Thanks to all our supporters who joined the Charlotte Labor Day Parade organized by the Labor Day Committee with the Southern Piedmont Central Labor Council and other local labor unions. I honor the accomplishments of labor in our community and country and am pleased to have the Charlotte-Metrolina Labor Council's endorsement.

The U.S. Dept. of Labor reports that Labor Day is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.  President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday on June 28, 1894.

Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882 in New York City. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing Labor Day in 1887. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday.

American labor has raised our nation’s standard of living and brought us closer to the realization of our ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate that we pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.