According to the Department of Labor, the first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
Even though New York was the first state to celebrate Labor Day, Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing it as a holiday on Feb. 21, 1887. During 1887, four more states – Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York – passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit. On June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act and President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year the legal holiday.
The history of the holiday is centered around giving workers a break so we find it ironic this year that as we head into the holiday most businesses don’t have enough help to keep a regular schedule let alone worry about another vacation day.
Just Wednesday the Journal-Tribune ran a story about Marysville Schools needing bus drivers and there are plenty of restaurants as well as local industries that have been treading water since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The question is, how does this story end?
Do you just wait out the pandemic? Does it mean more people need to locate here to live, or do we just need the people who live here to get back to work?
As we celebrate the 140th Labor Day, stay tuned to the worker shortage situation that we think will continue at least the rest of this year and perhaps over the next few years.
Hopefully, as the Marysville area continues to expand, the problem will ease locally.