Updated Wednesday, May 1, 2024 – 08:00
The month of May begins with demonstrations and labor and social demands springing up in the streets of half the world. Is he International Workers’ Day o Labor Day, an emblematic date for international society, as well as one of the national holidays in Spain. But, what is its origin y why is it celebrated every May 1?
To trace the origin of Workers’ Day, we have to go back to the end of the 19th century, when union movements were beginning to gain strength in the United States. It is said that the bricklayers and carpenters of New York and Boston took the lead in the opening stages of the workers struggle.
To begin with, the unions asked to put an end to the 12 and up to 18 hour days to which factory workers were subjected. “Eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure and eight hours of rest“proclaimed the mobilized workers. At that time, if a company forced an employee to work more than 18 hours a day, the penalty they could receive was just 25 dollars.
Chicago, 1886: The Haymarket mrtiers
In this context, the largest union in the country, the American Federation of Labor, decided that From May 1, 1886, the maximum working day would be eight hours and plant a series of strikes y protests in the event that the businessmen did not comply with the Ley Ingersollenacted 16 years earlier by President Andrew Johnson and that many states had managed to overcome.
The union threat made many companies agree to implement the eight-hour day, but many others kept their schedules intact. He arrived May 1, 1886 and strikes began wherever the law was not complied with.
In Chicago, then the second most populous city in the United States, protests pitted strikers and police against each other for three days. Already on May 4 and with a balance of half a dozen dead workers, a concentration in the haymarket square ended with the detonation of a explosive device what mat to six police and left dozens of agents injured. The police responded by opening fire on the protesters, causing 38 times.
Anarchist union leaders and dozens of members were arrested as a result of the Haymarket Square event, although only eight of them were ultimately brought to trial. They are known as The Chicago Martyrs o The Haymarket Martyrs. Under a campaign of harassment and demolition by the conservative press and after a controversial trial held in 1887, five unionists were sentenced to death. death penaltytwo to life imprisonment and another to 15 years of forced labor. Years later the falsehood of the judicial process could be demonstrated.
Paris, 1889: Socialist Workers’ Congress of the Second International
Two years after the executions, in 1889he Socialist Workers Congress of the Second International he declares May 1st as International Workers’ Day in memory of the Haymarket martyrs and with the idea of promoting the implementation of the eight-hour day in other countries. Once this demand was achieved, starting in the second decade of the 20th century, new labor and social demands emerged every May Day.
Why the United States doesn’t celebrate Labor Day on May 1
It is still curious that In the United States, Workers’ Day is not celebrated on May 1, taking into account that the event that originated that international day of protest took place in that country. The explanation is that, when establishing a national holiday for workers, the presidente Grover Cleveland He ruled out the first day of May due to fears that the date, linked to the Chicago attacks, would strengthen the socialist movement in his country and cause public unrest. Instead, in 1894 the first Monday of September to celebrate the Labor Day. The date commemorates the first parade organized by the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor, held in New York on September 5, 1882. Canada also celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday in September