Take Back Labor Day ... Plus 2

A few weeks back we encouraged labor bloggers to take part in the "Take Back Labor Day" action - which involved agreeing to post blog entries on September 1st about what Labor Day really means. Funny thing, though, to participate would have meant working on Labor Day - which this blogger couldn't quite get himself to do.

So now, belatedly, please enjoy my take on Labor Day. [And note that I am writing for myself this time, as opposed to writing in the 1st person plural style that Prometheus Labor Communications staff tend to use as representatives of this site.]

First a little history is in order.

On September 1882, the New York City Central Labor Council of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions called a "labor holiday" parade and 30,000 men and women marched for labor rights.

According to Prof. Priscilla Murolo,a historian at Sarah Lawrence College and author of From The Folks Who Brought You The Weekend: A Short Illustrated History of Labor in the United States, "Many marchers carried banners and placards emblazoned with the slogan 'Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Sleep, Eight Hours for What We Will.'"

The holiday quickly spread around the U.S. and eventually became the official American Labor Day. But there's more to the story than that.

The FOTLU continued to push for the eight-hour day, not through legislative action, but through direct action. In 1884, the FOTLU Convention passed an amazing resolution by the standards of modern national labor conferences that stated "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886."

The admonition to the U.S. government and the heads of America's burgeoning new corporate sector was clear. American working people were calling a nationwide general strike on May Day in just over a year. And 350,000 working men and women at 11,000 establishments did just that in early May 1886. Over 65,000 of them hit the streets in Chicago alone, striking fear into the hearts of the city's industrial titans, and resulting in the reaction that led to the deaths of anarchist labor leaders Albert Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel and Louis Lingg.

Surprisingly, the far larger (and technically more radical) national labor organization, the Knights of Labor, did not back the FOTLU's strike call. But its local assemblies did, which ironically made the fight for the eight-hour day the Knights' largest campaign. It also led to the organization's demise, when in months following the events of May 1886, the leadership refused to back continued strike calls by its locals. This emboldened employers who proceeded to crush Knights assemblies in most industries. Its membership plummeted from 750,000 in 1886 to 220,000 in 1888.

Meanwhile, in December 1886, the FOTLU voted to expand its mandate and become the American Federation of Labor - which soldiers on to this day as America's largest labor federation, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations.

So the roots of the AFL-CIO are more militant than even many labor activists are aware of, and perhaps this provides an interesting lesson to those of us who want to see labor in power over capital in this country and on this planet. And the strategy that nearly brought the rich and powerful to their knees did not involve electoral politics, it focused on shutting down production across most industrial sectors in most major cities.

That's what Labor Day means to me. If the House of Labor can get its fighting spirit back, working people can have a tremendous effect on the political and economic system of this nation and this planet. The history of this important holiday also tells me something else ... that squabbling between labor federations over internal politics isn't more important than backing good ideas when they come along.

This is true as many of us work hard to get labor on track with the latest technology. And I think it's also true if either Change to Win or the AFL-CIO should come forward with the real life equivalent of the online "killer app" - in the form of a campaign or strategy that might be so obviously destined for success that it would be foolish for the two federations not to bury hatchets and work together for the good of America's working families.

If the Knights of Labor had fully backed the general strikes of 1886, the fortunes of unions and our allies would be no doubt be much different right now. And I think much better.

So my Labor Day message is one of unity. There are certainly real differences between labor leaders - factionalized, as they are, in many ways and for many reasons good and bad. But if our leaders are honest about what we're all trying to do here, and if someone proposes a good fight for something big like single-payer health care, then I truly hope that they'll learn from our movement's past mistakes and work together for a new era of labor's ascendency.

I raise a glass to all of you, and wish that we can one day make every day a Labor Day.

Solidarity!