Honoring Labor Day: History, Lessons, and Tips for Moving into Fall

Episode 245: Today's episode is short and sweet as we share a brief history of Labor Day and highlights a valuable lesson that continue to resonate today. Learn  the important highlights of origins of Labor Day and the impact of the labor movement on workers' rights. Discover the power of unity, collective action, and standing up for justice as we reflect on the lessons gained from this important holiday.

Additionally, as we close out summer and look ahead to the next few weeks, we offer a few tips to help you refocus and navigate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. 

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

 Happy Labor Day, everyone.  I know you might not be listening to this until the day after, but I am recording this today by myself. Lori is hopefully getting a little rest. Last week she was working tirelessly preparing everything for her son's wedding, so we'll have stories about that next week.

But today I just wanted to get on and say, hey, Labor Day is just a great day. Day to have off but very often we just enjoy the day off and we have a picnic and and Celebrate with our friends whether it's a work project that we're doing or it's just truly a time of Celebrating being together that extra day off.

We always love but do we ever  Step back and say you know what what started this Labor Day thing anyway? Now, so let's look at that. I'm just going to give you a quick history. This is going to be a quick podcast,  labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday of September in the United States.

Serves as a tribute to the contributions and achievements of the American worker. The holiday has a rich history that dates back to the 19th century when the labor movement was gaining strength. amidst the industrial revolution.

So , the industrial revolution began in the 18th century, and that was that period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient, and stable manufacturing processes. You know, so these were things like the transcontinental railroad, the cotton gin, electricity, and other inventions that truly change society.

You know, can we imagine no electricity,. And so we're looking at those things and we're going, Hmm, boy, I'm thankful for that on this labor day.  But truly there was a lot of hard work in unsafe working conditions back there when this was all happening.

The 12 hour days. Seven days a week in order to eke out a basic living. Now, when we look at that, you go, Oh my gosh, that sounds like me. I'm the florist of today. But you know what? You get to choose to do those long hours and those long weeks.  Back then there was not a choice and truly you do not have to eke out a living.

You can make really good money in our industry. So if you need to know more about that, just reach out to flower click because one of us can help you change eking out a living to making a good living. So let's get started. Let's go back to Labor Day.   Despite the restrictions in some states when this was going on, everybody was trying to work hard to make that living, some states even allowed young children at five and six to work in factories, mills, and mines across the country, and they earned just a fraction of the adults that were in the same positions. 

People of all ages, especially the very poor and recent immigrants, they faced extremely unsafe working conditions and insufficient access to even fresh air, sanitary facilities, and of course, a break.  As manufacturing increased and agriculture decreased, the American employment labor unions, which  first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent and vocal.

 They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest those poor working conditions and to compel those employers to renegotiate. Hours and pay. So those were our first unions way back then. Many events turned violent.

On September 5th, 1882, 10, 000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first unofficial Labor Day parade in history. The idea of a working man's holiday, because they took that day off, celebrated on the first Monday in September, caught on in other industrial centers across the country.



And many states passed legislation recognizing it. Congress didn't legalize it until 12 years later, , when a watershed moment in American history brought workers rights squarely into the public view. And that was because on May of 1884, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Palace Car Company, boy, that's hard to say, in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives.  On June following, the American Railroad Union called for a boycott of all Pullman Railroad cars, crippling railroad traffic.

nationwide.  To break the strike, the federal government dispatched troops to Chicago, unleashing a wave of riots that resulted in deaths of more than a dozen workers. 

In the wake of the massive unrest and an attempt to repair ties with the American workers, then Congress passed an act making Labor Day a legal holiday So one of the pivotal moments in history of Labor Day was the Haymarket Affair in 1886, where a peaceful labor rally, of course things start peacefully, in Chicago turned violent when a bomb was thrown at the police. This led to the deaths of several police officers, and sparked widespread fear and backlash against the labor movement. In the District of Columbia and the territories on June 28th, 1894,

it was President Grover Cleveland who signed it into law.

Interesting, there's something called a Uniform Monday Holiday Act of  1968 which changed several holidays to ensure they would always be observed on a Monday. So this is how it became a Monday holiday. That was so that federal employees  could have more three day weekends. The act signed into law in 1968 moved Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, Columbus Day and Labor Day to fixed Mondays each year.

 The lessons we gained from Labor's Day are numerous and really continue to be relevant today. One of the most important lessons they say is the power of unity And collective action.  Through solidarity and working together, workers have been able to achieve important rights and protections such as the eight hour workday, safe working conditions, and fair wages. 

 If we think about it, American labor has raised the national standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known.

And it brought us close to the realization of our traditional ideas of economic and political democracy.  It's appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute to Labor Day, to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership, the American worker.  Labor Day unofficially marks the end of summer.

For some, it was a week or more ago when the students went back to school. But, now, it's time to refocus. Just a couple tips for you to think about in the next couple weeks, since we closed out summer and we're moving into fall. If you haven't, it's time to flip the store. Fall decor. When it's hot outside, it's hard to do,  but work from the outside in.

Make sure that you have an outside appearance that you know the season is changing. Remember, you're leading the way for your customers to start to think about it. So we have to be ahead of them. As you know, big box stores already have it out. And we all roll our eyes when we see the Halloween and Thanksgiving is already there.

But  you can tastefully transition your store. You've done it before. It's time to do it again. The other thing I'm going to ask you to do is pull up your records from previous years. When did business start to ramp up? It was this time of year that I was always panicked because  Business wasn't picking up fast enough and then I would have to remind myself.

Oh my gosh it really in our area Which I was in Dixon, Illinois It really didn't start picking up till the end of September or up even up to the second week in October Because they you know, everybody was paying for their kids to go back to school They're obviously all the new clothes and everything that goes with tuition And also taxes were due.

So everything was a little delayed in my area. So that's why always I had to pull up those records and go, okay, Don't panic. It's not going to pick up yet, right? And especially coming off what I've heard to be a very slow summer, that we need to be mindful of just preparing and not panicking. The next thing is, just prepare.

Now that you know when it's going to start to pick up, start doing those preparations for the fourth quarter here that we're moving into. It is time to look at what specials you want for fall, Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving. Into Christmas because when it comes to be right after Thanksgiving, you're not going to have time to prepare for Christmas So make all those preparations for the upcoming holiday now as far as what you're going to do for marketing Or just join flower click and we'll have it all ready for you  But you want to be able to prepare everything now for the upcoming seasons And that is even with your employees because you'll be able to see  If you're pulling up the records from previous years, what you're going to need to do for ramping up for  more labor, since we're talking Labor Day  is it the 1st of November and do I need extra the middle of December?

So those are the types of things that I'm really going to suggest you do in the next couple of weeks to do the preparations for that. , the last hoorah of 2024, so  I hope you have a great Labor Day if you're listening to this this afternoon or had a great Labor Day if you're listening to it afterwards, but we will be back next week and Lori and I'll be talking about weddings and how we were thrown into  something we don't usually do, but we loved it and  it was a success.

 We will look forward to being with you again next week.