The origins of Labor Day date back to the late 19th century, when activists first sought to establish a day that would pay tribute to workers.
Canada’s Labour Day became official that same year, more than two decades after trade unions were legalized in the country, following the first parades of workers held in Ottawa and Toronto, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. A broader push from organized labor had been in the works for some time. Workers demanded an 8-hour workday in 1886 during the deadly Haymarket Affair in Chicago, notes George Villanueva, an associate professor of communication and journalism at Texas A&M University. In commemoration of that clash, May Day was established as a larger international holiday that helped “build worker class consciousness” around much of the world, he said.
New York and Chicago, for example, hold parades featuring thousands of workers and their unions. But such festivities aren’t practiced as much in regions where unionization has historically eroded, Vachon said, or didn’t take a strong hold in the first place.