09/01/2025
Celebrating Workers and Unions!
Labor Day is a holiday that was earned through the sweat, tears, and blood of workers and unionists. The day celebrating American workers only came into existence after the 19th-century labor movement fought to improve their working conditions and wages.
First held in 1882 by the Central Labor Union of New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey which split into chapters making up the modern AFL-CIO, the Labor Day holiday commemorated the solidarity of workers in their struggle by holding a successful public parade. Labor unions continued to urge workers to strike on the first Monday of September each year, and Congress and President Grover Cleveland finally legalized the holiday on June 28th, 1894 after the Pullman Strike a few months earlier.
The working-class struggle unites us all as we fight for some of the same rights and benefits that workers fought for over a century and a half ago. We should never take the gift of Labor Day lightly, and we should honor those who died for the improved working conditions we enjoy today. Through labor organizing, a better, safer, more equitable country is possible.
In Solidarity,
The Democratic Party of Lyons Township