May 1st is the day in which the struggle of those who fought for better working conditions is celebrated. The struggles of workers, farmers and then of anyone who has suffered miserable wages, exhausting shifts and working hours, discrimination, blackmail and abuse by their employers. A fight that is still necessary today, above all in Italy where the per capita GDP has fallen below the European Union average. Yet, the International Day of Workers was declared on May 1st 135 years ago, in 1889 in Paris, during the congress of the Second Socialist International, to remember a workers’ struggle that took place in the United States, where, however, May 1st was not nothing was ever celebrated.
The origin of May 1st as the Day of male and female workers
In 1886 most people worked for 12 or 16 hours a day: men, women and minors, perhaps with just one day of rest per week. The trade union, socialist and anarchist organizations at the time they fought for a reduction of working hours to 8 hours, something that today we know is still excessive and many companies have begun to reduce work to 4 days a week, with excellent results. At the time, those who fought for small improvements were repressed, beaten, sometimes killed, and their demands were criticized as bad for the economy. History has shown that these criticisms were false.
On May 1, 1886 the unions they chose to call one general strike throughout the United States to get the 8 day working day, called the Great Revolt. The protests lasted for days and on May 3, the workers of the McCormick company were attacked by the police, who shot at the workers, killing 6. An anarchist association responded to the massacre with a new peaceful protest in Haymarket Square. The mayor of Chicago also took part in the demonstration, but in the end the police decided to evict the workers and someone threw a bomb at them, killing 7 officers and wounding 60. The police killed 3 more demonstrators.
Although the person responsible was never found, anti-worker, anti-socialist and anti-anarchist sentiment was unleashed in a retaliation against anarchists and eight of them were charged with conspiracy and murder, despite many of them not even being present at the Haymarket demonstration. They were sentenced to death. Two of them got life imprisonment, one got 15 years in prison, one died in prison under mysterious circumstances, the others were hanged. Three years later, all the European socialist parties gathered in Paris for the Second International, declared May 1st International Workers’ Day.
Where May 1st is not celebrated
Since then, in almost all European countries such as Italy, France or Germany and in many other countries around the world such as Tanzania, Mexico, Cuba or China, workers are celebrated on May 1st. In France a lily of the valley flower is worn for good luck, in Germany a red carnation in honor of socialist movements, in Finlandon the same day, is also celebrated the beginning of spring. However, for many others, Labor Day falls on other days and among these is the United States.
After the Haymarket massacre and the birth of the International Workers’ Day, in order not to legitimize the socialist origin of the May 1st holiday, the US president Grover Cleveland decided to make Labor Day fall by law on every first Monday in September. Since then, in the United States the day dedicated to working men and women has been celebrated on the first Monday in September. Same thing happens in Canada. In other countries, both for the same reasons that guided the US politicians of the time, and to commemorate episodes of national trade union struggles, the holiday falls on other days.
In Swiss for example it depends on the cantons and in Australia by the states or territories of which it is composed, with some celebrations scheduled for October, others for March or May. Also in New Zeland it is celebrated in October, while in Netherlandsin Denmark and in Japan May 1st is not considered a national holiday, but some celebrations organized by parties, unions or associations still take place.
