What does Labor Day mean to you? A day to sleep in, to fire up the BBQ, to organize school supplies, or to hit the sales? How about a day to remember the Pullman strike? The what? Why?
Labor Day was established in 1894 after federal troops killed workers during the Pullman strike.
Pullman railroad workers lived in company towns, rented company houses, and bought their goods in company stores…all at company-set prices. They were fired if they tried to unionize. When George Pullman slashed his railroad workers’ pay by 25%, they could no longer afford to live in Pullman Town. To protest their non-living wage, Pullman employees went on a “wildcat” strike. Over the next six days, to show solidarity for Pullman workers, over 100,000 railroad union members cross-country refused to service trains with Pullman cars. At George Pullman’s request, United States Attorney General Richard Olney obtained a federal court injunction against the strikers, and federal troops were sent in to enforce it.
After federal troops killed some of the workers on strike, the trains started running again. But scandal erupted when the public learned Olney was also a director of Pullman’s railroad. In other words, Olney, the head of a taxpayer-funded federal agency obtained a federal court order and used federal troops to protect his own and corporate interests against striking workers. Outraged at this abuse of power, rioters spread from city to city, causing 30 deaths and millions of dollars in damage. To restore calm, within the next week, a bill establishing Labor Day as a national holiday honoring “the strength and spirit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” was rushed through Congress and signed by President Grover Cleveland.
The battle for a living wage continues to this day.
This Labor Day, some 15 million American workers struggle to live on minimum wage earnings. Just last week, fast food workers went out on strike for a living wage.
Earlier this year, Acting Secretary of the United States Department of Labor Seth Harris travelled around the country to hear testimony in support of the proposed Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour by 2015. He listened to: a store clerk who doesn’t know how she will support herself and her five-year-old son since her employer cut her hours of work; a homeless shelter worker who often lives without power because she can’t afford to pay her bill; a solo father who sells his own blood so his two children won’t go to bed hungry.
Reflecting on the people he met, Harris stated:
I’ve met workers of every age, race, ethnicity and background. In superficial ways, they could have not been more different. But what unites all of them is this: the desire to work hard and the opportunity to make life better for themselves and their families. Too many of them are stuck at a wage that forces them to depend on the generosity of community organizations, family, friends or government just to stay above water. I haven’t met anyone who is looking for a handout. To the contrary, they just want a fair wage so they don’t have to rely on others.
The bill to raise the minimum wage is still stuck in Congress. Why not honor this Labor Day by contacting your Congressional representative and ask him or her to support The Fair Wage Act of 2013?
Click here to find contact information for your Congressional representative or here for more information on The Fair Wage Act of 2013.
About Joan Herrington
As a former Administrative Law Judge with the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission, Joan focuses on protecting employment rights. Joan helps the Department of Fair Employment and Housing enforce the Fair Employment and Housing Act by representing employees in lawsuits, such as discrimination and harassment based on race, national origin, color, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition, age, and religion. Joan also focuses on protecting employees and whistleblowers from unlawful retaliation. As a qualified and experienced mediator, Joan also helps resolve employment disputes.
It was also created to counter International Workers’ Day, the commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. That holiday, celebrating labor activists in the U.S. had spread all over Europe.
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Thanks for honoring the right for workers to come together to address terms and conditions of employment and unionized labor- you know, the folks who brought working people the weekend.