Labor Day 2025: Things To Know About Holiday Honoring U.S. Workers

Labor Day Weekend is traditionally celebrated as the last hurrah of summer, but the holiday has its roots in violent labor disputes more than 130 years ago during the rapid inudstrialization during America’s Gilded Age.

Millions of Americans get the day off Monday and are taking advantage of cheaper travel costs, according to AAA, which said flights, hotels, car rentals and gas are all cheaper than they were at this time last year. Others will observe the worker holiday with parades, rallies, picnics and family gatherings.

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 People Are In Unions Now?

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.

Union membership is now at its lowest point in 40 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In 2024, approximately 14.3 million people in the United States were union members, representing 9.9 percent of all wage and salary workers.

In 1983, 17.7 million people, or 20.1 percent of the workforce, were union members.

Thirty states had union membership rates below the U.S. average, while 20 states and the District of Columbia had rates above it, according to the Labor Department’s data. Hawaii and New York had the highest union membership rates, 26.5 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively. States with the lowest membership rates in 2024 were North Carolina (2.4 percent), South Dakota (2.7 percent), and South Carolina (2.8 percent).

Who’s Still Working For $7.25 An Hour?

The federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour, where it’s been stuck for more than a quarter of a century.
The current rate, set in July 2009, was an increase from $5.85 in 2007 and $6.55 in 2008.

Many states have raised the minimum wage to better reflect the cost of living, but workers in nearly 20 states are still clocking in for $7.25 an hour.

Currently, 34 states, territories and districts have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — have not adopted a state minimum wage, and three others — Georgia, Oklahoma and Wyoming — have a state minimum wage below $7.25 an hour. In all of these states, the federal minimum wage generally applies, according to the NCSL, a lobbying group representing states’ interests.

Other states that haven’t moved the minimum wage past $7.25 are Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

But Can You Still Wear White?

For many years, wearing white after Labor Day simply wasn’t done in polite society.

Fashion experts say the “rule” likely dates back to the Gilded Age, when wealthy New Yorkers summering in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, packed away their cool, white frocks and matching shoes as they returned to the dirt-packed streets of the city.

Though the adage is still handed down among generations of women, “the fashion world isn’t working that way anymore,” Christy Crutsinger, a professor in merchandising and digital retailing at University of North Texas, told The AP.

“People think it, say it, but don’t abide by it,” she said.

However, as vacations and breaks end, many business people take advantage of back-to-school sales and switch from the relaxed dress code to more professional attire, Daniel James Cole, adjunct assistant professor in fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology and co-author of “The History of Modern Fashion,” told The AP.

Labor Day “is kind of this hinge” between summertime dress and fun to going “back to more serious pursuits,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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