Unlike most countries in the world, and especially the Europeans, who have instituted a day off on May 1st to celebrate International Workers' Day, Labor Day in North America is celebrated on the first Monday in September, and has been since the 1880s.

But what is the origin of this holiday, which used to be celebrated ?

The initiative for this day off originated in the United States. Against a backdrop of developing industrial capitalism and the advent of the working class, some 15,000 unionized workers marched in New York in 1882 before a crowd estimated at 250,000.

The aim was to dedicate a day to honor the city's unionized workers, to show their strength and solidarity. The date of the first Monday in September was chosen not to commemorate any particular event, but because it falls roughly between July 4, which is a holiday in the United States, and Thanksgiving.

Inspired by the United States, Canada joined the movement in 1886. In Montreal, the day was celebrated with a major parade that continued until 1952. In 1894, the House of Commons declared the first Monday in September a statutory holiday, the 4th at the time, along with three other non-religious holidays: New Year's Day, Confederation Day and Queen Victoria Day.

The Quebec government legalized the holiday in 1899. It was at this time that school boards got into the habit of delaying the start of school until the day after Labor Day.

Until the early 1950s, Labour Day celebrations in Canada were organized by workers' organizations. While the event served as a platform for unions to put forward their demands, it also helped build workers' class identity, while providing a moment of rest and socialization away from work.

From the 1950s onwards, the festivities surrounding Labor Day attracted fewer and fewer people. According to historian Jacque Rouillard, this decline in participation could be explained, among other things, by changes in the union world, but also by the fact that people preferred to get away from the city or spend time with their families.

“Nowadays, there's nothing to mark this so-called holiday on the first Monday in September. It's a day off to commemorate work, but it's lost all its original significance and become a symbolic milestone, marking the end of summer and vacation, and the beginning of autumn with the start of the new school year and the full return to work”, explains the historian in an article published in 2010 in the Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française.