When Labor Day Meant Something

An engraving depicting the 1886 Haymarket affair
"Labor Day online specials at Walmart this year 'celebrate hard work with big savings.' For brick-and-mortar shoppers near my home in Chicago, several Walmart stores are open all 24 hours of Labor Day. Remember, this is a company so famously anti-union that it shut down a Canadian store rather than countenance the union its workers had just voted in. The fact that Walmart 'celebrates' Labor Day should draw laughter, derision, or at least a few eye-rolls. But it doesn’t—or at least not many. Somewhere along the line, Labor Day lost its meaning. ... Many politicians and commentators do their best to avoid any mention of organized labor when observing the holiday, maybe giving an obligatory nod to that abstract entity, 'the American Worker.' Labor Day, though, was meant to honor not just the individual worker, but what workers accomplish together through activism and organizing. Indeed, Labor Day in the 1880s, its first decade, was in many cities more like a general strike—often with the waving red flag of socialism and radical speakers critiquing capitalism—than a leisurely day off. ..."
The Atlantic
W - Labor Day
W - Haymarket affair
CBS: Trump blasts union leader on Labor Day (Video)