Let me say this about that
...Labor Day #121
(From Page 2)
The Northwest Labor Press is one of the oldest still-publishing labor news-
papers in the United States. It prints more issues and reaches more readers than
any labor newspaper west of the Mississippi
River. The Labor Press has won dozens of jour-
nalistic awards from the International Labor
Communications Association and its predeces-
sor, the International Labor Press Association.
This is the only labor newspaper to win an
award from the American Political Science As-
sociation. That plaque was given for an expose’
of corruption in the Multnomah County Coro-
ner’s Office which resulted in the election of a
reform candidate and legislative abolishment of
the office with its duties given to the State Med-
ical Examiner’s Office.
THE LONGEST-SERVING editor of the
Labor Press was Clarence Mortimer Rynerson,
a printer-editor who was a member of Mult-
nomah Typographical Union No. 58. He ran the CLARENCE RYNERSON
Labor Press as editor and manager from 1914 to
1939 when Governor Charles Sprague appointed
him to the Oregon Industrial Accident Commission, later known as the State
Workers’ Compensation Board. Rynerson kept the Labor Press afloat through
the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The Labor Press is on file in the libraries of a number of colleges and univer-
sities, including Harvard in Massachusetts.
OREGON DESIGNATED the first state Labor Day in 1887 and celebrated
it that year on the first Saturday in June. So, this 2007 Labor Day, on Monday,
Sept. 3, will be the Beaver State’s 121st observance of an official holiday honor-
ing workers and their contributions to the betterment of our nation and its people.
The Oregon Legislature, in session in Salem, passed legislation in February
1887 which proclaimed the first Saturday in June as Labor Day. Democratic-
People’s Party Governor Sylvester Pennoyer signed the legislation into law.
LABOR UNIONS in New York City started staging Labor Day parades in
early September in 1882 but those were unofficial observances because New
York State did not officially designate a Labor Day holiday until after Oregon did
so.
By 1893, 31 states had followed Oregon in passing a Labor Day holiday law.
Most selected the first Monday in September as the date for their Labor Day. In
the interests of interstate uniformity, the Oregon Legislature in 1893 changed its
Labor Day date to September’s first Monday.
THE NEXT YEAR, in 1894, Congress proclaimed the first Monday in Sept-
ember as a Labor Day national holiday and Democratic President Grover Cleve-
land signed the legislation into the law of the land stretching from the Atlantic
Coast to the Pacific Coast. Canada passed a first Monday in September Labor
Day law the same year. In 1889, some European nations designated May 1 as
their Labor Day, and that date came to be known as May Day.
As was pointed out in the history of the Labor Press, the Tory-minded Ore-
gonian newspaper sneered at the idea of a Labor Day holiday when the Oregon
Legislature was considering it in 1887, saying, “This is the cheapest and shabbi-
est measure of the Legislature up to this date.”
IN 1916, an anti-union Portland School Board also sneered at the idea of a
holiday to honor the contributions made to public life by working people. The
School Board scheduled the first day of the fall term to begin on the first Monday
in September. The outraged Portland Federated Trades Assembly, the central la-
bor council of that era, urged union families to keep their children out of school
on Labor Day. The School Board got the message and learned the meaning of
the word “boycott.”
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As b e st o s
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Wi s h es
E ve r y o ne a
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LA B O R D A Y!
Gene Pronovost, Union President & International Vice President
Jeff McDonald, Secretary-Treasurer
The Office and Staff of the
United Food and Commercial
Workers Union Local 555 extend
our wishes for a safe and fun
Labor Day in 2007!
UFCW Local 555
7095 SW Sandburg Street
P.O. Box 23555
Tigard, OR 97281-3555
AUGUST 17, 2007
phone: 503-684-2822
or 1-800-452-UFCW
fax: 503-620-3816
website: ufcw555.com
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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