Labor Day

Anarchist Riot in Chicago - Dynamite Bomb Explodes Among Police.

Wikipedia has a page, naturally. Here are some excerpts:

After the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago on May 4, 1886, U.S. President Grover Cleveland feared that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the affair. Therefore, in 1887, the United States holiday was established in September to support the Labor Day that the Knights favored.^[1]
. . .
Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday on February 21, 1887. 

 . . .

To take advantage of large numbers of potential customers free to shop, Labor Day has become an important sale weekend for many retailers in the United States. Some retailers claim it is one of the largest sale dates of the year, second only to the Christmas season's Black Friday.^[8]Ironically, because of the importance of the sale weekend, some of those who are employed in the retail sector not only work on Labor Day, but work longer hours. More Americans work in the retail industry than any other, with retail employment making up 24% of all jobs in the United States.^[9] As of 2012, only 3% of those employed in the retail sector were members of a labor union.^[9]

One out of every four workers works in retail? I wonder if that includes fast food restaurants. When I go to McDonald's there will be a dozen people, easy, working there. Go to Target and they might have 2 dozen people all told, including a dozen checkers, and a Target store is easily 10 times as big as a McDonald's.

Update 9-9-15: I went to Costco yesterday to pick up a few things, thinking it was virtual Monday, everyone would be back at work and the place would be nice and quiet. Nuh-uh. Jammed like Christmas, perhaps because they were closed on Monday? If you poke hard enough you eventually find that they were. You'd think if you Googled for hours that would show up, especially if it was one of their Holidays, but nuh-uh:

Inspired by Roberta X.