May 1 is International Workers’ Day. Also known as May Day, it memorializes a significant labor action in May 1886—Chicago’s Haymarket Square Rally. That event began peacefully, a demonstration to garner support for something we now take for granted: the eight-hour workday. One of the slogans was “Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for what you will.”
The gathering erupted in violence when a never-identified person threw a bomb at police as they were trying to break up the crowd, and the police fired back. At day’s end, there were differing accounts as to how many died—as many as seven policemen and four civilians—and scores of others were wounded. Three years later in Paris, the Second International (an international organization of socialist and labor groups) adopted May 1 as International Workers’ Day to mark that event. May 1 is now celebrated as a national holiday in 80 countries, with workers’ parades and commemorative events.
Union members from throughout the region will be celebrating May 1 with the International May Day March & Rally, from 3:30-6:00 PM in Judkins Park in Seattle, which begins MayWorks, a month-long series of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Bread & Roses Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This was yet another rally where workers gathered to let their employers know that they not only wanted to be compensated a living wage (bread), but they wanted time to rest and time to enjoy family and friends (roses).
The Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, in collaboration with the MayWorks Committee, will be celebrating all of those who work for a living through programs at the 2012 Northwest Folklife Festival. See http://www.opeiu8.org/Portals/opeiu8/MayWorks%20Poster.pdf for a calendar of May’s events.