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Today is Workers' Day, what does May 1st represent?

Politiko 2025-05-01 08:05:44

Today is Workers' Day, what does May 1st represent?

May 1 is otherwise known as International Workers' Day, a manifestation that arose from the struggle of workers to demand rights, freedoms, and working conditions.

"There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you are suppressing today."

These were the last words of August Spies, one of the four innocent workers who were executed after a bomb exploded in Chicago's Haymarket Square in May 1886, killing eight key leaders of the labor movement. The "crime" for which Spies and his comrades were being punished was being militant in the struggle that workers had undertaken for their rights and the 8-hour workday.

The movement began in 1884, when the Organized Market Federation and Union of Laborers (the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor) drafted a resolution that “beginning May 1, 1886, the working day for all workers should be 8 hours.” On May 1, 1886, over 200,000 workers, gathered in Chicago’s central square, would go on strike to demand their rights.

While the newspapers would evaluate them as "absurd". The death of 7 police officers during the protests, which had been going on for many days, was the cause of the Chicago Police's reaction to the workers' movement. As a result of a bomb thrown by the police forces, 8 key leaders of the labor federation were killed, thus turning May into the month of commemoration of the workers' efforts to win their rights.

Three years later from the Chicago event, in 1889, the Second Socialist International, which took place in Paris (France), established the celebration of May 1 as a day of unity, struggle and solidarity of all workers of the world.

Today, almost 122 years later, May 1st is celebrated around the world as International Workers' Solidarity Day.

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