1. While it’s overshadowed by sales and barbecues, don’t forget that Labor Day stands for the labor movement in the US and that without it we wouldn’t have weekends or eight hour days or child labor laws.
2. Here in Utah, there’s a special Labor Day concert in honor of the centennial death of Joe Hill, IWW organizer and songwriter.
3. And the local paper put together an extensive interactive microsite about Joe Hill, including really cool recordings of his songs made at sites in Salt Lake City relevant to Hill and performed by local artists:
So give a thought to the labor movement–past and present–and have a good weekend.
I am so glad to have come across this post. Listening to the song reduced me to tears. As it happens, today is the final day of a wonderful vacation: three weeks of paid leave from my employer. Weekends and paid vacations are just a few of the many reasons I am grateful for organized labor!