What is Labor Day and why is it celebrated in the U.S.?
Labor Day was this past Monday. According to the history channel website, “Labor Day [is] an annual celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American labor history’s most dismal chapters.
In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living.” People of all ages (including children as young as 5) worked in extremely dangerous situations. Around that time groups of people began to organize themselves into Labor Unions, who because of their large enrollment, had negotiating power with employers. On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off work to march in New York City. This was a protest march and it became the first ever Labor Day parade.
Indian Orchard, our church’s neighborhood, was a place where many immigrants came to live because of the work available in the mills along the river. The mills primarily produced textiles and they were the main employer of people living in the Orchard. It isn’t a stretch to imagine that most of the people who came together to form our church, worked in the mills.
In the U.S. people still work in unsafe or extremely uncomfortable conditions. Long hours are a requirement for many trying to make ends meet. Labor Day offers a day of rest to many. It also offers a reminder to all of us to consider the workers – those who farmed the food we enjoy, those who made the clothes we wear, those who drive and maintain the transportation we use.
Consider the workers.
Dear Lord, look upon the workers. Look upon those behind the scenes. Those making things, those maintaining things, those caring for us and for others… Give us eyes to see. Help us to move towards ways of living that allow all people of the earth to have rhythms of work and rest. For our friends who are weary, give them rest. Amen.
Grace and peace,
Pastor Karen
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