Labor Day 2024: 5 Things To Know About Holiday Honoring U.S. Workers

ACROSS AMERICA — Millions of American workers will have the day off Monday, Sept. 2, for Labor Day, a federal holiday established 130 years ago to honor them.

Observed with parades, rallies, picnics and family gatherings, Labor Day is also regarded as the last hurrah of summer.

The holiday grew out of the organized labor movement of the late 1800s at the height of the Industrial Revolution, when the average American worked 12-hour days, seven days a week.

When Was The 1st Labor Day?

The first unofficial Labor Day observance was in September 1882 when a parade in New York City drew an estimated 20,000 spectators in support of unions. Many workers gave up a day’s pay to attend. The parade inspired more unions, and by 1887, Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Colorado had established Labor Day as a state holiday.

In 1894, after violent labor disputes in Chicago, President Grover Cleveland signed a law establishing Labor Day as a national holiday to be observed on the first Monday in September.

What Happened In Chicago?

The “Haymarket affair” on May 4, 1886, is considered a watershed moment in the U.S. labor movement. Seven police officers, four demonstrators and many others were killed in a clash with police that erupted after a bomb was thrown into a crowd of unarmed protestors gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago to call for action after the deaths of six workers at the McCormick Reaper Works factory.

As Time remembered the incident, the last speaker of the day had just finished when about 180 police officers ordered the crowd to disperse

“As a captain ordered the meeting to disperse, and the speaker cried out that it was a peaceable gathering, a bomb exploded in the police ranks. It wounded 67 policemen, of whom seven died,” the account read. “The police opened fire, killing several men and wounding 200, and the Haymarket Tragedy became a part of U. S. history.”

Eight men were arrested and convicted of murder charges in a sensational, controversial trial in which no evidence directly linking the protestors to the bomber was offered. All were convicted; four were hanged, one committed suicide and three others were pardoned six years later.

The Pullman Strike that disrupted rail traffic in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere was another defining moment in the struggle for worker rights.

Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Co. in Chicago went on strike in May 1894 to protest layoffs, wage cuts and firings, eventually gaining the support of about 250,000 railroad workers in 27 states in a labor dispute that lasted three months and disrupted rail traffic across the country.

The Pullman strike was found to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, giving President Cleveland the authority to dispatch federal troops to Chicago to crush the strike, resulting in a violent confrontation that left about 30 people dead.

In July 1894, as the Pullman strike was coming to a bloody end in Chicago, Cleveland signed the legislation making Labor Day a federal legal holiday.

How Have Unions Evolved?

When Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, unions were largely contested and courts would often rule strikes illegal, leading to violent disputes, Todd Vachon, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, told The Associated Press. It wasn’t until the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that private sector employees were granted the right to join unions.

Later into the 20th century, states also began passing legislation to allow unionization in the public sector. But even today, not all states allow collective bargaining for public workers.

In recent years, Vachon said, there's been a resurgence in labor organizing, activism, interest and support.

“A lot of the millennial and Gen Z folks are coming into the labor market in a period that’s not a lot different from that period in the 1880s where there was a lot of labor unrest,” Vachon said. “Jobs just don’t pay enough for people to achieve the American dream.”

How Many Americans Are In Unions?

From the Civil War through World War I, labor unions grew stronger, representing more industries and having increased influence. However, their power declined in the 1920s, only to rebound during the Great Depression, when unions saw exponential growth to include more industries and offer more protections.

Union membership peaked in 1979 at 21 million but began declining as workers began to rely on laws to protect them, including those outlawing child labor and requiring equal pay for equal work, regardless of race or gender.

About 14.4 million people, about 10 percent of U.S. workers, were members of unions in 2023, about the same number as the previous year, according to the Labor Department. About 7 million of those workers belong to public sector unions, compared to 77.4 million workers in private sector unions. Also, the report earlier this year said, public-sector workers were about five times more likely than their private-sector counterparts to join unions.

Last year, full-time wage and salaried union members had median weekly earnings of $1,263, compared to $1,090 among non-union workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Do Unions Still Have Political Muscle?

As labor union membership increased, so did their influence in politics — a necessary step to achieve permanent labor and anti-discrimination protections, but paradoxically one that contributed to their decline, according to some legal scholars.

Three high-profile labor disputes last year — the United Autoworkers, the Hollywood writers and the actors strike — created a modest bump in labor union approval rates in 2023, with the majority of ‘Americans siding with the workers in a Gallup poll released early this year. Other findings:

• 61 percent said unions help rather than hurt the U.S. economy (a record high);
• 43 percent said they want unions to have more influence in the country (another record high);
• 34 percent thought unions would become stronger than they are today (a recent surge after two decades hovering around 20 percent).

Still, union membership remains in a decades-long decline and is not affected by surges in public opinion about the value of labor unions.

Unions’ political power is geographically centered. Of the top 15 states with the most union members, three — Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — are expected to be battleground states in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Unions primarily support Democrats, although Teamsters boss Sean O’Brien made an unprecedented appearance at the Republican National Convention earlier this summer, making it clear the union is not wedded to the Democratic Party and is interested in only one thing: “What are you doing to help American workers?”

Unions’ political muscle is most often flexed in their organizing power and ability to raise money, especially in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada, where union membership is high.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.