A Holiday from Labor

Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed the Labor Day holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York. Others argue that Peter J. McGuire of the AFL (American Federation of Labor) proposed a Labor Day in May 1882, after witnessing the annual labor festival in Toronto, Canada. Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day a holiday in 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, 30 U.S. states officially celebrated Labor Day. Following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland reconciled with the labor movement. Fearing further conflict, Congress made Labor Day a national holiday in just six days after the end of the strike. 

The September date originally chosen by the CLU of New York was preferred over the more widespread International Workers' Day (May Day or May 1 in more than 80 countries) because President Cleveland was concerned an observance on the latter date would be associated with the nascent Communist, Syndicalist and Anarchist movements that, though distinct from one another, had rallied to commemorate the Haymarket Affair on International Workers' Day.  John L. Lewis started the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) trade union, in 1932. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders, including leaders of the CIO, to swear they were not Communists. That provision in the act was later found to be unconstitutional. The CIO merged with the AFL to become the AFL-CIO in 1955. 

See Threes, Chapter Eight, “Threes in Business and Technology” for more.