For Hegel, "the labor of the negative" is another name for human history.
A human being faces the constant objective reality of their own negation -- end, ruin, death, etc. This is a logical opposition, because the human being is definitively *not* a negation, but is "the being who affirms."
We make claims. Constantly. We claim, which means we are not a negation but an affirmation. A negation simply ends, or is "never-ending ending."
History is the long story of human beings struggling against that which would negate them. Since Hegel was not a nihilist, his view was, eventually we end this labor. History for Hegel is not Sisyphean -- just damn long, and a "slaughterbench" [Hegel's own term!].
This thread, if Hegel is correct, bears testimony to the long labor of the negative. Of Spirit spending blood to try to get past the blood. And that is why I always say, quoting my dear friend,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngHrfRul7gQ
Trump is gonna get whacked with another raft of felonies soon. Having to process the "jackass vector" of Spirit is probably the most absurd labor of the negative there is. You would think it is easy. But here we are. And there is still a hella lot of jackass energy in the US.
You underestimate the scale of the negative, young Skywalker.