Commentary:
Most of our national holidays are a celebration of people and events that seem far removed. Labor Day is for us; the American worker. Our summers are bookended by three-day weekends. Memorial Day demands that we somberly remember those who died in war. Labor Day makes no demands.
But we should be aware of its history. Along with celebrating workers, the holiday also recognizes the contributions made by labor unions in response to the robber barons of the 19th century who amassed obscene levels of wealth at the expense of workers.
President Grover Cleveland made it a national holiday in 1894, just as a violent and costly strike by the American Railway Union was taking place against the Pullman company. The railroad boycott of 1894 lasted for 10 weeks, crippling the nation’s ability to move people and freight. It ended when Cleveland sent in the Army to break up the strike.
President Joe Biden didn’t call out the Army, but he did use the power of the federal government in 2022 to impose a deal on railroad workers that had been hammered out in the Senate. It’s estimated that a strike would have stopped 30 percent of all U.S. cargo shipments, costing up to $2 million a day.
This year, UPS and the Teamsters Union reached agreement on a deal to avert a strike that would have been the costliest ever to our economy, according to a report by the Anderson Economic Group. A 10-day strike would have taken more than $7 billion from our economy, with consumers absorbing...
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