We observe May Day or Workers Day on 1 May to commemorate the historic struggle of working people in South Africa and the rest of the world. Workers everywhere in the world are remembering their struggles and their victories and mobilising for a better future.
This day also marks an awareness of the common class struggle existing in all countries.
May Day was born from the struggle for the eight-hour day. That struggle, in turn, emerged as part and parcel of the working class itself.
In the United States, where May Day was born, Philadelphia carpenters struck in 1791 for the ten-hour day. By the 1830s, this had become a general demand. In 1835, workers in Philadelphia organized a general strike, led by Irish coal heavers. Their banners read, "From 6 to 6, ten hours work and two hours for meals."
May Day as a modern working class celebration and commemoration began from the 1886 events in Chicago where workers were demonstrating for an eight hour day. Police attacked these striking workers from the McCormack Harvester Co., killing six.
On May 4th at a demonstration in Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality, a bomb exploded in the middle of a crowd of police killing eight. The police arrested eight anarchist trade unionists claiming they threw the bombs. To this day the subject is still one of controversy. Whether the anarchist workers were guilty or innocent was irrelevant. According to the authorities they were agitators, fomenting revolution and stirring up the working class, and they had to be taught a lesson. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engle and Adolph Fischer were found guilty and executed by the State of Illinois.
Today is a day for the Workers to Rest ( and for freelancers to try to catch up on their work).
Happy Worker's Day!
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