Community Corner

The Turbulent History of Labor Day

A restful holiday with roots in decades of struggle.

For many, today is a time of rest and relaxation—a much-needed respite from the rigors of the five-day workweek. It's a day filled with the last barbecues of summer, trips to the beach and quiet times curled up with a good book.

What's often lost in this peaceful picture is the often-bloody struggle that made Labor Day possible.

During the height of the Industrial Age in the mid-to-late-1800s, the seven-day workweek was the norm. Children as young as 5 or 6 worked in factories, textile mills and coal mines. Private security guards could break up any attempt to unionize workers with sometimes deadly force. 

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According to History.com, the first "Workingmen's Holiday" took place in New York on Sept. 5, 1882 when around 10,000 workers left their jobs to march from City Hall to Union Square. 

The tradition of holding "Labor Day" marches on the first Monday in September soon caught on across the nation. But it was only after the particularly violent Pullman Streetcar Strike in Chicago in 1894 that Labor Day became an official holiday in all of the states, territories and possessions of the U.S.

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And though the holiday is not more than a century-old, the struggle at its root still continues today.

In and around Fort Greene-Clinton Hill, construction workers rallied outside the still-rising Barclays Center site at Atlantic Yards in July  for Brooklyn residents. Last month, workers rallied outside a Verizon call center in Downtown Brooklyn demanding a "fair" contract for thousands of employees.

And most recently, nurses at Brooklyn Hospital over an attempt by management to renege on promised pension benefits.


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