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Labor/Labour Day

© Sharon Tabor Warren

We were sitting around our campsite last Friday and my eight-year-old grandson asked, "What is Labor Day?" His father replied that it was a day to honor American workers.

The question and answer made me realize I didn't know much about the origins of the holiday and a bit of study on the subject might prove both informative and a topic for this column.

It's been a most interesting project. Labor/Labour Days are celebrated all around the world, many of them in May. The country whose May Day celebration comes most readily to mind is Russia. I remember too well the newsreels and grainy black and white photos during the Cold War that showed the troops marching through Red Square with huge tanks and other Soviet arms on display for the world to view (and tremble at the sight?).

Here in North America, the Canadian labour movement claims the title of originator of Labour Day. Although there is current dispute over which man, Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire was actually the "founder" of the holiday in the United States, historical evidence indicates Peter McGuire got his ideas from Canadian trade unionists.

The first significant North American "workingman's demonstration" was organized by the Toronto Trades Assembly for April 15, 1872. This was a show of power on behalf of labor in opposition to a law that declared trade unions criminal conspiracies that restrained trade. The immediate purpose of the demonstration was to win the release of twenty-four leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union who were imprisoned while striking for a nine-hour workday.

Later that same year seven unions in Ottawa organized a parade that was more than a mile in length and proceeded to the home of Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald. The Prime Minister was hoisted into a carriage and taken to City Hall by torchlight where he declared in a resounding speech that his party would remove all laws that made unions illegal from the statute books. The conspiracy laws were repealed within that year.

The holiday tradition established by the Toronto Trades Assembly continued into the early 1880's. In 1882 the Toronto Trades and Labour Council (successor to the TTA) moved the organized demonstration and picnic to July and invited Peter McGuire of New York to be the speaker. McGuire had founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters the previous year and served as its general secretary.

McGuire had proposed a demonstration and picnic in the U.S. for September 5th of that year and soon pressure was exerted in both Canada and the U.S. for legislation to declare a holiday for labor/labour. In 1894 Sir John Thompson's government enacted the legislation for Canada.