Monday is Labor Day, a celebration of the contributions and sacrifices of generations of workers who struggled to honor the efforts of working people, who had to combat the power of corporations and commit themselves to reform and humane treatment.
The first national holiday came about in the Presidency of Grover Cleveland in 1894, just as we had the Pullman Strike, which led to the imprisonment of Socialist Eugene Debs, but led to the growing success of organized labor over the next decades.
The ultimate triumph of organized labor came in the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and while much of the nation, particularly the Southern states, worked against unionization, there was expansion of labor union membership nationally.
Sadly, the Presidency of Ronald Reagan saw labor union growth come to a halt, and has only recently started to increase once again.
But membership in labor unions is only in the midteens in number right now, when it once was about a third to 40 percent.
President Joe Biden, however, is a champion of organized labor, and will speak on Labor Day tomorrow in Pittsburgh, to commemorate labor, and call for the further expansion of unions for workers!
In the Presidential Election of 2020, Biden gained the backing of 56 percent of union households, crucial to his victories in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in particular!