Labor Day

The national holiday of Labor Day was established by an act of Congress, and signed by President Grover Cleveland, in 1894, although the tradition of honoring labor in September actually began more than a decade earlier in New York City. Strong unions can help keep America's middle class grow by achieving good wages and benefits for workers, and this in turn can help other workers by setting wage and other standards in employment. An increasing percentage of the national income has been going to the richest people in country, a fact even admitted to by none other than Alan Greenspan, a conservative, pro-business, Republican, who warned the gap was growing so much, it's continuance could literally threaten capitalism. Support unions folks! You don't have to agree with them 100% of the time, but they'll be on your side far more than the wealthiest 1% will ever be.

WORD HISTORY:
Summer-This goes back to Indo European "sem," which meant "part of a year, a season, year." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "sumara," which had narrowed the meaning to the particular season of the year, "summer." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "sumor," which then became "sumer," before the modern version. The verb form, meaning "to spend summer in a particular area," was derived from the noun. Common in the other Germanic languages: German and Low German have "Sommer," West Frisian has "simmer," Dutch has "zomer," Icelandic has "sumar," Danish and Norwegian have "sommer," Swedish has "sommar."