Labor Day 2016: closings, facts and stats

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 municipal garbage collection today. The rest of the week remains on its regular schedule.

The LIRR is operating on a Sunday/holiday schedule. Trains to Penn Station leave Riverhead at 1:50 and 6:50 p.m.

The Suffolk County Transit S92 (Orient to East Hampton) and 10C (East Hampton buses are running today. The S47 will operate on a summer holiday schedule. 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 were 158.5 million workers (age 16 and over) in the U.S. today (as of May 2016), according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That number represents an increase of  9.9 percent —1.5 million people — over 2014.

The largest occupations in the U.S. (2015) are:

• retail salespeople, 4,612,510
• cashiers, 3,478,420
• food preparation and service workers, including fast-food workers, 3,216,460
• office clerks, 2,944,420
• registered nurses, 2,745,910
• customer service representatives, 2,585,990
• waiters and waitresses, 2,505,630
• laborers and freight, 2,487,680
• secretaries and administrative assistants 2,281,120
• janitors, 2,146,880

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Labor by the numbers

16 million: the number of wage and salary workers age 16 and over represented by a labor union in 2015. This group included both union members (14.8 million) and workers who reported no union affiliation but whose jobs were covered by a union contract (1.6 million). Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership rate (24.7 percent), and South Carolina had the lowest rate (2.1 percent). (U.S. Census Bureau)

$50,383 and $39,621: The 2014 real median earnings for male and female full-time, year-round workers, respectively. (U.S. Census Bureau)

$53, 657:  the 2014 median household income in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau)

$88,323: the 2014 median household income in Suffolk County (U.S. Census Bureau)

$68,422: the 2014 median household income in Riverhead Town (U.S. Census Bureau)

458,100: the number of  personal care aide jobs expected to be added between 2014 and 2024. 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)

88 percent: the percentage of full-time year-round workers age 18 to 64 covered by health insurance in 2014. (U.S. Census Bureau)

4.5 percent: The percentage of workers age 16 and over who worked at home in 2014.

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

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

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

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.”