Give workers a day off on Labor Day

Let’s dispense with history lessons and focus on the here and now. Are you scheduled and expected to work on Monday, Sept. 2? If so, will you receive bonus pay for it?

Too many of us will answer ‘yes’ and then ‘no.’ In part this is because the United States is the only one of 38 member-countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development not to require paid leave of any kind.

In a 2007 policy report, researchers Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt conclude that “the United States is in a class of its own with respect to statutory guarantees of paid time off: it is the no-vacation nation.”

Most employers offer some amount of paid holiday, sick and personal leave. Indeed, media coverage on the subject tends relentlessly to emphasize this fact. Ray and Schmitt observed, however, that “one in four U.S. workers has no paid leave or public holidays at all.”

What’s more, the lower the wage, the higher the ratio. That means the less money we make, the less chance we have any paid time off.

We need to reclaim Labor Day for workers in the United States the same way that we established it: with pressure from below.

Our view* is that every American patriot should engage in retail and service boycotts on Labor Day. Unless a life depends on it, nothing we do should justify people being made to work on the one and only holiday in this country dedicated to working people.

Many working people will be required to show up on Labor Day. But what if they had a really easy day of it, and sales didn’t justify staying open for Labor Day the following year?

What if?

* Published without byline in three newspapers in an opinion section called "Our view"