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May Day 2010: Historically As American As Apple Pie
Contrary to the conventional belief of most Americans living in the United States May Day began here in this country. The is known in other places around the world as the International Workers’ Day of May Day. It has its basis in the secular celebration of rebirth and fertility from the holiday of Beltane, festival day that pre dates Christianity. The date and associated celebrations of May 1st are not as thought by some the result of some labor movement in Communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union.Near the end of the nineteenth century, the workers were constantly fighting to get an 8-hour work day. Workers commonly found themselves in dangerous unsafe environs where conditions were severe. Normal work days ran 10 to 16 hour daily. Injury and even death were regular occurrences at many places of employment. What happened in those places inspired writers like Upton Sinclair to author books such as The Jungle or Jack London to writes The Iron Heel.
By the 1860’s, working people called to attention their demand for a shortened workday while sustaining the same pay. Not until the end of the 1880’s was it possible for organized labor gather enough power to announce the 8-hour workday. The announcement was delivered without employers’ concord; it was a demand made by the majority of the working class.
It was in this period that people were attracted to socialism. It was a new idea presented to working people; workers were drawn to its philosophy of the workers having control over all aspects of goods and services, including production and distribution. Previously workers had experienced first-hand how Capitalism was beneficial only to their bosses. Workers realized their lives were being traded for profit. With thousands of men, women and children dying needlessly every year in the workplace, and workers’ life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, there was little hope. Only death would result from their destitution. The new idea offered another option. It was Socialism.
Various socialist organizations quickly developed throughout the last half of the 1800s They ranged from political parties to singing groups. Some socialists were elected into governmental office by the people in their communities. However many of these socialists were limited by the political process so obviously controlled by big business and the two party political machine. Anarchist groups were created throughout the country as tens of thousands of socialists broke ranks from their parties, rejecting the whole political process,because they believed it was only providing protection for the wealthy.
It is incorrect to say labor unions and the labor movement were “taken over” by anarchists and socialists; it is anarchists and socialist who made up the labor unions. Working people eagerly adopted the concepts of anarchism. These were ideals which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures (including government), with emphasis on workers controlling the industry, and highly favored immediate action over the official administrative procedure.
Iin Chicago, in 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor), held its national convention where it was publically proclaimed that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.” The next year, the FOTLU, supported by the Knights of Labor locals, reiterated their proclamation stating the announcement would be supported by strikes and demonstrations. Initially, most radicals and anarchists regarded this demand as too reformist, failing to strike “at the root of the evil.” A year before the Haymarket Massacre, Samuel Fielden pointed out in the anarchist newspaper, The Alarm, that “whether a man works eight hours a day or ten hours a day, he is still a slave.”
It is estimated a quarter million workers in the Chicago area became directly involved in the crusade to implement the eight hour work day. The Trades and Labor Assembly, the Socialistic Labor Party and local Knights of Labor mobilized workers to enforce the eight hour work day because “the tide of opinion and determination of most wage-workers was set in this direction. It was a direction opposed by most employers.” When the anarchists became involved other larger issues were featured; issues greater than the 8-hour day. There was a sense of social revolution beyond the more immediate gains of shortened hours; it was a dramatic change in the structure of the economy of capitalism. Continued next post
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