PD Editorial: Labor Day

<p>In those quaint times before the era of permanent campaigning, Labor Day marked the start of the political season.</p><p>So perhaps it's fitting that there's some conflict over the genesis of the holiday.</p><p>According to a history compiled by the U.S. Labor Department, some people say credit belongs to Peter J. McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor. Others believe credit should go to Matthew Maguire, a machinist who served as secretary of New York's Central Labor Union.</p><p>Whether it was McGuire or Maguire, Labor Day was first observed on a Tuesday, 128 years ago in New York City.</p><p>Labor Day was celebrated on a Monday for the first time in 1884. Three years later, Oregon became the first state to establish the holiday, soon followed by Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Congressional recognition came in 1894, a few days after President Grover Cleveland used troops to break a strike that started at the Pullman railroad car company before it spread to the nation's railroads and became violent.</p><p>The conciliatory gesture wasn't enough to get Cleveland re-elected two years later, but Labor Day endures as an American tradition.</p><p>Capping a three-day weekend, it's treated as the end of summer, an opportunity for a final getaway before a school year that in many places now gets a jump start on the holiday. And, as it often does, this Labor Day weekend marked the start of the high school and college football seasons, as sure a sign of the transition from summer to fall as the appearance of red and yellow leaves on the oak trees around Sonoma County and the faster pace of the harvest in area vineyards.</p><p>This year, however, the celebration of American workers is clouded by that fact that millions of people are out of work and more are working part-time. The latest U.S. unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, and it has been above 6 percent since July 2008. California's rate is higher still, 12.3 percent, with Sonoma County in between at 10.8 percent.</p><p>It's not yet clear what will lead the economic recovery. Many are counting on green technology, and California's Employment Development Department reported Friday that 433,000 people, 3.4 percent of the state's workforce, fits into that category.</p><p>Whether green tech or some other innovation leads the way, the U.S. economy will bounce back, and much of the credit will deservedly go to entrepreneurs who create new jobs. But credit also will belong to resilient American workers seeking to support themselves and their families.</p>