# What do conservatives celebrate on Labor Day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 5, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107 "2016-09-05T17:09:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/41 "2016-09-06T21:29:52Z")
Oh, and there are lots of industrial companies that do not close for holidays. Many businesses that operate on a 24 hour day, 7 days a week, with shifts can’t shut down because it is too costly. Think refineries, chemical plants, glass manufacturers, etc. That’s part of the job. If your shift works on that holiday, normally you would get paid time and a half for working the holiday, and you could take the holiday time off as another vacation day later on. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/42 "2016-09-06T21:31:48Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > OP go back and read your definition of Labor Day, it has nothing to do with unions. You are just wrong. From my cite: > [@](#): > > Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, trade unionists proposed that a day be set aside to celebrate labor. “Labor Day” was promoted by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first parade in New York City. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/43 "2016-09-06T21:32:16Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > OP go back and read your definition of Labor Day, it has nothing to do with unions. Eh? Granted as we discussed above it isn’t usually celebrated as ‘Union Day’ anymore, as unions are largely going the way of the dodo as far as most non-public sector Americans are concerned. But that _is_ precisely why it was created - at the behest of and in celebration of the labor movement. And in the U.S. the labor movement _traditionally_ = unions. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/44 "2016-09-06T22:23:39Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Sure - but you stated that blue collar doesn’t get the day off. Factories & construction are going to be closed on Labor Day - and those are a ton of blue collar jobs. And they are usually union jobs, or at least in industries strongly represented by a union, which was my point that the union guys are the only blue collar workers that get the day off. Which makes sense, as the unions were the ones that brought it about. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/45 "2016-09-06T23:01:38Z")
IME, most people don’t focus on the specifics of the holiday - be it Presidents Day, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. They just focus on the BBQ, the day off, sleeping in. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/46 "2016-09-06T23:03:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And they are usually union jobs, or at least in industries strongly represented by a union, which was my point that the union guys are the only blue collar workers that get the day off. > > Which makes sense, as the unions were the ones that brought it about. The blue-collar workers in my factory are going to be surprised by your revelations. They got Labor Day off like they do every year and they are not unionized. It is as blue-collar, shift work as it gets and we wouldn’t think of making them work on official holidays. They get tons of other benefits as well including a very generous retirement plan, cheap health insurance, paid college tuition and floating holidays that they can use as they see fit among many other things including very expensive appreciation gifts for doing a good job. You don’t have to have a union to be treated well even in the bluest collar of settings. I am not one of the blue-collar workers but I have been forced to take time off even when it caused a major project delay just because my managers know that family comes before work both for themselves and everyone under them. The same idea applies to everyone. The people that work on holidays or other off-schedule times are all volunteers and well-compensated for it. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/47 "2016-09-07T00:03:14Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > And they are usually union jobs, or at least in industries strongly represented by a union, which was my point that the union guys are the only blue collar workers that get the day off. > > Which makes sense, as the unions were the ones that brought it about. Edit: responded to wrong post. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/48 "2016-09-07T00:05:09Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > IME, most people don’t focus on the specifics of the holiday - be it Presidents Day, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. > > They just focus on the BBQ, the day off, sleeping in. I was watching Chicago news yesterday, and there was a segment on a Labor Day parade, in Naperville, i think. They spoke with several attendees, asking how they were enjoying the parade, what brought them out, that type of thing. All of them mentioned they were supporting “the troops" or cops or firefighters. It seemed odd. I don’t think many know what Labor Day actually is, or at least was. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/49 "2016-09-07T00:05:43Z")
They show off their huge boats. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/50 "2016-09-07T00:21:13Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > IME, most people don’t focus on the specifics of the holiday - be it Presidents Day, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. > > They just focus on the BBQ, the day off, sleeping in. Yup. Holidays are dumb. But I’ll take the paid day off, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/51 "2016-09-08T01:40:18Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > I think they give two fiddler’s fucks about unions, which they wish would take a flying leap into the nearest quarry. Am I wrong? Which unions? The ones that originated to give workers more power so that wages matched the work being done? The mob controlled unions that put the strong arm on legitimate business men and women? The local union which forces business to hire injured workers for insane wages to do trivial jobs?\* Like everything else in life, unions can be either good or bad. I built a casino I.T. system. The server room was on the second floor. There was a freight elevator to get large items to the second floor. The elevator had four buttons, 1, 2, open and close. The first day on the job we went to use the elevator and attempted to press a button. A union guy was sitting in a chair with a book. He got all pissed because it was his job to push the buttons. I talked to him about the job, he was an electrician and had one of those nonspecific back problems that the docs could never figure out. So he became an elevator operator. He made about 90,000 a year to push the buttons. Since the elevator was rarely used after the first week or so, he sat and read. It was a giant waste of money but the union had it’s rules. The same union guys did the low voltage cabling. They used 4 or 5 different naming conventions on the panels. It was a giant mess. We tried to get different electricians in but the union wouldn’t go for it. It took about three years to get that mess cleaned up. Some if the union guys rocked but the ones that sucked couldn’t be fired so a shitload of work had to be redone. The casino engineering department hated the union guys because they had to clean up ton of work, like none of the electrical work being tied down right. That little problem almost pushed back the opening because the inspection failed. So the non-union casino engineers had to go redo half the work. Nothing in my experience points to any advantage for using union labor. Unless of course you are a member of a union. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/52 "2016-09-12T00:33:08Z")
What do the Dopers who bitch about excessive adulation of the military celebrate on Memorial Day? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/53 "2016-09-12T05:08:09Z")
Memorial Day is not for celebration. It is a commemoration. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/54 "2016-09-12T10:08:36Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > What do the Dopers who bitch about excessive adulation of the military celebrate on Memorial Day? This again: > [@Ruken](#): > > Holidays are dumb. But I’ll take the paid day off, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/55 "2016-09-12T14:14:15Z")
> [@](#): > > The modern conservative movement is doing its best to weaken unions, and the percentage of jobs represented by unions are at the lowest in 76 years. Standard caveat of me not being a conservative (except here on the 'dope)…but what’s that got to do with celebrating the labor movement? Even if one doesn’t think that unions are necessary today that doesn’t mean that they never were. There was certainly a time in the US and throughout the world where they were VERY necessary and had a tremendous impact. > [@](#): > > So what are conservatives celebrating today? Their victory over labor? The end of summer? The return of heavy, dark clothing? Does Labor Day have any significance at all to conservatives? I doubt most people whether conservative, moderate or liberal or something else really know what Labor Day is actually representing. It’s just a holiday, just like Memorial Day. So, they are celebrating a day off, as others have noted. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/56 "2016-09-12T14:17:32Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I doubt most people whether conservative, moderate or liberal or something else really know what Labor Day is actually representing. It’s just a holiday, just like Memorial Day. So, they are celebrating a day off, as others have noted. So why are either one still holidays if they no longer have any cultural significance? Should government be in the business of mandating days off for no reason? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/57 "2016-09-12T14:21:10Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > So why are either one still holidays if they no longer have any cultural significance? Should government be in the business of mandating days off for no reason? People like having holidays, and in the US at least we get few enough of them as it is. I think you’d have a riot on your hands if you tried to remove more (as it is, not all businesses honor all federal holidays). The government doesn’t mandate them btw, they just say which days THEY are honoring. Personally, I think Labor Day is one we should keep, regardless, because I think the labor movement was an important part of US history…and, as everyone works and as much of what the Labor Movement did and achieved impacts people today it’s good to memorialize, even if most people have forgotten why we even have the holiday. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/58 "2016-09-12T16:16:51Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > What do the Dopers who bitch about excessive adulation of the military celebrate on Memorial Day? I can’t speak for the rest of them, but sleeping in is always cause for celebration. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2016, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/59 "2016-09-12T16:19:59Z")
They celebrate what they do for every other holiday: _The Troops!_ ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107/60 "2016-09-14T15:59:10Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > OP go back and read your definition of Labor Day, it has nothing to do with unions. This statement could not be more wrong. It is so wrong there no rightness. Amongst wrong statements, there is none more wronger than this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-conservatives-celebrate-on-labor-day/765107.md?page=4)