On September 4, 1910, Labor organizer Samuel Gompers penned a piece in the New York Times on the significance of Labor Day. Here is a link to the NYT archival record, but there is actually cleaner reading version to be found here.

Just a few quotes that seem particularly pertinent to our current situation:

• “Among all the festive days of the year, of all the days commemorative of great epochs in the world’s history, of all the days celebrated for one cause or another, there is not one which stands so conspicuously for social advancement of the common people as the first Monday in September of each recurring year—Labor Day.”
  
• “Labor Day is the day conceded by no one class or set of people to another; it is the day of the workers, secured by the workers for the workers, and for all.”
  
• “At no time in the history of the world have the workers demonstrated more clearly their purpose not only to be just, but to demand justice. They realize that without organization in this day of concentrated wealth and industry their lives and their liberties are doomed.”

In our second “Gilded Age,” let us support the organization of Labor in tandem with all resistance to emergent autocracy.