A Labor Day Tribute to Women & Men Who Fought for Workers Rights & Safety

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1942 Detroit, Michigan. Elderly women workers carrying banners in the Labor Day parade

Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September. Today it marks the end of summer and is celebrated with picnics and barbeques.

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Labor Day Parade, children in Child Labor demonstration, New York 1909

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1909 A group of men carrying placards walking down a street.

Labor Day was established as a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. It originated during the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the late 1800's. During this time the average American worked 12 hour days, seven days a week just to get by.  Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages.  People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants often faced extremely unsafe working conditions such as; insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks.

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1909 Russian Labor Assoc. in Labor Parade, New York City

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1909 Woman on float of the Women's Auxilliary Typographical Union.

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People who fought for workers rights

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Helen Adams Keller (1880 – 1968)
Keller aided the foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union and was a workers advocate. She joined the Industrial Workers of the World (known as the Wobblies or IWW) and wrote against the industrial and social conditions that often contributed to blindness. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Mary Harris "Mother Jones" 1830(?)-1930
Jones was a ringing voice on behalf of workers and their families, a leader in the miners struggles in West Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. She met with Presidents, from McKinley to Coolidge, in support of her people, and suffered jailings, personal attacks, and unbelievable hardships for her efforts to ease their impoverished lives. She remained active in labor affairs into her nineties.

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Mary Anderson (1872-1964):
Advocate for Working Women, Labor Organizer and First Director of the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labo. 

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Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and Secretary-Treasurer of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO ("UFW"). The mother of 11 children, 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, Dolores has played a major roll in the American civil rights movement. Dolores organized and founded the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960. She became a fearless lobbyist in Sacramento, and in 1961 succeeded in obtaining the citizenship requirements removed from pension, and public assistance programs. She also was instrumental in passage of legislation allowing voters the right to vote in Spanish, and the right of individuals to take the driver’s license examination in their native language. In 1962 she lobbied in and Washington DC for an end to the "captive labor" Bracero Program.

As an advocate for farmworkers' rights, Huerta has been arrested twenty-two times for participating in non-violent civil disobedience activities and strikes.[citation needed] She remains active in progressive causes, and serves on the boards of For the American Way, Consumer Federation of California, and Feminist Majority Foundation.

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Emma Tenayuca(1916–1999)
Labor Organizer. As a student, Tenayuca realized her life of poverty as a Latina differed greatly from the living conditions of Americans described in her schoolbooks. As a labor organizer, she worked to improve the opportunities of poor people, especially Latinos. She worked to end unfair child labor practices. She picketed was gassed, arrested, and jailed. She is best known for her fiery speeches and union organizing work which began in a successful 1934 strike on behalf of pecan shellers in a Texas food processing plant.

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Felisa Rincon de Gautier (1897-1994)
Born in Ceiba, Puerto Rico was the first woman to be elected as the mayor of a capital city in any of The Americas. Gautier began her political activism campaigning for women's suffrage in Puerto Rico which was won in 1932. She joined the Popular Democratic Party and in 1940 was president of its San Juan committee. From 1948 to 1968, she was mayor of San Juan. In her open government, many schools, daycare, and health centers were built.


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"Without labor nothing prospers." Sophocles

"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition." Indira Gandhi

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." Martin Luther King