May Day - the Real Labor Day

[jose]

May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada, and South Africa. This despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day.

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement.

The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers.
http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/mayday.html

International Workers' Day (a name used interchangably with May Day) is the commemoration of the Haymarket Riot of 1886 in Chicago, Illinois, and a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement. The 1 May date is used because in 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, inspired by labor's 1872 success in Canada, demanded an eight-hour workday in the United States to come in effect as of May 1, 1886. This resulted in a general strike and the riot in Chicago of 1886, but eventually also in the official sanction of the eight-hour workday. The May Day Riots of 1894 and May Day Riots of 1919 occurred subsequently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day
the first of may is a holiday in most of the world, but not in America, where it all started!

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Jose the first of may is a holiday in most of the world, but not in America, where it all started!

Yeah, we have a way of dropping the good things in order to retain the bad.

[Scribbler1]

I think a lot of people in the US associate May Day with Communism. That still doesn't fly with a lot of people and even if it's not all the slogans with "workers" in them at the very least SOUND Communist inspired.

[G. Adams]

Quote by: Scribbler1 I think a lot of people in the US associate May Day with Communism. That still doesn't fly with a lot of people and even if it's not all the slogans with "workers" in them at the very least SOUND Communist inspired.

May Day is a pagan fertility festival all to do with drinking, dancing, summer and sex, but it was hijacked by international lefties. I doubt that'll help it fly in the US either, but it's true.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

Quote by: G. Adams May Day is a pagan fertility festival all to do with drinking, dancing, summer and sex, but it was hijacked by international lefties. I doubt that'll help it fly in the US either, but it's true.

G Adams true a festival of fertility so the crops could be blessed and seeds of the season honoured. (Wonder if this stimulated by all of our native species using the spring to conceive so offspring were reared in plenty of time before autumn migration or winters cold)

Still there is nothing better for a man than a couple of jugs of last years cider and to see several nubile maidens dancing and entwining about his upstanding maypole

surely some our American cousins would enjoy this more than marching and celebrating the rights of workers