Today is May Day. It's Labor Day for most of the world, the one day every year on which the work of people from every corner of the globe is recognized and celebrated. Every corner, that is, except North America. Neither the US nor Canada celebrate May Day -- in the US, we have our own Labor Day in early September, a move which definitely serves to undermine Americans' trans-national solidarity with other workers.
But May Day was born in the US, as a day of labor action which culminated in the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago. And even though we don't formally celebrate it here, today is a good time to remember the activists who fought, bled, and died for our rights in the workplace:
Most Americans don't realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as "American" as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.
In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Jack London's The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860's, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn't until the late 1880's that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class. . . .
In a proclamation printed just before May 1, 1886, one publisher appealed to working people with this plea:
Workingmen to Arms! War to the Palace, Peace to the Cottage, and Death to LUXURIOUS IDLENESS. The wage system is the only cause of the World's misery. It is supported by the rich classes, and to destroy it, they must be either made to work or DIE. One pound of DYNAMITE is better than a bushel of BALLOTS! MAKE YOUR DEMAND FOR EIGHT HOURS with weapons in your hands to meet the capitalistic bloodhounds, police, and militia in proper manner.
Not surprisingly the entire city [of Chicago] was prepared for mass bloodshed, reminiscent of the railroad strike a decade earlier when police and soldiers gunned down hundreds of striking workers. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public's eye.
So even though you're probably not out on strike today, and you're not taking the day as a holiday, give a thought to those who struck and fought for dignity and the 8-hour day. And happy May Day.