Socialist Action /May 2001
May Day: Made in the USA, Exported to
the World
By JAN BIRCH
One of the most important working-class holidays,
May Day (International Workers Day), originated in the United States in
the 1880s with the struggle for the eight-hour day.
The expansion of capitalism in 19th century America
brought new layers of the working class into existence; many were imbued
with a strong class hatred of their oppressors. The workers' movement spread
from large urban centers to small towns, building new organizations and
engaging in militant struggles.
The major labor organization at the time was the
Knights of Labor. It was born as a secret society in 1869 but by May 1886
had a membership of over a million. The Knights combined the idea of the
need for a class approach to organizing with a moral exhortation for good
works and education.
Their view was an "injury to one is the concern
of all." They also believed that wage slavery needed to be done away
with and replaced by cooperatives of some kind.
This made them quite different than the American
Federation of Labor (founded in 1884 as the Federation of Organized Trades
and Labor Unions). The new AF of L was based on the skilled labor of white
American-born males and was quite narrow in both its approach and its tactics
of winning a better life.
Its philosophy was to use strikes by its skilled
membership as barter to win from the capitalists "a fair day's work
for a fair day's pay." It believed in "pure and simple" trade
unionism and turned away from any radical politics.
A third grouping, that of socialist and anarchist
militants opposed to the capitalist system, believed that the overthrow
of the system could be accomplished by militant labor action.
The issue of a reduced workweek or shorter daily
hours had been a rallying cry for workers both in the United States and
around the industrialized world-a struggle against the constant attempt
by the bosses to extend the working day up to as much as 16 hours, side
by side with periodic unemployment.
Strikes and pressure for legislation to reduce
working hours became widespread in the 1880s. An economic depression with
resulting unemployment and wage cuts spurred the movement forward so that
in 1885 the workers began to discuss the idea of a general strike to win
the eight-hour day.
While the national Knights leaders quaked in their
boots, the local leaders prepared for the battle. May 1, 1886 was chosen
as the date for the fight to be launched. On the job, in the neighborhoods,
at the union halls, at home the eight-hour-a-day movement was the hot topic
of working-class conversation.
The workers sang the "Eight Hour Song":
We mean to make things over;
we're tired of toil for naught
But bare enough to live on:
never an hour for thought.
We want to feel the sunshine;
we want to smell the flowers;
We're sure that God has willed
it,
and we mean to have eight hours.
We're summoning our forces
from shipyard, shop and mill:
Eight hours for work, eight hours
for rest,
eight hours for what we will!
But the bosses were also preparing. There was
a huge propaganda campaign by the media, the formation of paramilitary groups,
an expansion of the police and national guard, with the obvious threat of
major violence.
In early spring 1886, strikes demanding the eight-hour
day began to break out, involving almost a quarter of a million workers.
The movement was strongest in the big working-class centers, but it extended
all over the Midwest and East Coast. In Chicago, a mix of trade unionists,
socialists, and anarchists united, holding huge demonstrations in the weeks
leading up to May 1.
Mass rallies, parades and demonstrations involving
thousands of workers took place around the country. Brewers, bakers, furniture
workers, clothing cutters, tobacco, shoe, lard, packing and other workers
won some victories and saw their hours reduced.
On May Day, tens of thousands of workers struck
and tens of thousands more took to the streets to support the fight. It
was a festival of the oppressed, with bands and flags and joy. Over the
next days 340,000 workers stopped work in 12,000 work places around the
country. Many of the struggles were victorious.
But on May 3, police in Chicago fired into a mass
meeting of workers in front of the huge McCormick works, killing four people
and wounding 200. The workers battled the police. Anarchists called on the
workers to take up arms. All over the city the workers held meetings and
rallies to protest the killings and police brutality.
At a meeting in Haymarket Square on May 4, some
3000 people rallied to protest the McCormick killings; when it started raining,
however, many left. As the last speaker was finishing up, hundreds of police
marched in and declared that the rally must disperse.
Suddenly, dynamite exploded among the police-wounding
dozens and eventually killing seven. The police fired into the crowd, wounding
200 and killing several.
The newspapers all over the country screamed about
the bombing-accusing the anarchists of murdering the police. The mayor declared
a virtual martial law and the police began raiding all radical organizations,
arresting hundreds of socialists, anarchists, and others.
Law and order became the watchword of the day,
cheered on by the bosses and their mouthpieces in government, the press,
and the police. Even the Chicago Knights of Labor applauded the witch hunt,
stating: "We hope the whole gang of [anarchist] outlaws will be blotted
from the face of the earth."
Eight anarchists were arrested for the Haymarket
bombing. Seven were sentenced to hang and one to a long prison term, though
there was not a shred of real evidence to connect them to the bombing. The
governor of Illinois commuted the sentences of two of the accused, one man
killed himself in jail, and four were hanged by the state.
Twenty-five thousand workers participated in a
funeral march for them in Chicago. Thousands of workers made a pilgrimage
yearly to the grave of the Haymarket martyrs at Waldheim cemetery in Chicago.
Mother Jones, a leader of the miners, said of Haymarket:
"The workers asked only for bread and a shortening of long hours of
toil. The agitators gave them visions. The police gave them clubs."
The repression following the strike wave of 1886
led to the demise of the Knights Of Labor. However, the more narrowly focused
AF of L, whose leaders took credit for the eight-hour-a-day strike victories,
gained ground, with over 100,000 members.
In the meantime, the principles of class struggle
and labor solidarity were passed along to new generations of labor radicals
and led to the creation of the Socialist Party and the International Workers
of the World, many of whose militants honored and respected the Haymarket
martyrs and the fighters of 1886.
There were over 1400 strikes, involving over half
a million workers, in 1886, leading it to be called at the time "the
year of the great uprising of labor." The strike wave showed the potential
power of the newly emerging industrial working class. It showed a high level
of class solidarity, including across racial lines.
In 1888 the AF of L continued the eight-hour a
day movement. In 1889, the Second Socialist International and workers' organizations
around the world voted to designate May 1, 1890, as an international day
of solidarity to continue the fight for the eight-hour day and to honor
workers' struggles.
In the United States, however, while left-wing
groups tried to keep May Day alive, the conservative and later anti-communist
trade union leadership, with the support of U.S. politicians, tried to shift
attention to the first Monday in September as "Labor Day."
Although the September date had been celebrated
by trade unionists in New York as early as 1882, in subsequent years it
became associated with flag-waving patriotism, parades, and picnics as opposed
to the more militant May Day celebrations.
Congress recognized Labor Day as a national holiday
in 1894, while ignoring May Day.
As the workers' movement in the United States unfolds
in the future, it will be up to us to reclaim May Day as our holiday and
bring its celebration back to the U.S. working-class centers where the holiday
was born.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |