Episode 153: The Labor of a Lifetime | Unity Spiritual Center Denver | 9.1.24

Unity Spiritual Center Denver

Labor Day is held the first Monday every September. Unlike most U.S. holidays, it is a somewhat odd celebration without rituals, except for shopping and barbecuing.

For most people it simply marks the last weekend of summer and the start of the school year. The holiday’s founders in the late 1800s envisioned something very different.

They were looking for two things: a means of unifying union workers and a reduction in work time. The first Labor Day occurred in 1882 in New York City under the direction of that city’s Central Labor Union. Another view is that Labor Day came about because workers felt they were spending too many hours and days on the job.

In the1830s, manufacturing workers were putting in 70-hour weeks on average.

Sixty years later, in 1890, hours of work had dropped, although the average manufacturing worker still toiled in a factory 60 hours a week. These long working hours caused many union organizers to focus on winning a shorter-eight hour work day.

They also focused on getting workers more days off, such as the Labor Day holiday, and reducing the workweek to just six days.

"Your greatest work will be done in your own God-appointed channel. If you will let Spirit possess you wholly, if you will have the highest will done in you and through you, you will be moved out of your present limitations into a manifestation as much fuller and more perfect and beautiful as is the new grain than the old seed, which had to fall into the ground and die." - EmilieCady, Lessons in Truth