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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

ART OF THE DAY

Happy May Day!

Now, you might be asking: what is May Day?

It’s another name for ‘International Workers Day’, a holiday on May 1 honoring workers and the labor movement (just like Labor Day).

It isn’t widely celebrated in the United States. But elsewhere around the world, it’s a big deal.

Across Europe, labor unions and workers march in May Day parades commemorating the past victories of the labor movement.

In China, workers get several days of holiday during the May Day week.

The History of May Day

In April 1856, a group of stonemasons in Victoria, Australia, went on strike in an effort to push their employers into instituting an 8-hour workday.

The stonemasons also set up a day of entertainment and meetings between different labor groups during their strike.

The day had such an impact on the Australian labor movement that it was organized again each year around the same time.

In the years that followed, the idea spread among what was then a growing global movement of laborers seeking to organize themselves in a new world of industrial capitalism.

Taking inspiration from their comrades down under, American labor leaders in Chicago organized a general strike for May 1, 1886.

Over 300,000 workers left their jobs across the country and protested for an eight-hour work day. In the days that followed, deadly clashes between the militant protesters and Chicago police left several dead and dozens wounded.

The so-called Haymarket Affair (named for the Chicago street where the worst of the violence took place) became a rallying call for the international labor movement.

A few years later, the International Workers' Congress met in Paris. They agreed that May 1, 1890, would be the date for “the universal proletarian celebration.”

May Day vs. Labor Day

If we have International Workers’ Day on May 1, what about Labor Day in early September? 

During the late 1800s, other pro-labor groups had advocated for a separate Labor Day holiday in early September.

Dozens of U.S. states celebrated the holiday by 1894, when Congress made it an official national holiday.

Then-President Grover Cleveland believed that celebrating a day of labor on May 1 would strengthen socialist and anarchist movements associated with the Haymarket Affair, so he supported efforts to make Labor Day the official holiday for workers as a way of weakening support for these left-wing movements.

May Day around the World

The early decades of the 20th century saw the consolidation and expansion of workers' movements around the world.

In Europe, labor unions and socialist parties gained influence, advocating for improved working conditions, social welfare programs, and the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively.

The rise of fascism and authoritarian regimes in Europe led to the suppression of labor rights and the persecution of activists. In countries such as Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, May Day celebrations were banned, and labor organizations were disbanded or co-opted by the state.

Later in the 20th century, May Day became a major holiday in the Soviet Union and many Soviet-aligned countries.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, labor movements and left-wing groups around the world have continued to celebrate May Day.

All around the world today, people are taking to the streets to march and advocate for higher wages and better working conditions. And now you know why.

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan