Historic May Day reminds rights of workers

The May 1st date is used because in 1884 the American Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions demanded an eight-hour workday, to come in effect as of 1 May 1886. 

This resulted in the general strike and the Haymarket Riot of 1886, but eventually also in the official sanction of the eight-hour workday. On May 1st, 1886, approximately 35,000 workers walked off their jobs, demanding the standardization of eight-hour workdays.

May Day or International Workers Day, observed in all over the world in commemoration of four anarchists executed for struggling for an 8-hour day.

Being a traditional European spring celebration, May Day is a national public holiday in many countries, but in only some of those countries is it celebrated specifically as "Labour Day" or "International Workers` Day". 

Some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States which celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September.

Beginning in the late 19th Century, as the trade union and labor movements grew, a variety of days were chosen by trade unionists as a day to celebrate labor. In the United States and Canada, a September holiday, called Labor or Labour Day, was first proposed in the 1880s.

 

In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed a Labor Day holiday while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union (CLU)) of New York. Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor in May 1882, after witnessing the annual labour festival held in Toronto, Canada. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. 

By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty U.S. states officially celebrated Labor Day. Thus by 1887 in North America, Labor Day was an established, official holiday but in September, not on 1 May.

1st May was chosen to be International Workers` Day in order to commemorate the 4 May, 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. The police were trying to disperse a public assembly during a general strike for the eight-hour workday, when an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police. The police responded by firing on the workers, killing four demonstrators.

In 1889, a meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne which called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International`s second congress in 1891.

May Day has long been a focal point for demonstrations by various socialist, communist and anarchist groups. May Day has been an important official holiday in many countries like the People`s Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet Union. May Day celebrations typically feature elaborate popular and military parades in these countries.

During the Cold War, May Day became the occasional for large military parades in Red Square by the Soviet Union and attended by the top leaders of the Kremlin, especially the Politburo, atop Lenin`s Tomb. It became an enduring symbol of that period.

 

Labour Day around the world

England: Traditional English May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen, and dancing around a Maypole; festivities which made it a popular seasonal celebration in medieval England.

Germany: On the occasion May Day, the Labour Day was established as an official holiday in 1933 after the NSDAP rose to power. It was supposed to symbolize the new found unity between the state and the working classes.

But ironically, just one day later, on May 2 1933, all free unions were outlawed and destroyed. But since the holiday had been celebrated by German workers for many decades before the official state endorsement, the NSDAP attempt to appropriate it left no long-term resentment.

India: In India, our neighboring country, the first formal celebration of Labour Day was instigated by the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan in Chennai (known as Madras) on 1 May 1923. 

They observed the day as a holiday in Assam, Bihar, Goa, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal.

Sweden: In Sweden May day is also a Christian celebration; the Mass of Saint Walburga or Walpurgis Night is celebrated on the evening of 30 April.

Italy: A key May Day celebration in Italy is the annual Concerto del Primo Maggio which takes place in Rome and is  attended by more than half a million people every year.

Here are a few quotes from some noblemen on Labour Day:

1. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." Albert Einstein.

2. My grandfather once told me there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to be in the first group; there was much less competition." Indira Gandhi.

3. The end of labor is to gain leisure." Aristotle.

4. There is no substitute for hard work." Thomas Edison

5. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." Martin Luther King Jr.

6. God sells us all things at the price of labor." Leonardo da Vinci

So, we should pledge today once more to protect the rights of labourers in all walks of the lives and this is the significance of the day.