Labor Day

The "Washington Post" has an interesting article about the origins of Labor Day:

"Who started Labor Day? The bloody & confusing history of an American holiday."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/09/04/who-started-labor-day-the-bloody-and-confusing-history-of-an-american-holiday/

Here is a sample from the article about the Federal holiday which was signed into law on June 28, 1894 by president Grover Cleveland:

'The passage of Labor Day legislation was not a priority of Cleveland’s presidency, said Sharon Farrell, caretaker of the Grover Cleveland Birthplace in Caldwell, N.J. Rather, legislation had already been making its way through Congress and did not hinge on Cleveland’s final signature, she said.

“He was not the driving force behind it, and it was not his idea,” Farrell said. “He just happened to be the president sitting in the chair.”
Farrell’s argument challenges a widely held belief that Cleveland rushed the legislation through in the midst of one of his presidency’s most fraught moments: the Pullman Strike. In an essay titled “The Government in the Chicago Strike of 1894,” Cleveland wrote that a “very determined and ugly labor disturbance broke out in the city of Chicago.”

“Almost in a night it grew to full proportions of malevolence and danger,” he wrote. “Rioting and violence were its early accompaniments; and it spread so swiftly that within a few days it had reached nearly the entire Western and Southwestern sections of our county.”'

It's been mentioned countless times on Twitter today (but it bears repeating), we owe a great deal of gratitude to the Unions & Labor movement for the current working conditions (8-hour day, 40-hour workweek, etc) of American workers (Still, I know wages have failed to match the rise in productivity, but that's more on employers & corporations).

American workers usually spend time outdoors & traveling on Labor Day, that's why I posted this message on the "Hiking/Outdoors" section of my page. But as far as me, this weekend I did not travel anywhere. Instead I've spent time with family here in Phoenix (going out to eat, watching movies, etc.).
Although last night I did go out to "Tempe town lake park" with some family to ride our bicycles (& go to a bar on Mill. Below are some of the photos I took):

& today, we're gonna have a barbecue. I hope you enjoy this Labor Day if you have the day off, if you do have to work (that's the harsh reality we're facing in this 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week society), look at it this way (it's no consolation I know) but at least you'll probably get paid time and a half (or more in some cases).