"This Winning Team Only Needed One Strike..."

Welcome.

For those of you joining me from the Facebook link, I’ll have you right back to updating everyone on how long the burgers can go before they need flipping again and let you finish that “if you were a hair-do on any famous punk rocker, what hair-do would you be? survey in just a second.

Just wanted to share with you, on this government sanctioned day of not working (or, as its known among Federal workers, Monday through Friday), a little “now you know the rest of the story” story that you can take back to the water cooler tomorrow (or, again, if you’re a government employee, Thursday or so when you’ve used up the vacation/sick and/or personal day most likely attached to the holiday to make it a week long thing…God BLESS America!)

So, without further to do, just in case your kid should come up to you and say “uh…what is the historical origin of Labor Day…and can I have a new Ipod?”, I’ve got you covered.

On the first part there.

The second bounce of that ball is in your court.


Back in the days of the Industrial Revolution, workers were expected to put in 12-hour days, seven days a week (yes, including kids). Already sounds awful, right? It gets worse. In Pullman, Illinois, a company town that employed and housed workers to build posh railway cars, times had gotten tough. In response, George Pullman cut jobs and wages. It was 1893. Thousands of workers walked off their jobs in protest, demanding higher salaries and lower rents. Other unions joined, refusing to work the Pullman cars, turning the small-town fracas into a national fury.

With mail cars backing up, and riots worrying train execs, President Grover Cleveland stepped in. He declared the strike illegal and sent 12,000 troops to break the strike. Cue brutal protests and bloodshed. The strike was broken, but so was the spirit of the workers. To reach out to the labor movement, Congress rushed the national holiday into law. The bad will resulted in Cleveland losing re-election. But the day off for hot dogs endures.


And so now, as the late great Paul Harvey would offer, you know the rest of the story.

This “end of summer” occasion that finds many Americans enjoying a day free of the obligations, pressures and responsibilities of the workplace was a peace offering, a gesture of good will to help lift the morale and/or spirits of the American working class.

And, to this day, it is the only government recognized day set aside solely for the work force, a day in which they aren't required to do anything they don't feel like doing.

There is really nothing else like it.

With two possible exceptions.

The formentioned government job.

And those folks who can only show up to get my damn cable turned back on between six AM and Noon.

Bon Labor’ Day, ya’ll.