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Today is May Day, celebrated the world over for numerous and varying reasons. A lot of 'em have to do with sex and old-time religion, but there's other reasons too - and unlike the sex stuff, you're probably not gonna hear much about 'em in the United States. Everywhere in the industrialized world, except for South Africa, Canada, and the US, May 1 is Labor Day. . . as in organized labor. To a lot of my readers Labor Day's pretty much a meaningless holiday that interferes with the early portion of the school year and marks the end of Official Summer (as opposed to astronomical summer). That was probably the point of moving it to September in the first place. The powers that be are far more comfortable with people not remembering...
May 1, 1886: labor unions in the United States and Canada call a general strike. This means all unions, in all trades and all professions, walked out at once in support of a common goal. Said goal, considered outrageous by the employers and more than a little ridiculous by the government of the time: an eight-hour work day. It was not a welcome strike, and the accompanying protests were even less welcome. Many of the unions involved were heavily influenced by the anarchist movement, or even run by them; naturally, this was feared, particularly in Chicago. On May 3, the Chicago police were called in to disperse the crowds at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory with gunfire. Four died. Many others were wounded.
The local anarchists called a public meeting the next day in Haymarket Square as a protest. Hundreds showed up. As the protests were winding down, 180 police officers arrived to disperse the meeting; the dispersal was going relatively peacefully when someone - it has never accurately been determined who - threw a bomb at the police. One officer was killed. Seventy were injured. Quite naturally, the police started shooting in the direction of what they thought was the attacker, killing one worker and injuring others. In retaliation, city and state governments took swift action against left-wing groups, labor groups, and particularly anarchist groups. Eight prominent anarchists were arrested and put to the trial, charged with conspiracy, and sentenced to hang - despite a distinct lack of real evidence linking them to the bombing. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison. The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893.
French laborers declared May 1st to be Labor Day in honor of the Chicago dead in 1889, and labor movements around the world took up the banner. The American government, afraid of the anarchists, socialists, and communists involved, instead declared May 1st to be "Law Day" and put Labor Day in a politically and historically meaningless position in September.
You might not consider yourself a worker. You might be a student, or you might be an office type, or you might be an executive. You might even be in the pay of your city, county, state, or federal government. You might be ordering freedom fries at McDonald's, for all I know. But if you live in the United States-
if you work in the United States-
if you have ever been paid overtime-
if you have ever grumbled because you don't get overtime-
if you believe it's unreasonable or asking too much to work ten or twelve or fourteen hours at a stretch-
if you think Wal-Mart, McDonald's, or any other company squeezes its under-trained workers for all they are worth, then drops them like a hot potato-
if you have ever been paid a Federal or state minimum wage-
then, by damn, you owe something to the labor movement of the 1880's, because not one of those concepts I just listed would be considered anything like to natural, let alone legal, if it weren't for them. And this day, not some random Monday in September, is the day they put their necks on the line for the sake of all those who would come after. So this is their day of remembrance. I suggest you don't let it go by unrecorded.
May 1, 1886: labor unions in the United States and Canada call a general strike. This means all unions, in all trades and all professions, walked out at once in support of a common goal. Said goal, considered outrageous by the employers and more than a little ridiculous by the government of the time: an eight-hour work day. It was not a welcome strike, and the accompanying protests were even less welcome. Many of the unions involved were heavily influenced by the anarchist movement, or even run by them; naturally, this was feared, particularly in Chicago. On May 3, the Chicago police were called in to disperse the crowds at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory with gunfire. Four died. Many others were wounded.
The local anarchists called a public meeting the next day in Haymarket Square as a protest. Hundreds showed up. As the protests were winding down, 180 police officers arrived to disperse the meeting; the dispersal was going relatively peacefully when someone - it has never accurately been determined who - threw a bomb at the police. One officer was killed. Seventy were injured. Quite naturally, the police started shooting in the direction of what they thought was the attacker, killing one worker and injuring others. In retaliation, city and state governments took swift action against left-wing groups, labor groups, and particularly anarchist groups. Eight prominent anarchists were arrested and put to the trial, charged with conspiracy, and sentenced to hang - despite a distinct lack of real evidence linking them to the bombing. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison. The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893.
French laborers declared May 1st to be Labor Day in honor of the Chicago dead in 1889, and labor movements around the world took up the banner. The American government, afraid of the anarchists, socialists, and communists involved, instead declared May 1st to be "Law Day" and put Labor Day in a politically and historically meaningless position in September.
You might not consider yourself a worker. You might be a student, or you might be an office type, or you might be an executive. You might even be in the pay of your city, county, state, or federal government. You might be ordering freedom fries at McDonald's, for all I know. But if you live in the United States-
if you work in the United States-
if you have ever been paid overtime-
if you have ever grumbled because you don't get overtime-
if you believe it's unreasonable or asking too much to work ten or twelve or fourteen hours at a stretch-
if you think Wal-Mart, McDonald's, or any other company squeezes its under-trained workers for all they are worth, then drops them like a hot potato-
if you have ever been paid a Federal or state minimum wage-
then, by damn, you owe something to the labor movement of the 1880's, because not one of those concepts I just listed would be considered anything like to natural, let alone legal, if it weren't for them. And this day, not some random Monday in September, is the day they put their necks on the line for the sake of all those who would come after. So this is their day of remembrance. I suggest you don't let it go by unrecorded.
