The History of Labour Day

St Lawrence Starch Company Picnic

Labour Day long weekend is behind us once again – the unofficial end of summer and the traditional start of a new school year. For many of us, it is a recreational holiday and one last taste of summer. But its origins have more of a focus on worker’s rights in the industrial working world over 150 years ago. 

Did you know that Labour Day has been a statutory holiday in Canada since 1894? The establishment of a Labour Day (labourer’s day or worker’s holiday) was the result of many years of worker’s trying to pressure for better working conditions and shorter working hours. 

But it was a long road to get there. Many point to the Nine Hour Movement in 1872; the Movement’s goal was to standardize shorter working days. Though unsuccessful, the Movement did have an impact, including setting the foundation for the Canadian Labor Union in 1873. Although the Union collapsed by 1878, it passed several resolutions in support of universal manhood suffrage, direct labour representation in parliament, the establishment of a labour department, shorter working hours, workers’ rights, the abolishment of child labour, and the creation of a worker’s holiday. The Union also had a spinoff effect with the proliferation of other trade unions and worker’s organizations. 

Workers from the Nightingale Brickyard in Port Credit, 1902

Around the same time labour interests in the United States were also agitating for a “worker’s celebration” on the first Monday in September, and Canadian unions began to do the same. As a drive towards a standardized workday and a worker’s holiday gained momentum, so did the nature of activities around a worker’s recreational day. Prior to the creation of a formal national holiday, local gatherings (sometimes on the last Saturday of August) included “parades, speeches, games, amateur competitions and picnics.” Gatherings began locally and sporadically at first, with worker’s gatherings in Toronto (1882); Hamilton (1883); Montreal (1886); St. Catharines (1887); Halifax (1888); Ottawa (1890); and London (1892). Industrial entities here in historic Mississauga would not have been exempt from workers’ demands. Hannah Clegg’s 1875 “tea strike” at the Toronto Woollen Mills near Streetsville, and the establishment of the Nightingale brickyard and St. Lawrence Starch Company in Port Credit in 1889, would not have been immune to the evolving industrial workforce.  

With mounting pressures across the country from unions, the Federal Government instituted that truly Canadian institution (and occasional delay tactic) and established a Royal Commission on the Relations of Labour and Capital in Canada from 1886 to 1889. The Commission ultimately recommended that the Federal Government establish a “labour day” holiday. 

In March and April of 1894 some 53 labour unions and organization across the country petitioned government. In May of 1894 the House of Commons debated the issue and passed a motion to amend the statutory holiday law. It received Royal Assent on July 23, 1894, establishing the first Monday of September as a statutory national holiday – with the first official Labour Day holiday taking place on September 3, 1894. 

Initially the day was marked by organized activities, games, picnics, rallies and speeches. Locally worker’s families often organized excursions to fairgrounds, Toronto island, and to Eldorado Park along the Toronto Suburban Railway. 

St. Lawrence Starch Workers, c1900

For most of us today, Labour Day is a day of leisure and the last hurrah of summer vacations, but it is always fascinating to look back at the roots of the movement that created the holiday and a standardized workday – and to understand the meaning behind the day.