Lvl 4: The Labor Movement was a Lazy Movement and We Need to Bring It Back

**This weekend is Labor Day weekend, a three day weekend, a “real” weekend. It’s the last hoorah and unofficial end of summer.   Labor Day is misnamed and should be properly called “Lazy Day”. The Lazy Movement  wasn’t about working harder or working more hours or working in tougher conditions, or heck, workign at younger ages. It was about working less and in more comfortable conditions and eliminating child labor. Labor Day was first proposed by Matthew Macguire in 1882, but it wasn’t until over a decade later, in 1894 ,that President Grover Clevland signed and recognized it as a Federal Holiday. This was just a day after he sent 12,000 soldiers to slaughter protestors on the railroad. Thousands of lives lost and all we got was a day off once a year. Quite a weak apology if you ask me. The protestors were violent,; they started tearing up railroads and President Grover Clevland declared it a matter of national security to end it. A better way to protest would have been to just stop going to work, to embrace laziness and leisure, which is what we should do now. Originally the holiday was not about frisbees and barbecues but about speeches and rallies to better the working conditions for laborers. There was still beer kegs though. The American way to celebrate a holiday. It then took over two decades more to establish a federal 40 hour work week and the banning of child labor in 1916. Today, just about a hundred years later, the 40 hour work week is completely gone. We live in a “gig economy” where people are driving Uber or selling on eBay or doing other freelance and side “gigs” in order to compensate for the lack of fair wages and make just enough to get by and pay the bills -- put food on the table and a roof over their head. Accounting for inflation, the average cost of a slave was MORE THAN the total annual income of a minimum wage worker not to mention a slave  actually had health care provided for and received free room and board. Those are benefits a minimum wage worker do NOT receive at all. The current conditions of working are unfair and becoming further unbalanced. We need a new Labor Movement, or as more properly titled, a new Lazy Movement, because let’s face it, the workers were being “lazy” back in the day, they wanted LESS work, not more of it, the very definition of laziness. We need to say enough is enough and stop going to work. Employers can’t make money off products and services if none of their employees show up to work, if we all procrastinate with purpose for the greater good. This hard work mantra has negative effects on the mental health of individuals living in society, as we have seen recently in the Jacksonville , Florida Shooting at the Madden Tournament. The “go-getter” attitude, “get it now” schedule, and “let it out” emotional framework creates an environment where people are easily riled up and unable  to handle failure, then express it through violent means. We need too sit back and relax. We need to create a more calm, peaceful, and lazy envrionment. Don’t go out shopping to hit the Labor Day Sale events; that’s too much of a hassle to deal with, and it only makes you a slave to a system of “work hard now and buy harder later”. We need to say our money is our money and our time is our time. We want to do just enough work to get by and not do anything excessive, just like the workers pushed for in the 1800s. It’s time for a Lazy Movement.** Link to Blog Post Mentioned