Tuesday 4 May 2010

The history of Labor Day (May 1-Mayday)

May Day was born from the various series of working class struggle to gain control of the political economy of industrial rights. The development of industrial capitalism in the early 19th century marks a drastic change in political economy, especially in the capitalist countries in Western Europe and the United States. intensive tightening discipline and working hours, minimum wages and poor working conditions at the factory level, gave birth to the resistance of the working class.
The first strike of the working class of the United States occurred in 1806 by workers Cordwainers. The strike was brought to the table the organisation court and also raised the fact that the working class in that era worked from 19 to 20 hours a day. Since then, the struggle to demand reduction hours of work into a shared agenda of the working class in the United States.
Two people were deemed to have contributed an idea to honor the workers, Peter McGuire and Matthew Maguire, a machine worker from Paterson, New Jersey. In 1872, McGuire and 100,000 workers strike to demand minus working hours. McGuire then went on to speak with the workers and the unemployed, lobbied city government to provide jobs and overtime pay. McGuire became famous as "bullies peace of the people."
In 1881, McGuire moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and began to organize carpenters. Finally established a unity consisting of a carpenter in Chicago, with McGuire as Secretary General of "United Brotherhood of Carpenters and joiners of America." Ideas for organizing workers according to their expertise and then spread to the entire country. McGuire and workers in other cities are planning a holiday for workers in every first Monday in September between Independence Day and Thanksgiving day.
On September 5, 1882, the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City with 20,000 participants carrying banners that read eight hours of work, eight hours rest, eight hours recreation. Maguire and McGuire played a key role in organizing this parade. In subsequent years, this idea spread, and all states celebrated it.
In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make it a public holiday. In 1894. Presider Grover Cleveland signed a law that made the first week of September the official national public holidays.
First International Congress was held in September 1866 in Geneva, Switzerland, attended by various elements of workers' organizations around the world. Congress establishes a demand to reduce working hours to eight hours a day, the previous (still in the same year) has been the National Labour Union in the U.S.: As these constraints represent the general demands of the United States working class, the changing demands of the congress was a common ground the working class worldwide.

One may set as the day the world working class struggle in Congress in 1886 by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions for, besides giving the moment demands eight hours a day, giving a new spirit of working class struggle that reached a massive in that era. Date of May 1 was chosen because in 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, inspired by the success of labor action in Canada in 1872, requires eight hours of work in the United States and enforced starting May 1, 1886.
Haymarket Events
Police opened fire on demonstrators, followed by resistance from the workers.
On May 1, 1886, approximately 400,000 workers in the United States held a huge demonstration to demand the reduction of their working hours to eight hours a day. This action lasted for four days from the date of 1 May.
On May 4, 1886. The Protesters conduct a massive rally, the American Police then opened fire on the demonstrators so that hundreds of people were killed and their leaders arrested and then sentenced to death, the workers who died is known as a martyr. Prior to May 1 event that, in various countries, also occurs labor strikes to demand more equitable treatment from the owners of capital.
World Socialist Congress
In July 1889, the World Socialist Congress held in Paris set the events in the U.S. on May 1st as a day laborer and the world passed a resolution containing:
A large international action should be organized on one particular day in which all countries and cities at the same time, at a mutually agreed day, all the workers demanded that the government legally reduce working hours to eight hours per day, and do all the result of Congress International Labour France.
This resolution received a warm reception from many countries and since the year 1890, dated May 1, termed the May Day, celebrated by the workers in various countries, despite pressure from their government. (Source: http://thealenia.multiply.com)

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