Happy Labor Day, especially for those who have four jobs like Secretary Rubio.
For years, my friends outside of the US, or sometimes even here, have asked the same question: Why not celebrate Labor Day on May 1st? Everybody does it that day. True, most countries do it that way.
So what’s going on? Here is a bit of the story, and then I’ll tell why I am happy that we don’t celebrate it on May 1st:
In most of the world, May 1st—International Workers’ Day—is celebrated as a holiday honoring laborers, workers’ rights, and the achievements of the labor movement. Streets in Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia swell with demonstrations, parades, and public displays of solidarity. In stark contrast, the United States, the very birthplace of the labor struggle commemorated on May 1st, officially celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September. This separation is no accident of calendar design but a calculated political decision, rooted in a long history of class conflict, repression, and the shaping of national memory.
As I understand, the US labor movement did not want anything to do with the communist international movement or its socialist origins. The US instead decided to honor workers differently and, in 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed legislation making Labor Day an official federal holiday.
Labor Day parade, Detroit, Michigan, 1942. Library of Congress.
As someone who remembers a May 1st parade in Cuba, let me say thank you. Those May 1st parades have nothing to do with workers. It’s all about a communist ideology that destroys workers by making them poor rather than prosperous.
Also, who wants big posters of Marx, Lenin, and Castro all over town? It’s enough to make me want to scream. Please keep those three assassins out of anything having to do with celebrating work because none of those three ever worked a day in his life.
So Happy Labor Day, and thank God that we don’t do it on May 1st. We celebrate workers, not a failed ideology.
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