I am going to rehash an old column for you again this week.
My apologies, Dear Reader, but this year’s summer has been as busy as or busier
than any in recent memory. This past month has been particularly crazy with
activities at our household and I am feeling a little time-crunched, so I going
to republish the Labour Day column that I wrote last year. Here you go.
Once again,
the Labour Day Weekend is upon us so the time has come, (ALREADY), for me to do
my annual “the summer is over” whiny schtick. Any of you regular readers of
this column will be all too familiar with my love of summer and hatred of its
ending but I won’t bore you with any more details than that this time around.
For a detailed view of my humble opinion on the matter you can go to my blog
site: http://pnhubbard.blogspot.com/ and search out last year’s write-up and
save us both some time. Thanks.
The summer
of 2013 will actually end on September 21st but for all intents and
purposes the Labour Day Weekend will signify the unofficial and symbolic end to
the summer season. According to traditions of old, after this weekend it’s time
to put away the white outfits and break out the backpacks and book-bags. But
before that happens you should hit the cottage, the lake, the swimming pool,
the water-slides and the vacations spots one more time before getting back to
“normal”. Yes, like it or not, summer has passed us by one more time. There
might still be some “summer-like” weather conditions for a while but once the
calendar flips to September, boy, she’s all downhill from there. For summer
lovers, that is.
If the last
long weekend of the hot season is summer’s last gasp…why is it called Labour
Day? Funny you should ask…I was just wondering the same thing.
According
to my research Labour Day has been celebrated here in Canada on the first Monday of
September since the late 1800’s. The origins of Labour Day can be traced back
to December of 1872 when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto
Typographical Union’s strike for a 58-hour work-week. At that time many workers
were working at least twelve hours a day. The Toronto Trades Assembly called
its twenty-seven unions to demonstrate in support of the Typographical Union
who had been on strike since March 25th.
George
Brown, Canadian politician and editor of the Toronto Globe, hit back at his
striking employees pressing police to charge the Typographical Union with
“conspiracy”. Although the laws criminalizing union activity were outdated and
had already been abolished in Great Britain ,
they were still on the books in Canada
and police arrested twenty-four leaders of the Typographical Union.
Labour leaders decided to call
another demonstration on September 3rd to protest the arrests. Seven
unions marched in Ottawa
prompting a promise by Canadian Prime Minister, and Brown’s political foe, Sir
John A. MacDonald, to repeal the “barbarous” anti-union laws. Parliament passed
the Trade Union Act the following June.
The parades in support of the
printer’s strike became a yearly event. After attending one of these labour
festivals in Toronto , United
States labour leader, Peter J. McGuire went back to New York and established
the first U.S. Labour Day on September 5th, 1882. It took a while,
but in July of 1894 the Conservative government of Prime Minister Sir John
Thompson officially made Labour Day a national holiday.
I am not promoting this column as a
pro-union statement but, historically and factually, without the sacrifices of
past union labourers and leaders there would be few workers’ rights today. So
while you float around the pool or lounge on your cottage deck or take in the
Labour Day Classic you could give a little silent thank you to the many people
whose vision and sacrifices have made it possible for so many workers to enjoy
weekends, (long and short), a standard 40-hour work week, overtime, coffee and
lunch breaks, paid vacation, sick leave, minimum wage, maternity leave, Child
Labour Laws, Occupational Health and Safety, Worker’s Compensation, pensions,
wrongful termination laws…
“Without labour nothing
prospers.”-Sophocles.
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