Labour Day, A Holiday To Celebrate!

Most of us know when Labour Day is, but have you ever wondered how Labor Day came to be celebrated as a holiday in Canada?

According to Wikipedia, “Labour day is an annual holiday to celebrate the achievements of workers.” Although Internationally, Labour Day is celebrated on May 1^st, in Canada and the United States, it is celebrated on the first Monday of September, which happens to be on September 7^th, this year.

Labour day, a statutory holiday in Canada, is usually celebrated as the last long weekend of summer, or the unofficial end of summer. It’s the last day to lounge before schools reopen for the next academic year. In short, the last, lazy, summer day. Canada has been observing this holiday officially since 1894 but, many historians agree that the unofficial celebrations started much before that.

You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.

— Lionel Messi

After having lobbied for 3 years, in the spring of 1872, the Toronto printers finally walked out in protest. They had been fighting for shorter workdays instead of the gruelling 12 to 16 hours long ones. They demanded that the workday be reduced to 9 hours. As there were no labour unions to fight on behalf of them, the workers decided to fight for themselves against this inhumanity.

The parade started with about 2000 protesting workers and as they marched through the city led by a parade band, more and more workers joined them. By the time they reached Queen’s Park, the number of protestors had grown to 10000. Due to the then law, arrests were made for organizing the protest and many workers lost their jobs and moved out of Toronto, as the management decided to replace the striking workers. Although it sounds like it was a worthless fight, at the end of it all, many wonderful changes came about. The changes included the 9 hours workday, the work week being shortened to 54 hours a week, the decriminalization of the labour unions and improved relations between the workers and the governments.

To commemorate this huge milestone, this day was celebrated, every year, by organizing rallies and parades in Toronto. Soon many cities throughout Canada adopted these celebrations and held them every year. An American labour leader who witnessed these celebrations, was inspired to organize similar celebrations in New York, on September 5^th, 1882. The event became popular and spread across the United States until President Grover Cleveland declared it an official federal holiday in 1894.

Here in Canada, finally succumbing to mounting pressure – through the 1880s, Prime Minister John A MacDonald made Labor Day official in 1894  and declared the first Monday in September, to be a statutory holiday.