The op-ed, “It’s Labor Day, not Union Day,” (Sept. 3), is based on a lie. The first Labor Day parade, in New York City in 1882, was a one-day general strike in support of unions and their main causes at the time − the eight-hour day, ending child labor, workplace safety, a living wage, and the right of workers to organize.

The establishment of Labor Day as a national holiday in 1894 was a response to the Pullman strike earlier that year, when federal troops opened fire on strikers. Labor Day has always been about unions and the rights of workers to defend themselves against exploitation and earn an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.

The practice of rewriting history to create false narratives is the basis of many conservative arguments, from the “Lost Cause” myth of the Confederacy to “supply side economics” to the two letters regarding coal-fired manufacturing plants and the current state of the economy to this utter nonsense about the meaning of Labor Day in support of the misleadingly named anti-union laws known as "right-to-work (actually meaning no right to organize or bargain)." Take the time to investigate actual documented history rather than falling for these self-serving lies.

Craig Edwards

Mystic