`WORKING' TO END LABOR DAY; GROUP WANTS `LEISURE' DESIGNATION.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

They wanted to organize a million men to their cause, but that would have taken too much work.

Instead the Men of Leisure simply hope to find enough men, or women, willing to back their issue - changing Labor Day to Leisure Day - and sign a petition to be sent to Congress.

They plan to submit the petition Sept. 7, the day after the holiday, which they plan to spend doing, well, nothing.

``We just think people work a little too hard sometimes, it makes the society a little hard to live,'' said organizer Greg Rydberg, a college student who also holds down a job at a Ventura Internet service provider. ``For leisure you don't have to do anything. People have kind of forgotten about that - that's what were trying to do is remind people, how to do that, do nothing.''

With membership cards - depicting a man swinging on a hammock - and a Web site, the organization that started in January is bending its do-nothing philosophy to champion the Leisure Day cause.

Already, more than 12,000 supporters have added their names to the cyber-petition. Others have downloaded forms and made hard copies to collect signatures.

The group said it sent e-mail to Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, but the congressman said Thursday he had been too busy working to go through the correspondence.

And he doubted he would take the time to push the proposed legislation.

``I'm going to stop everything right now - I'm going to put education, health care, Social Security, Medicare on hold and we're going to tell everybody what they should do on the one day they have a choice (of what to do),'' said Gallegly. ``I firmly believe it isn't government's role to tell people what they should do on their day off.''