International Workers’ Day: why is it celebrated today, May 1?

International Workers’ Day is celebrated on May 1 to honor the struggle of the working class for labor rights in the United States. EFE/ Juan Ignacio Roncoroni/Archive

This Wednesday marks a new holiday for Labor Day, thanks to the struggle of the working class in the United States to achieve labor rights that did not exist at that time. The workers’ desire to follow an 8-hour routine (instead of 16) was essential to adding rest to the day.

In the North American city of Chicago, as well as in other parts of the world, the end of the 19th century was marked by a growing organization of workers, who began to join unions and other forms of labor associations with the aim of fighting for improvements. in their working conditions.

Workers in the 19th century demanded an eight-hour workday to balance work and rest. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Among the most important demands of this labor movement was the establishment of a working day limited to eight hours. In those times, it was not uncommon for workers, including women and children, to be subjected to shifts of up to sixteen or eighteen hours under unhealthy conditions and for minimal pay.

Efforts to reform the work day were not new. Since the end of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain had motivated the first workers’ demonstrations, which denounced the painful working conditions. However, it was towards the end of the 19th century when the fight for the eight-hour day began to gain greater visibility and support at an international level.

The Ingersoll Act, signed into law by President Andrew Johnson in 1868, formally established the eight-hour day. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

In this sense, US President Andrew Johnson enacted the Ingersoll Act in 1868, which formally established the eight-hour day, although its effective application faced strong resistance from businessmen and did not materialize immediately.

The Chicago Martyrs were a group of labor activists and anarchists who were prosecuted and convicted in connection with demonstrations in favor of the eight-hour work day in the United States.

The events leading up to his conviction center in particular around May 1, 1886, followed by days of protest culminating on May 4 with the incident known as the Haymarket Bombing in Chicago. During the latter event, a bomb exploded in the middle of a demonstration in Haymarket Square. Several police officers and protesters died in the episode.

In the chaotic context of the fight for labor rights and social tensions of the time, the authorities arrested eight men. They were accused of conspiracy and instigating violence. The defendants were August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolf Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe. Despite the lack of direct evidence connecting all of them to the bombing, they were tried in a context of strong hostility towards the labor movement and particularly towards its more radical factions.

Four of the defendants were sentenced to hanging and executed (Spies, Parsons, Fischer, and Engel), one committed suicide in prison before his execution (Lingg), and the other three received long prison sentences (Fielden, Schwab, and Neebe ), although they were later pardoned in 1893 by Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld, who questioned the validity of the trial and noted the lack of evidence directly associating those convicted with the act of violence.

May 1st has been celebrated as Workers’ Day since 1890. This commemoration was instituted during the Congress of the Second International, held in Paris in 1889, where it was agreed to organize an international demonstration on May 1st of the following year. in demand of the eight-hour work day.

The date commemorates the Chicago Martyrs and symbolizes solidarity and demand for labor rights globally. (Andean)

The date was chosen to commemorate the Haymarket events in Chicago, which took place in May 1886, and which ended with the execution of several labor activists later known as the Chicago Martyrs. Since then, International Workers’ Day has been thought of throughout the world as a day of vindication of labor rights and solidarity among workers.