Talk:Labour Day
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[edit] History
Some Labor history: May Day was first identified as an International Labor Day by the Second International in 1889, in solidarity with the eight "Martyrs of Haymarket," the socialist and anarchist leaders who were collectively held responsible for the actions of an anonymous bomb-thrower at the Haymarket Square rally for the 8-hour work day on May 4th, 1886, in Chicago, more due to their political views than to any connection to the actual bomb-thrower, who remains unknown to this day (four were executed, one killed in his cell just before his execution under mysterious circumstances, and the other three were later pardoned by Illinois' Governor Altgeld in 1893). It was only in 1892 that an "official" Labor Day was established by Congress as the first Monday in September, some say in an attempt to prevent identification with International Labor Day in May (the further establishment of a "Loyalty Day" on May 1st would lend credence to this theory). Nonetheless, May 1st is also celebrated in the United States by socialists, trade unionists, and leftists of all kinds, both in the 1920s and today, without the official sanction of the U.S. government.
Ultimately, I think that the concept of a Labor Day should be enough to establish a single entry, with links to the specific date or way it is celebrated in every individual country, be it Canada, Germany, the United States or wherever else. The histories of the two are definitely linked.
-dauphinite
An event mentioned in this article is an October 4 selected anniversary.
The following are unconfirmed, historians please correct any error here. I heard that the US used to celebrate Labor Day on May 1 back in the 1920's. However, May Day is a big holiday in communist countries. The Americans wanted to disassociate themselves from communism and moved their Labor Day. This change probably was a result of McCarthyism, or perhaps just a general healthy anti-communism.
- Not true. Labor Day has always been observed in September. Funnyhat 19:03, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
- Well, McCarthyism per se was long after the 1920's, and the degree to which anti-communism is "healthy" is certainly open to debate.
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I found one web page claiming that the unusual date for Labour Day in the US and Canada stems from an early-September event in Canada that led to the repeal of a ban on unions, and that the US picked it up from there:
http://www.perf.bc.ca/cep1092/labday.htm
No idea if it's true or not, but there you go. -- Paul Drye
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It's pretty silly to have articles on both Labour Day and Labor Day. I think that they should be merged. --Taw
- They are different holidays that are celebrated on different days of the year. Besides "Labour Day" is not a holiday in the US (our holiday is "Labor Day"). --mav 18:15 May 2, 2003 (UTC)
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The only reason the U.S. government specifically chose May 1 for Loyalty Day is to attempt to forestall the celebration of Labor Day on that day. - Hephaestos 18:19 May 2, 2003 (UTC)
- But that is a defining characteristic of this holiday. Therefore that bit of info has no place in theintroductory paragraph. --mav
This is very confusing. As far as I know, Labour Day is a holiday in Semptember only celebrated by Americans. May Day is not celebrated over there. They are two different holidays, right? --BL
Further to BL's post...
In the UK, Labor Day refers only to the American holiday (we don't celebrate 'Labour Day'... the holiday described in the article would be called 'May Day' here. I don't know about other European/Commonwealth countries. Thus it seems odd to point 'Labor Day' to 'Labour Day' and not the other way around.
Also, have a great Labor Day Holiday! Mysteronald 23:11, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Does en.wikipedia.org have an offical policy on using American vs. British spelling or is it on an article by article basis?
At the very least we should make this article coherent in its usage: adopt one standard spelling when speaking of the holiday in general and use the specific spelling of the holiday on a country by country basis when speaking only of that particular country.
I suspect that the most reasonable approach would be to adopt the spelling "Labor Day" for the general holiday (since the vast majority of people on the planet who celebrate this holiday are American) and use the British/Canadian spelling for the Canadian holiday. And before anyone starts howling...I happen to be Canadian myself. --Peeter 17:09, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I think Labor day should direct to the US holiday, because that is the US spelling, not to this page. --SodiumBenzoate 02:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
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To those of us interesting in preserving our Canadian contributions to the North American "Labour/labor" day holiday, I am somewhat dismayed at the depth of American details in comparison to the Canadian history. In reality the holiday stems from grass roots labour movements in both contries, each movement leveraging momentum and precedence from each other: Canadian labour demonstrations starting in 1872, U.S demonstrations starting several years later, U.S. legistation established, Canadian legislation then follows. Why not write the article with a more even North American tone?
[edit] Split
UNtil this article has significantly more to it than it does now, I can see any reason for a split. That said, I think that an expansion and split is quite possible, but only once the metarial is there to justify it. Caerwine 14:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, it would really just make a bunch of stubs (or merely a redirect in the case of something like European Labour Day) so I'm going to remove the {{split}} tag for now. --Icelight 18:17, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
- It just seems odd that the other U.S. holidays have their own page, but not Labor Day. -Acjelen 16:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Three entries, two entries, one entry ?
May Day, Labor Day, Labour Day... I understand US Labour Day is specific (it's exactly like May Day, was instituted in remembrance of the 1886 Haymarket Riot, but is in September - well, doesn't matter that much, does it?), so maybe it should be kept a separate entry (in particular to keep the main Labor Day entry getting too big). But, what's the difference between May Day and Labor Day? In all European countries, to my knowledge, both are not only synonyms, but identicals! Let's merge both of them, and keep the US specific labor apart, what d'ya think boyz? Kaliz 02:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- No, the article should not be merged as they are not identical. Labor Day refers to a specific US holiday. May Day does not primarily refer to a holiday as such, but a date of international observance. May Day is celebrated all over the world, also in countries where its not a public holiday. --Soman 10:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
- Just after the above discussions, Labour Day was changed to redirect to May Day, but the content was not merged: the information in Labour Day was effectively deleted. I've reverted this. If you want to merge, then merge, but don't just turn a proper article into a redirect. Personally, I suggest that Labor Day and Labour Day should be merged, as they are two spellings for the same thing; the US-specific information in Labor Day would work just as well in the form of one more national section in what is now the Labour Day article, and some merging of US and Canadian information would be possible. (It doesn't matter which of the two spellings is used for the primary name.) But I think May Day should remain separate, since May Day exists (it may not be a holiday, but it exists) in countries with a separate Labo(u)r Day. -- 207.176.159.90 00:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
- Well lets merge all national holidays onto one page!!! -
Labour Day is a Canadian Holiday, Labor day is an American one - it makes no sense to put them on the same page!! It doesn't take much effort to click a link. But lets use Labour (CDN english spelling) - I know that people will try to force it to be the 'Americanized' version - which shows why each nation should have their own page. It doesn't cause much of a conflict.
I prefer 1 article as well. In Malaysia, we celebrate Labour Day on May 1 and it's an official public holiday here. We don't call it May Day nor do we celebrate the US Labor Day in September. Just FYI. - kris from Malaysia.
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- I added a merge tag. It does not make sense to split this article up into several stubs just because there are differences with how countries celebrate and spell basically the same holiday. The whole article needs work and by merging all these stubs and rewriting it in a clear and concise mannor these issues can be worked out. P.S. beacause Wikipedia is an American organization I'd argue to use the "Americanized" spelling with a note of how it is spelled in Canada or elsewhere. :PJoshua4 04:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Any single article on holidays supposedly about workers would have to be very vague. Besides the spelling, which after years of editing Wikipedia I don't consider superficial, the holidays have different days, moods, and purposes. What information would be gained from an article that had to smooth over both socialism and anti-socialism? I hope that the sections on individual countries can be expanded and split off, especially Canada (as it shares the U.S. date but obviously does not celebrate a U.S. federal holiday). -Acjelen 12:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with Acjelen. I think the article is headed in the right direction as it is now. It would be great if the Labor Day in the United States section had a summary blurb to go with the main article redirect, but growing each section and then splitting them when they get bigger is a common form in Wikipedia. I think it works well.--Bookandcoffee 14:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- Any single article on holidays supposedly about workers would have to be very vague. Besides the spelling, which after years of editing Wikipedia I don't consider superficial, the holidays have different days, moods, and purposes. What information would be gained from an article that had to smooth over both socialism and anti-socialism? I hope that the sections on individual countries can be expanded and split off, especially Canada (as it shares the U.S. date but obviously does not celebrate a U.S. federal holiday). -Acjelen 12:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
- I added a merge tag. It does not make sense to split this article up into several stubs just because there are differences with how countries celebrate and spell basically the same holiday. The whole article needs work and by merging all these stubs and rewriting it in a clear and concise mannor these issues can be worked out. P.S. beacause Wikipedia is an American organization I'd argue to use the "Americanized" spelling with a note of how it is spelled in Canada or elsewhere. :PJoshua4 04:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Germany and Labour Day
The section on Germany is not exactly NPOV, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Andjam 08:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Merge with May Day?
I think that while very related, they are often different (esp in Canada for example) so I would vote no merge j-beda 16:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
- I would vote no merge, as the date of Labour Day/Labor Day varies from country to country, and so do the styles of commemoration. For example, Labour Day, Western Samoa is August 7. Alpheus 04:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC) (moved from Three entries, two entries, one entry ? j-beda 17:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC))
