With Labor Day fast approaching, working people all over the country are making plans to take advantage of the extra day off. Some of us go to the beach, others fire up the grill, looking to squeeze every last drop out of another summer gone by. But do any of us know how the national holiday came about?

“Labor Day differs in every essential from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.”

Labor Day was first celebrated in 1882, in New York City. There is some dispute as to who actually came up with the idea to honor American workers with a day of parades and speeches. Some say it was Peter J. McGuire, General Secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and co-founder of the American Federation of Labor. Other historians give credit to Matthew Maguire, Secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York, for coming up with the holiday.

In any case, the Central Labor Union of New York celebrated the first Labor Day on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, with speeches, demonstrations and picnics. Over the next decade, Labor Day gained popularity in a number of American cities across the country.

So how did Labor Day go from being a localized celebration in major cities to a nationally recognized holiday? The final push came rather tragically, with the deaths of a number of union workers at the hands of the U.S. military.

In 1894, approximately 3000 union workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Pullman, Illinois went on strike to protest low wages, bringing railroads in the Chicago area to a standstill. In response, President Grover Cleveland sent US troops to Pullman to end the strike. Conflicts between the union workers and the troops escalated, and the result was 13 workers killed and another 57 injured.

Pretty heavy stuff, certainly not ideal for barbecue talk.

When the strike was resolved, President Cleveland knew his political career hinged on reconciling with scorned union workers all across the country that had been following the story. Just six days after the strike came to a close, Congress unanimously signed legislation making Labor Day a national holiday.

There you have it, the story of Labor Day and its rise to holiday status. Just remember that whether you go out celebrating or stay home for some R&R this year, Labor Day isn’t just about the American workers of today—it’s about those who came before us as well. As Peter McGuire put it, it’s a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

So how do you plan to celebrate Labor Day this year?

I recently read an interesting post from Laurie Ruettmann over at PunkRockHR entitled, “A New Name for Human Resources.”  You can read it here.

To sum it up, an HR person asked:

Laurie, do you have a good name for an HR dept that includes Staffing, Sourcing, Employee Relations, and Diversity? Current is Strategic Staffing.

Laurie hilariously responded, “Yeah, I do. It’s called Overreaching HR. Screwed HR. Inefficient HR.”

She then went on to compare the department to one major retailer that carries a lot of things that have nothing to do with each other (in this case guns, pajamas and Doritos) and explained it’s not the name but how well the department works.

So exactly why is it we spend so much time on names?  In reality, even if a department does call itself strategic staffing, won’t the employees still refer to it as human resources?  After all, it is the name that people have grown to accept as the department that handles staffing (and everything else talent related).

Or is the problem not at all in the name, but instead is that one department is handling all of these jobs?  With the economy the way it has been, everyone has had to do a little more with a lot less.  And this has a lot of people stretched too thin (and maybe has those same people trying to find a new department title).

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you lean towards: “That’s stupid, a name is everything, and I vote for Strategic Talent Management and Acquisitions?”  Or: “Changing the name is a waste of time, it’s not what it’s called, it’s what it does and how well they are doing it.”  Or last – but not least – this isn’t about the name at all, it’s about stretching employees far too thin!

I lean towards this is about making people handle too much with too few resources.  That said, I vote for keeping it Human Resources – it seems all encompassing.