Today (Monday Sep 3) it is Labor Day in the US and it is also Labour Day in Canada. Note the different spelling. In both countries the Day is always held on the first Monday in September.

In the Cayman Islands we don’t have any equivalent. There is no celebration of our workers. This is probably due to there being no Trade Union here, despite a number of attempts to organise one.

The majority of countries celebrate Labour/Labor Day on May 1st. Throughout the ages the US likes to be different! However, there would appear to be a reasonable reason for their chosen date.

From Wikipedia:
According to one early history of Labor Day, the event originated in connection with a General Assembly of the Knights of Labor convened in New York City in September 1882. In connection with this clandestine Knights assembly, a public parade of various labor organizations was held on September 5 under the auspices of the Central Labor Union (CLU) of New York. Secretary of the CLU Matthew Maguire is credited for first proposing that a national Labor Day holiday subsequently be held on the first Monday of each September in the aftermath of this successful public demonstration.

P. J. McGuire, Vice President of the American Federation of Labor, is frequently credited as the father of Labor Day in the United States.

An alternative thesis is maintained that the idea of Labor Day was the brainchild of Peter J. McGuire, a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, who put forward the initial proposal in the spring of 1882. According to McGuire, on May 8, 1882, he made a proposition to the fledgling Central Labor Union in New York City that a day be set aside for a “general holiday for the laboring classes”. According to McGuire he further recommended that the event should begin with a street parade as a public demonstration of organized labor’s solidarity and strength, with the march followed by a picnic, to which participating local unions could sell tickets as a fundraiser. According to McGuire he suggested the first Monday in September as an ideal date for such a public celebration, owing to optimum weather and the date’s place on the calendar, sitting midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving public holidays.

Labor Day picnics and other public gatherings frequently featured speeches by prominent labor leaders.[citation needed]

In 1909 the American Federation of Labor convention designated the Sunday preceding Labor Day as “Labor Sunday”, to be dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement. This secondary date failed to gain significant traction in popular culture.

Legal recognition
In 1887 Oregon became the first state of the United States to make Labor Day an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty U.S. states officially celebrated Labor Day.[2] All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the United States territories have subsequently made Labor Day a statutory holiday.

The date of May 1 (an ancient European folk holiday known as May Day) emerged in 1886 as an alternative holiday for the celebration of labor, later becoming known as International Workers’ Day. The date had its origins at the 1885 convention of the American Federation of Labor, which passed a resolution calling for adoption of the eight-hour day effective May 1, 1886. While negotiation was envisioned for achievement of the shortened work day, use of the strike to enforce this demand was recognized, with May 1 advocated as a date for coordinated strike action. The proximity of the date to the bloody Haymarket affair of May 4, 1886, further accentuated May First’s radical reputation.

There was disagreement among labor unions at this time about when a holiday celebrating workers should be, with some advocating for continued emphasis of the September march-and-picnic date while others sought the designation of the more politically-charged date of May 1. Conservative Democratic President Grover Cleveland was one of those concerned that a labor holiday on May 1 would tend to become a commemoration of the Haymarket Affair and would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements that backed the May 1 commemoration around the globe. In 1887, he publicly supported the September Labor Day holiday as a less inflammatory alternative. The date was formally adopted as a United States federal holiday in 1894.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day

Even though we don’t have a Labour Union and neither am I pushing for one, I still believe we should celebrate every one of our workers. As far as I am concerned we are all heroes so I will use our National Heroes Day to celebrate ME (and you, too)!