Today, Labor day, there will be events and parades and fireworks to celebrate the holiday. The first labor Day parade occurred in Manhattan on September 5, 1882, when literally thousands of workers marched to wan politicians that the demands for fair and just working conditions could not be ignored.
Labor did not always fare so well even after the parade. Children as young as 4 or 5 were still working in factories dying young due to accidents and illness The Supreme Court declared the 1916 Child Labor Act unconstitutional because it overstepped the purpose of the government’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
A second attempt in 1919 was also overturned; child labor wasn’t prohibited until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Project 2025 wants to eliminate Head Start and other children’s programs. What to do with the kids? Send them back to the mills and factories. Some states have passed laws weakening FLSA protections, figuring the Supreme Court will back them up. After all, weren’t little children working in 1789?
Prayer for the Day
Barbecues and parades, marches and fireworks,
They hide the brutality of child labor in the fields;
Speeches stating the dignity of labor, but behind words,
Toiling, laborers ignored by our laws, have no holiday.
Awaken us, O Lord, to the reality around us
So we create fair working conditions for all.
In the name of the One who urges us to justice,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
You can’t regulate child labor. You can’t regulate slavery. Some things are just wrong.
Michael Moore, film maker
Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described in one way or another as ‘socialist.’ Yet these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.
Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator, Vermont
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. …Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed our fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord.
James 5: 1, 4