Ask Lemmy

I motion that we postpone this discussion until after the upcoming US Labor Day has passed.

I get where this comes from (look up why USA and Canada celebrate Labor Day rather than International Worker's Day) but it's just symbolism, a frivolous issue. Pushing frivolous issues reinforces one of the negative perceptions of the American left common among both centrist Americans and international leftists. People want healthcare, vacation days, material improvements. Not a debate over when a national holiday is.

Why not have two holidays? ‘Labor day’ like we do now on the first Monday in September AND ‘Labour day’ on May 1 like the rest of the world. Workers deserve at least two holidays dedicated to them.

That leaves a huge gap in holidays between July 4th and Thanksgiving. No thanks.

As a warehouse worker in the US, I say it doesn't matter since Labor Day has gradually become "Work normal hours but earn 1.5x pay for it day".

No, just like soccer is not called football here. Sometimes things are different in other places.

No, that's too close to Memorial Day. And without Labor Day being in September the gap between July 4th and Thanksgiving is too wide to not have a holiday where the majority of workers get time off from work

like the rest of the world?

I am a confused Canadian

May 1st is too early in the year to stop wearing white.

Particularly since outdoor fuckin' starts on the First of May.

I don't rrally care when or if we have labor day as an official holiday. Seems like a pointless token gesture, considering the lack of labor rights and protections in the US.

Nope. But we should make Worker's Day a federal holiday on May 1st

Yes but keep the September day as another holiday for workers. Maybe one to celebrate living workers and one for those who died to get us worker protections, like we have Veterans Day and Memorial Day both.

No, we don’t know why this date was chosen and don’t much care. Memorial Day is the symbolic start of summer fun and Labor Day is the symbolic end. It’s a great bookmark for kids summer vacation (even if many schools start earlier now) for anyone with a cottage, or even scheduling a vacation.

Having a holiday as the “last hurrah” of summer is more important than which date it falls on. Plus we get all the conservatives on our side by saying May 1 is not ‘murican, it’s international, even commie

Edit: I never knew May 1 had an American origin, nor that the first Monday in September was chosen for convenient timing of holidays

Why does it matter when different countries have different holidays?

I prefer it on a Monday so that I get a long weekend. If it's a specific date all of the time, then if get a random day off in the middle of the week instead which I don't care about. I always prefer to extend my weekend instead.

I actually really dislike that Thanksgiving in the US is always on Thursday. It means I can't travel very far to see family because I always work the day immediately before and after Thanksgiving. So I just have a random day off in the middle of the week.

We should add May 1st as an additional federal holiday to celebrate labor. We have too many holidays dedicated to the feds celebrating themselves. Surely we can drop at least one to celebrate workers more than we currently do.

No. The world shouldn't be one homogeneous blob.

Why not two Labor Days? The whole point is the day off, after all, so the more the merrier.

While we're at it, can we change the name to "No Labor Day?" 🤔

Always seemed weird to me that it's one of the few days you get a day off, but it's named like it's the only day labor is done.

Sure, as long as you put another holiday in its place. I like having Memorial Day to start the summer and Labor Day to end it.

Would you rather have a day off before working all summer, or a day off after working all summer.

I'd rather have it after.

To all the confused former British colonies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day#/media/File:Observance_of_International_Workers'_Day_RGBY.svg

Edit: Anyone know what's from with the formatting and that the link doesn't read the whole URL?

No, because that would be letting the commies win. /s

Labor Day and solidarity with workers in other countries sounds like a good match.

No.

My birthday is around labor day, so that means once every six or seven years, it gets to fall on labor day.