Labor Day

The Labor Day weekend for most native-born Americans will be another three day weekend with a trip to the beach or a back-yard barbeque. The first Monday in September, the holiday was effected to commemorate the new law requiring employers to stay within a 40 hour work week and observe general safety rules, instead of the sweatshop hours, which were usually 60 hours per week and included dreadful health conditions and emotional harassment.

By now, the standard of living in the country is sufficiently changed so that the holiday has little meaning, except that traffic will be horrible on the roads leading to the beaches. For others, more recent and illegal immigrants, the day takes on a more bittersweet taste as many of them still work in primitive conditions and under the threat of reprisal, such as being turned into the INS and deported. Many of these people do not have a legal residence and will not even have the day off from work, despite the obvious irony of this situation.

Due to the unfair distribution of labor and residency benefits, a new movement called the National Immigrant Solidarity Network has formed with the purpose of trying to bring the same workers’ rights to new immigrants that the older generations of laborers now enjoy. Many such branches of this network will thus be very busy this Labor Day weekend, organizing protests and events for immigrant rights in cities throughout the U.S. They have also instituted their own Labor Day, May 1 which is not festive, but a time for promoting their cause.

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This chapter was taken out of the Immigration Bible by Zila Katz and Esq.Dotan Cohen, Adv. Get your copy today

See you in our next edition,

Tom Wright
Editor in Chief
GCUS PRESS