May Day or International
Labor Day
The origin of May Day is indissolubly bound up with the
struggle for the shorter workday – a demand of major political significance for
the working class. May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the
historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in
most countries. This struggle is manifest almost from the beginning of the
factory system in the United States. Although the demand for higher wages
appears to be the most prevalent cause for the early strikes in this country,
the question of shorter hours and the right to organize were always kept in the
foreground when workers formulated their demands against the bosses and the
government. As exploitation was becoming intensified and workers were feeling
more and more the strain of inhumanly long working hours, the demand for an
appreciable reduction of hours became more pronounced.
The History of The Workers Day
The struggle for the eight-hour day began in the 1860s. In
1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States
and Canada, organized in 1881 (and changing its name in 1886 to American
Federation of Labor) passed a resolution which asserted that "eight hours
shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886, and that we
recommend to labor organizations throughout this district that they so direct
their laws as to conform to this resolution". The following year the
Federation repeated the declaration that an eight-hour system was to go into
effect on May 1, 1886. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and
fourteen hours a day, support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly. In the
months prior to May 1, 1886, thousands of workers, organized and unorganized,
members of the organization Knights of Labor and of the federation, were drawn
into the struggle. Chicago was the main center of the agitation for a shorter
day. The anarchists were in the forefront of the Central Labor Union of
Chicago, which consisted of 22 unions in 1886, among them the seven largest in
the city.
During the Railroad strikes of 1877, the workers had been
violently attacked by the police and the United States Army. A similar tactic
of state terrorism was prepared by the bureaucracy to fight the eight-hour
movement. The police and National Guard were increased in size and received new
and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial
Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used
against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains
for many Chicago workers. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of
strikers at the McCormick Harvester Machine Company, killing at least one
striker, seriously wounding five or six others, and injuring an undetermined
number. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Hypermarket Square
to protest the brutality.
After having the way of this struggle, May 1, 1990 at last
May Day became internationalized by the United States. And now the day marks
the 1886 Hypermarket Affair in Chicago, where police shot and killed several
demonstrators who were fighting for the eight-hour workday. Over the next
several years, people across the globe began demonstrating on May 1, and in
many countries the day became an official holiday.
When is May
Day
May Day is observed on the first day in May. The actual May
1st dates for 2012 - 2016 are listed below.
May Calendar for May
Day
|
Year
|
May Day
|
|
2012
|
Tuesday, May 1
|
|
2013
|
Wednesday, May 1
|
|
2014
|
Thursday, May 1
|
|
2015
|
Friday, May 1
|
|
2016
|
Sunday, May 1
|
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