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Happy Faux Labor Day!
There will be barbecues; there will be fireworks; there will be speeches from politicians, each telling us how they are the friend of the American Worker. All lies. Not just the speeches, but the entire holiday of Labor Day in America.
Let me tell you the story of the real Labor Day: Born in the USA out of struggle and blood; abandoned and denounced by its own creators as foreign and subversive; and finally brought back to the land of its birth, a hundred and twenty years later, by immigrants. The true, native-born Labor Day of the United States of America –
May Day — Born in the USA
May Day was born in the USA, out of the struggle for the eight-hour day for workers. At its 1884 Convention, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, which later became the American Federation of Labor (AFL), adopted this resolution:
Resolved, . . . that eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations throughout this district that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named.
This demand was meant to be backed up by strikes where necessary to achieve the 8-hour day by the May 1, 1886 deadline. It was promoted throughout the nation over the next two years.
