Josh Freed: Labour Day, the forgotten child of holidays

We all know why we mark Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Canada Day and St-Jean — but few still know why we do not labour on Labour Day.

Author of the article: Josh Freed • Special to Montreal Gazette
Publishing date: Sep 04, 2021 • 

People take part in a demonstration on Labour Day in Montreal, Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. 

"Today Labour Day has lost its meaning for most people. It’s simply a paid day off for almost everyone, perhaps the only holiday with no obligations," Josh Freed writes. 

PHOTO BY GRAHAM HUGHES /The Canadian Press

Happy Labour Day weekend, everyone!

I know you’re celebrating by roasting a Labour Day turkey. Or painting some Labour Day eggs. Or putting your family’s gifts under the Labour Day tree.

Sorry to belabour your Labour Day, but how exactly are we supposed to celebrate this holiday, apart from sitting on a porch drinking beer?

We all know why we mark Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Canada Day and St-Jean — but few still know why we do not labour on Labour Day.

This annual event is the forgotten child of holidays, a mysterious long weekend that many think is a government-sanctioned Close-the-Cottage Day.

Others think it marks the official end of summer — the signal to go back to school, back to work, and back to more traffic and even fewer parking spaces.

That’s because long, long ago in a far-off time, most schools resumed classes after Labour Day weekend. But that’s not the case anymore, as our workaholic society jump-starts the kids’ school year in August.

Labour Day has become a somewhat out-of-sync school holiday that often interrupts the first week of classes and delays teachers learning their new students’ names.

Back to work? Canadians get a mere 10 days of vacation on average — second to last, along with Japan, in the industrialized world. Yet most of us don’t even take it all.

Even when we do take holidays, we are leashed to our workplaces by our cellphones, and LinkedIn by email, voicemail, Facebook and Twitterstorms. Especially this year, when many people with jobs are working remotely from home.

How can you go back to work when you never leave it? We probably need a National Day-Off-the-Internet Day.

Labour Day isn’t even the unofficial end of summer anymore, the traditional time for one last swim and barbecue, or to put away the sunscreen before the temperature drops.

Now the sun only gets hotter every month as we heat up Planet Earth. This September could well be hotter than August, which was hotter than July.

Officially, Labour Day honours labourers, although this, too, seems increasingly outdated, like the word “labour” itself. In truth, not that many Canadians actually labour for a living anymore in today’s Information Age. Fewer and fewer of us swing a pickaxe, or push a plough. Instead, we toil at typing. Send 10,000 emails. Yack on the phone. Zoom.

Many among us will do exactly the same things on Labour Day when we’re off the job, but happily perched at our computers, blurring the line between work and leisure.

We interrupt this column for a brief history lesson.

Labour Day was partly invented by Canadians, along with snowmobiles, ginger ale, frozen fish, the paint-roller and the green garbage bag.

It was inspired by a famed 1872 Toronto printers’ strike that finally decriminalized unions. To honour the event, workers held annual labour protests in September — until Canada declared Labour Day a public holiday in 1894. The United States soon followed.

Huge parades were held annually for decades afterward to remind us that workers had to fight for things we now take for granted, like safe workplaces, a mere eight-hour day and something called a “weekend.”

The parades faded away in the ’50s, but Labour Day still felt very relevant in Quebec when I was growing up in the ’60s, because unions were a force that changed, but also upended our lives.

Huge strikes were such a routine part of year-round life, you noticed when there weren’t any. There was Red Weekend, a 1974 firemen’s strike that left 25 fires burning out of control and hundreds of families homeless.

I still recall a huge Allo Police tabloid headline that read “MONTRÉAL BRÛLE!”

There was the 16-hour overnight police strike in October 1969 that led to looting, bank robberies and the legendary Murray Hill riot, with cowboy-style gunfights between cabbies and airport limo drivers.

As the Gazette reported: “Fires, explosions, assaults and a full-pitched gun-battle kept Montrealers huddled indoors as the reign of terror brought the city to the edge of chaos.”

There was the 1972 Common Front strike, which virtually shut down the province as teachers, postal workers, civil servants and others demanded raises — and a $100 minimum weekly wage.

Back then, labour leaders like Louis Laberge were rock stars and premiers bowed to them like royalty (when they weren’t jailing them). So Labour Day still had a powerful resonance.

End of history lesson.

Today Labour Day has lost its meaning for most people. It’s simply a paid day off for almost everyone, perhaps the only holiday with no obligations.

There are no turkeys to roast, no gifts to give, or guilt to feel if you didn’t. There are no New Year’s resolutions to pledge, Valentine cards to write, pumpkins to carve or national flags to wave.

Labour Day is simply a day at the cottage, or away camping or picnicking, or just goofing off in bed, a do-nothing day when most people don’t labour.

So enjoy it, everyone, and if you can — go jump in a lake.

joshfreed49@gmail.com