May Day is International Labor Day (May 1), the day on which workers' rights are won.
International Workers' Day, also
known as Labour Day in most countries and often referred to as May Day, is a
celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the
international labour movement and occurs every year on May Day (1 May). May Day
has been a focal point for demonstrations by various socialist, communist and
anarchist groups since the Second International. May Day is one of the most
important holidays in communist countries such as China, North Korea, Cuba and
the former Soviet Union countries. May Day celebrations in these countries
typically feature elaborate workforce parades, including displays of military
hardware and soldiers.
In 1955, the Catholic Church
dedicated 1 May to "Saint Joseph the Worker". Saint Joseph is the
patron saint of workers and craftsmen, among others. Today, the majority of
countries around the world celebrate a workers' day on 1 May. While it may
belong to a tradition of spring festivals, the date was chosen in 1889 for
political reasons by the Marxist International Socialist Congress, which met in
Paris and established the Second International as a successor to the earlier
International Workingmen's Association. They adopted a resolution for a
"great international demonstration" in support of working-class
demands for the eight-hour day. The date had been chosen by the American
Federation of Labor to continue an earlier campaign for the eight-hour day in
the United States, which had culminated in the Haymarket affair, which occurred
in Chicago on 4 May 1886. May Day subsequently became an annual event. The 1904
Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social
Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate
energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour
day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.
The first of May is a national,
public holiday in many countries across the world, in most cases as
"International Workers' Day" or a similar name. Some countries
celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United
States and Canada, which celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday of September. On
21 April 1856, Australian stonemasons in Victoria undertook a mass stoppage as
part of the eight-hour workday movement. It became a yearly commemoration,
inspiring American workers to have their first stoppage.1 May was chosen to be
International Workers' Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.
That year beginning on 1 May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour
workday. On 4 May, the police acted to disperse a public assembly in support of
the strike when an unidentified person threw a bomb. The police responded by
firing on the workers. The event led to the deaths of seven police officers and
at least thirty-eight civilians; sixty police officers were injured, as were
one hundred and fifteen civilians.
Hundreds of labour leaders and
sympathizers were later rounded up and four were executed by hanging, after a
trial that was seen as a miscarriage of justice. The following day on 5 May, in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers killing
seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding chickens in his yard. In 1889, a
meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International,
following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne that called for international
demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. On May 1, 1890,
the call encouraged May Day demonstrations to take place in the United States and
most countries in Europe.[16] Demonstrations were also held in Chile and Peru. May
Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second
congress in 1891.
Subsequently, the May Day riots
of 1894 occurred. The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 called
on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all
countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal
establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and
for universal peace. Congress made it "mandatory upon the proletarian
organisations of all countries to stop work on 1 May, wherever it is possible
without injury to the workers. 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 on the first
Monday of September 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 in the United
States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official
federal holiday in 1894, thirty US states officially celebrated Labor Day. Thus
by 1887 in North America, Labour Day was an established, official holiday but
in September, not on 1 May. HAPPY LABOR DAY.
Source By: Wikipedia
Information: Ramesh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.
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