Happy Labor Day, 2023 – To the Great American Worker! Labor Day and It’s American History

Happy Labor Day — Honoring 144 Years Since the First Celebration

Happy Labor Day — Honoring 144 Years Since the First Celebration

Happy Labor Day — Honoring 144 Years Since the First Celebration Today we mark Labor Day with gratitude and resolve. One hundred forty‑four years after the first Labor Day parade in New York City in 1882, we honor the courage of workers who organized for safer workplaces, fair pay, and dignity on the job. Their struggle built protections many of us rely on today: limits on hours, safer conditions, and the right to organize.

What this day asks of us now Labor Day is both a celebration and a reminder: the gains of the past were won by collective action, and the challenges of today require the same clarity of purpose. Workers now face a mix of old and new pressures — precarious gig and contract work, rising costs of living, automation and AI reshaping jobs, and ongoing fights over bargaining power and workplace equity. These trends affect paychecks, schedules, health, and family life.

A Personal Moment at My Door

While I was writing this post there was a knock at my front door. A man and a woman stood on my porch with literature and a simple message: there’s a government that wants to work for us. I looked through the materials and told them I supported Angie Nixon. They left, and I’m writing this now to say publicly that my transplanted Florida roots are being anchored by a politician who calls herself a “Democratic Socialist.” Count me in.

That moment mattered because democracy is not only about big rallies or headlines — it’s about neighbors showing up, conversations at the door, and decisions we make in our communities. For me, that knock was a reminder that civic life is local, personal, and immediate.

Sidebar Call to Action for the 2026 Midterms

Bring worker issues into the 2026 conversation To everyone watching the 2026 midterms — voters, organizers, union members, small‑business owners, and civic leaders — this Labor Day is a moment to center worker priorities in the public debate. Ask candidates how they will protect workers from wage stagnation, expand access to benefits, strengthen workplace safety and enforcement, and support retraining for technological change.

Practical ways to engage

• Ask candidates for concrete plans on wages, portable benefits, and reskilling.
• Support civic participation by helping register voters, sharing reliable voting information, and encouraging turnout.
• Volunteer locally for nonpartisan voter education and community forums focused on jobs and the economy.
• Hold leaders accountable for policies that affect working families and for transparent, fair elections.

Statement from Steven Smith and Company

Steven Smith is firm in his company’s commitment to civic engagement Steven Smith and the company he leads are committed to engaging the many who matter in our democracy — employees, customers, and communities — across the national conversation about work and civic life. That commitment means elevating worker voices, supporting nonpartisan civic education, and creating opportunities for meaningful participation in the issues that shape livelihoods.

 

Closing Statement for the Majority of Voters That Matter

A message to the majority of voters that matter To the majority of voters who shape our future: your voice matters more than ever. This Labor Day, rest and reflect — then bring your experience and priorities into the public square. Demand policies that protect work, expand opportunity, and ensure technological change benefits everyone. Vote, engage, and insist that elected leaders put working people first. Democracy works best when the many who do the work also have a say in the rules that govern it.

The holiday is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.

 

Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing Labor Day, on February 21, 1887.

 

During 1887, four more states – Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York – passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday.

By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit.

By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.

Who first proposed the holiday for workers?

It’s not entirely clear, but two workers can make a solid claim to the Founder of Labor Day title.

Some records show that in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the

Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor,

suggested setting aside a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to honor those

“who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

 

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged.

Many believe that machinist Matthew Maguire, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday.

Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire,

later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey,

proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

According to the New Jersey Historical Society, after President Cleveland signed the law creating a national Labor Day,

the Paterson Morning Call published an opinion piece stating that

“the souvenir pen should go to Alderman Matthew Maguire of this city, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday.”

Both Maguire and McGuire attended the country’s first Labor Day parade in New York City that year.

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City,

in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.

The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.

Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades, picnics and parties – festivities very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday,

which suggested that the day should be observed with – a street parade to exhibit “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations”

of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families.

This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.

Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday.

Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday

and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

 

 

American labor has raised the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production

the world has ever known and the labor movement has brought us closer

to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy.

 

It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership

– the American worker.

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1st Hemp USA News is a resource of Inspirational Technologies (2023)