Unlike the rest of the world, which celebrates International Workers’ Day on May Day, commemorating the tragic events of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in 1886, the United States celebrates its day the first week of September.
Labor Day in the United States dates back to a workers’ parade that took place in New York in 1882. President Grover Cleveland chose to support the celebration in September. In 1894, the United States Congress passed a law declaring the first Monday in September a federal holiday to honor workers.
One hundred and thirty-one years later, hundreds of cities in the United States celebrated Labor Day in 2025 with marches against the militarization of cities, like in Chicago, and demanding workers’ rights, regardless of their immigration status.
It was also a Labor Day with fewer workers. According to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, more than 1.2 million migrants disappeared from the labor force between January and the end of July. This includes both people in the country who are undocumented and legal residents, according to The Associated Press.
In the United States, one in five workers are migrants, including more than four in 10 in the agricultural, fishing, and forestry sectors. It is unknown whether the reduction in the migrant labor force is due to voluntary departures or fear of working due to raids and deportations, but it is a problem whose impact will sooner rather than later be felt in labor shortages and higher prices.
The reality is that migrants represent a vital driver in agriculture, construction, elder care, cleaning, and food services.
They are not a marginal group: they harvest food, build buildings, maintain homes, and run restaurants. Their contributions sustain not only families and businesses, but the entire American economy. And yet, their presence is often acknowledged only in statistics, rarely in narratives of belonging.
Commemorating Labor Day without speaking about migrant workers is a troubling omission.
Recognizing them doesn’t just mean thanking their efforts, but also addressing the fundamental question: how can a country celebrate the value of work while simultaneously criminalizing those who perform it under the harshest conditions?
Labor Day could be more than a holiday. It could become a moment to broaden collective memory: to include those who, with different accents, sustain the economy from the bottom up.
They are not just “labor”; they are workers with names, families, and rights. Recognizing them is, ultimately, to coherently honor what this day claims to commemorate: the dignity of work.
