1. Labor Day was Invented by Soviet Communists in order to promote their brand of Marxism around the globe.
In fact Labor Day was born right here in the United States of America in order to promote working families by permitting working Moms and Dads to spend more time with their children. It all started in May 1886 when working families in Chicago organized for a shorter working day—an eight hour day. They packed picnics, brought kites, and created what everyone later recounted as a festive event. The management at McCormick Harvesting Machine Co., however, wasn’t in a festive mood. They might be pro-family and all that, but not to the point of permitting their workers four more hours a day to spend with their families. The Company called in the police to disperse the dangerous crowds of picnickers.
Among the picnickers, however, was a small contingent of individuals who wanted to make a show of it. And make a show they did. One of them tossed what might have been a bomb, but was probably no more than a firework brought for the festival, in the direction of the police. The armed police opened fire on the unarmed picnickers, killing at least a dozen of them.
The police rounded up those whom they counted ring leaders, a group that almost certainly did not include the individual who originally tossed the firework. But rather than trying them for reckless endangerment, which would have made sense, the ring leaders were instead tried for their support of working families and the eight hour day.
And so Labor Day was born, right here in the United States, in 1886.
2. The Communists shifted the date Labor Day is celebrated to May.
To the contrary. All around the world, working families have celebrated Labor Day on May 1 to honor the fallen Chicago workers, to celebrate the eight hour working day, and to organize for additional reforms that benefit workers and their families.
But in the 1950s private corporations and anti-communists successfully organized to, literally, paint Labor Day red. By painting May 1 as a Communist holiday, private corporations and anti-communists were also able to call into question its support for working families. In 1958, Congress changed the name of Labor Day, May 1, to Loyalty Day, a day on which Americans were to declare their loyalty to their leaders, even if those leaders were opposed to working families. And they shifted Labor Day to the First Monday in September.
3. Working Families in the United States enjoy better health than working families anywhere else in the world.
As a matter of fact, according to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks sixty-second in the world for life expectancy. Of course, there is no secret to the United States ranking well behind every other developed country. The surprise may be that the U.S. also ranks behind such countries as Bangladesh, Columbia, Cambodia, and Bahrain.
4. Working Families in the United States enjoy a better standard of living than working families elsewhere in the world.
The Human Development Report indexes such crucial factors for working families as life expectancy, years of education, and gross national income per capita. On this index, unadjusted for inequality (e.g., cost of living, etc.), families in the United States ranks fourth. But when we adjust for cost of living, the average working family in the United States ranks behind families in eleven other nations, all of them except for Canada located in western Europe.
5. Organizations such as the AFL-CIO that lobby Congress on behalf of working families simply take workers money and give nothing back.
Here are just some of the accomplishments of organizations that lobby on behalf of working families:
1. The Eight Hour Working Day (and, in California, the Forty Hour Week).
2. End of Child Labor
3. Social Security
4. Occupational Health and Safety
5. Civil Rights Act
The decline of working families in the United States has paralleled the declining influence of organizations such as the AFL-CIO that lobby on behalf of working families.
This Labor Day, think about how working families elsewhere in the world are improving their condition by organizing for better education, housing, health care, retirement, and a shorter working day. Think about how you might help families in the United States might do the same.