"Our only national celebration to be put on the calendar by the working class"

That's what Jim Hightower calls today.

David Sirota op-eds on why this day is special:

Think the minimum wage just happened? Think employer-paid health care and pensions have been around for as long as they have by some force of magic? Think again -- unions used collective bargaining to preserve these benefits. As the saying goes, union members are the folks that brought you the weekend.

The government's numbers explain how unions have helped their members. According to an analysis of federal data by the Labor Research Association, average union members receive a quarter more in compensation than nonunion workers. Eighty-nine percent of union members have access to employer-sponsored health care, compared to just 67 percent of nonunion workers. Unionized workers receive 26 percent more vacation than nonunion workers.

Unions also benefit nonunion workers. That's thanks to the "union threat effect" whereby anti-union companies meet higher standards in order to prevent workers from becoming angry and organizing. For instance, Princeton researchers found in industries that are 25 percent unionized, average nonunion workers get 7.5 percent more compensation specifically because of unionization's presence.

Celebrate the day however seems best to you: Barbecue in the backyard; work in the garden; kick back and watch TV; or even go to work today and collect overtime pay. None of it would happen today without collective bargaining.

Oregon angle: Oregon was the first state to declare Labor Day a holiday, in 1887. The U.S. Congress, playing catch-up with us even then, made it a federal holiday 7 years later.