matthew Maguire.
In the 1870s, Maguire led several strikes to shine a light on the mistreatment of manufacturing workers by their management. At the time workers were often forced, at the threat of losing their jobs, into long daily hours of labor with few or no breaks or days off, at poverty pay, into child labor, and no recourse to make changes.
Strikes led by Maguire changed much of that and by 1882 he had become a leading figure in the Central Labor Union of New York. Maguire called for all 56 unions in the New York vicinity take a day to make “a public show of organized strength” and recognize the accomplishments of working people. A Labor Day.
The march was a success. Both the average American citizen and the gentry class of business leaders took notice of the day. More importantly, the labor movement recognized their power and a turning point was achieved.
The Robber Barons Were Not Happy
This stoppage of work to celebrate labor’s achievements in New York City came in a time when extreme wealth and corrupt government influence placed all the benefits of the marketplace in the hands of management. We would come to know those business leaders as the “robber barons” who won remarkable wealth in part through their mistreatment of the people who made their businesses possible.
Let’s not forget those “robber barons” because there are some in power today who would like our business practices to return to the time when the heartless ran our nation’s industries. Prior to unions, American workers endured all the ills that Maguire and his unions struggled against. And while the American life expectancy was understandably below 45-years of age in 1880, the richest business owners controlled vast amounts of wealth and all the comforts money could buy.
A Shot Across the Bow
So Matthew Maguire’s labor celebration was a bold shot across the bow of those powerful people. He said, Labor Day should "be celebrated by a street parade which would publicly show the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations." And on that day, thousands of workers paraded down Fifth Avenue — row after row of laborers, marching six abreast with verve for miles through what was then the most ostentatious corridor of wealth and power in America.
Historian Richard Hunt described the scene of this mass of working-class Americans striding purposefully up Fifth Avenue: “They passed (wealthy banker and horse-race benefactor) August Belmont’s house; they trudged on past the tonish Burnswick Hotel; past the uptown (meeting place of the New York wealthy) Delmonico restaurant; past the mansion of (fur-trading monopolist) Vincent Astor. Mrs. Astor—along with many of her millionaire neighbors—was in Newport for the season. Nonetheless, if the consciousness of capitalism was not penetrated, its precinct was.”
Today and Beyond
The march was a success. Both the average American citizen and the gentry class of business leaders took notice of the day. More importantly, the labor movement recognized their power and a turning point was achieved. A labor day was arranged in New York again the next year. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, a law was passed making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday celebrating workers.
Today, Labor Day is a holiday we often spend in the backyard with family and neighbors, or on a street sidewalk watching a parade. It’s easy to forget how this recognition started and what it represents for America’s largest class, the middle class. The paid day off that affords a calm end to summer, the guaranteed living wages that allow a family to splurge for a cookout, the end of child labor that returned joy to childhood summers — all of these important life benefits are available to us because of unions. These accomplishments, and so much more, are what we acknowledge this and every Labor Day. Enjoy it.
How Are We Doing?
We need to know if we're changing the way you think about New York City construction.