The Labors of Code

Corporate culture has a lot to do in shaping successful dev teams

The year of 1886 was a pivotal moment for the global labor movement. Two years earlier in Chicago, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions declared that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”

When the day arrived, over 300,000 workers across 13,000 US businesses walked off the job. Chicago alone had 40,000 laborers strike. As peaceful as the protests had been, tensions were rising to a boiling point between police and protesters.

In response to an incident a day earlier at McCormick Reaper Works, a hastily arranged gathering was organized at Haymarket Square. As the speeches wound down and police came to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb into the crowd. The police responded with gunfire, resulting in 8 police and 7 civilians killed.

Many know May 1st better as May Day, a day off in most countries. Behind this date however is a rally cry for worker’s rights and a remembrance to the innocent lives lost in the Haymarket Affair.

In the US and Canada, we celebrate this officially as Labor Day on the first Monday of September. US President Grover Cleveland changed the date so as to not conflate the date commemorating labor with the actions of subversive political movements.

For the developed world, the sweatshops and abusive labor practices are mostly a thing of the past. There are extensive labor regulations, minimum salary laws, and a legal system to hear the concerns of the aggrieved worker. Disputes…