For most Americans, it is the norm to close their laptop or get off at a restaurant or construction site at the end of an eight-hour shift. Give or take half an hour or so for lunch. As busy as a workday is, it’s easy to forget that over a century ago people died to give us the right to an eight-hour workday.
Much of this country’s radical labor tradition was erased by the loyalty of our political leaders to big business and the awe of markets and capitalism. The minimum level of rights left to workers in 2021 came from trade unionists, anarchists and socialists of the 19th century who first opposed the capitalists who created the hideous working conditions of the industrial revolution.
One of the key moments in the history of organized labor was on May 1, 1886, when 300,000 workers stopped working on an organized strike across the country, sparking several days of protest and tragic violence that anchored the May 1st recognition in history – a day of international workers solidarity.
What is May 1st?
We tend to think of Labor Day as the day of tribute to the workers in this country as it offers a day of rest in the form of a holiday. While Labor Day came shortly after Labor agitation – specifically after 13 workers died during the Pullman strike of 1894– It is a more sanitary celebration of the workers who are now more closely associated with them Sales at big box dealers as Unions or radical reformers. Labor Day was officially recognized as a national holiday by President Grover Cleveland in 1984, and since then the view has followed that September is the only time the United States officially recognizes the contributions of the working class to the history and social fabric of the country.
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That’s just not the case. May 1st is the original Labor Day, and even if it is not recognized by the US government in any official capacity, it is a clearly American phenomenon, although it is now recognized worldwide annually from dozens of countries.
How did the 1st of May come about?
So how did this International Workers Solidarity Day come about? To answer that, we must trace the black clouds of U.S. industry back to their origins in the surging chimneys of the 19th century, when every year during the Second Industrial Revolution, children crawled through coal mines and numerous workers died from disastrous working conditions. Galvanized by a growing sense of collectivism and an emerging faction of vocal labor organizations like that National unionFounded in 1866, workers in the industrial centers of the United States began to demand their rights.
A crucial moment in this persecution was the rise of the “Eight Hour Movement” in 1884 as the The Federation of Organized Unions and Unions held its national convention in Chicagoon the grounds that “eight hours from and after May 1, 1886 represent a legal working day”. It was a feeling that would later prove prophetic, but not without years of struggle and bloodshed.
The Haymarket Uprising
Chicago had long been a hotbed of excitement and organization, with a rail strike in Violence broke out in 1877. Almost ten years later the unrest continued. As FOTLU’s May 1 deadline approached, “an estimated quarter of a million workers in the Chicago area were directly involved in the eight-hour day crusade, including the trade and labor assembly, the Socialistic Labor Party and the local one Knights of Labor, ”according to an archived summary published in 1993 by the world’s industrial workers.
Initially the demonstration was relatively quiet, but that changed on May 3 when a demonstration at McCormick Reaper Works resulted in a violent skirmish between protesters and police that resulted in the deaths of some workers. The next day, a meeting was organized in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest the previous day’s murders. At first, the process was quiet, and even the Mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, was present.
The calm gave way to violence again when someone threw an explosive at the police; The person responsible was never identified, but the action resulted in police firing their guns indiscriminately at rally participants during a speech by activist and newspaper editor August Spies.
As history explains, what followed became known as the Haymarket Riot, and sparked a bloody legacy::
The police and possibly some members of the crowd opened fire and chaos ensued. Seven police officers and at least one civilian died as a result of the violence that day, and countless other people were injured.
The friction between the US authorities and the labor movement continued from there. Several prominent organizers have been convicted and executed for alleged links to the Haymarket incident.
As the IWW explains in more detail::
Eight anarchists – Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg – were arrested and convicted of murder, even though only three were present in Haymarket and those three were in full view all when the bombing took place.
As the memory of Haymarket grew in terms of the labor movement and beyond, more and more unions embraced the idea of an eight-hour day as a necessity.
In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt took politics into his Presidential platformand paves the way for the idea of achieving social acceptance. It was not until 1916 that Congress passed a law in support of an eight-hour working day in the form of the Adamson Act, which gave railroad workers this right. It was the first law of its kind to specifically apply to workers in private companies.
Even so, it took until the Great Depression and the transition of the National Industrial Recreation Law (which was later replaced by the Wagner law) so that the right to maximum hours and minimum wages for employees applies at the federal level.
Without the legacy of Haymarket and the pivotal action taken on May 1, 1886, it is difficult to see how all of this could have been possible. While there is no concrete connection between May 1st and the final goodbye to an eight-hour working day, it is undeniable that the efforts of these 19th century activists were instrumental in achieving today’s concession.
May 1st today
Today May 1st is an important day of solidarity for anyone with class consciousness in the US, but oddly enough, it isn’t celebrated that much in the US. However, the spirit of Haymarket has been recognized in several other countries. especially in Europewhere it is anchored in the form of holidays.
While we can thank Grover Cleveland for Labor Day, May 1st has been virtually eliminated from the American calendar, in part due to a promise made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower May 1st “Law Day“- an ironic commitment to the so-called” rule of law “and the forces that have turned out to be the main opponents of the labor movement.
That doesn’t mean you can’t keep the spirit of May Day alive and watch it face the full breadth of its history. On May 1st, think of the workers who sacrificed their lives to give you the right to organize your workplace and end your working day after eight hours.
