Labor Day: closings, facts and numbers

Labor Day is a federal and state holiday in New York.

Closed for Labor Day:

• government offices, including Riverhead Town Hall
• courts
• the U.S. post office (no mail delivery)
• schools
• Riverhead Free Library
• banks
• N.Y. Stock Exchange

There will be no garbage collection today. The rest of the week remains on its regular schedule.

The LIRR is operating on a Sunday/holiday schedule. That means there is one train from Riverhead to New York, leaving at 1:59 p.m. and two trains from New York, leaving Penn Station at 9:12 a.m. (arrives in Riverhead 11:22 a.m.) and 2:12 p.m., (arrives in Riverhead 4:22 p.m.).

The Suffolk County Transit S92 (Orient to East Hampton) and 10C (East Hampton buses are running today. There is no service on all other Suffolk Transit bus lines today.

Labor today
While Labor Day, marked each year on the first Monday in September, signifies the “end of summer” and the beginning of the back-to-school season, it’s officially a day set aside to honor American workers. There are 157 million of us in the country today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The largest occupations in the U.S. (2014) are:

• retail salespeople, 4,562,160
• cashiers, 3,398,330
• food preparation and service workers, including fast-food workers, 3,131,390
• office clerks, 2,889,970
• registered nurses, 2,687,310
• customer service representatives, 2,511,130
• waiters and waitresses, 2,445,230
• laborers and freight, 2,400,490
• secretaries and administrative assistants 2,207,220
• janitors, 2,137,730

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Labor by the numbers

580,800: The number of  personal care aide jobs expected to be added between 2012 and 2022. It’s the occupation projected to add the greatest number of positions in the U.S. economy, as the Baby Boomer generation grows elderly and needs care. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)

8 percent: The decline in real median household income since 2007, when the market crashed, triggering “the Great Recession.”(U.S. Census Bureau)

$51,939: U.S. median household income. (U.S. Census Bureau)

$65,609: Riverhead Town median household income. (U.S. Census Bureau)

$50,033: real median earnings for male full-time, year-round workers in the U.S. in 2013.  (U.S. Census Bureau)

$39,157: real median earnings for female full-time, year-round workers in the U.S. in 2013.  (U.S. Census Bureau)

60.8 percent:  adults (16 & over) in the civilian labor force in Riverhead. (U.S. Census Bureau)

10.6 percent: persons living in poverty in Riverhead Town. (U.S. Census Bureau)

26.1 minutes: the average commute of Riverhead workers,  slightly higher than the 25.5-minute average commute nationally.

14.6 million: the number of U.S. workers who are members of labor unions today, just 11.1 percent — an all-time low.  (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) New York has the highest union membership rates of any state in the U.S. (24.6 percent) while North Carolina has the lowest rate (1.9 percent).

Why do we celebrate Labor Day?

The holiday grew out of the early days of the American labor movement at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the the late 19th century. It was a time when the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks, when young children worked in factories, mills and mines, when people often worked in very unsafe working conditions. Labor unions were becoming more vocal and more powerful. They began organizing strikes and protest rallies, demanding better working conditions and the right to collectively negotiate wages and hours.

Labor Day was first celebrated on on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882 in New York City, with a parade and a massive picnic organized by the Central Labor Union. New York, New Jersey and Colorado were among the first states to declare a Labor Day holiday.

Labor Day did not become a federal holiday until 1894, following the Pullman strike and nationwide railway boycott in May of that year, which crippled railroad traffic. When the federal government sent troops to Chicago to break the strike, it touched off riots that resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen workers.

Against this backdrop of massive unrest, Congress, hoping to improve relations with American workers and unions, passed legislation making Labor Day a federal legal holiday. At that point 23 states had already done the same.

Today, the Labor Day holiday is one of the most important days of the year for retailers, second only to “Black Friday.”