2023-05-01 11:56:41
The Revolution that began with the mechanization of the textile industries and the development of the processes for obtaining iron spread to most of Europe and the United States.
The expansion of trade was also favored by the improvement of transport routes and, a little later, by the birth of the railway.
from that moment factories began to attract large masses of workers displaced from the countrysideIn this way, the way of working was modified and the worker ceased to be the owner of the tools and the object produced.
But these changes also brought with them terrible working conditions.. According to various historical accounts, the situation of work in the factories and life in the working-class neighborhoods shocked the witnesses of the time.
Existing testimonies refer to working hours of more than sixteen hours of work in environments without ventilationin zero security conditions and under the control of foremen who severely punished those who did not comply with the established guidelines.
In addition, the hygiene and sanitation conditions were deplorable.
On the other hand, the incorporation of workers was carried out indiscriminately among men, women and children.
The neighborhoods and their homes were also unhealthy. All this set of problems was called: “The labor question.”
In 1810, the thinker of utopian socialismconsidered the father of cooperativism, Robert Owen, referred to the fact that the quality of a worker’s work has a relationship “directly proportional to the quality of his life”.
Some years later he imposed the popular motto: “eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation and eight hours of rest”.
Already by 1830 the demand for the reduction of working hours was a general request in the United States.
But the working conditions remained unchanged until the “American Federation of Labor” (American Federation of Labor), resolved during the celebration of its IV congress, held on October 17, 1884 in Chicago, that since May 1, 1886 the legal duration of the working day should be eight hours.
the great strike
They also warned that they would develop a general strike if such a demand was not achieved.
Within this framework, it recommended that all trade unions draft laws to that effect in their respective jurisdictions.
It was in this framework that the US President Andrew Johnson signed the Ingersoll Act into law in 1886.which established the eight-hour day, although it also contained clauses that allowed it to be increased to 14 and 18 hours.
This standard was not accepted by the employers so the great strike began to take shape.
The workers of the United States they began to organize until the date established in the IV congress of the American Federation of Labor arrived, paralyzed the productive country with more than five thousand strikes.
May 1, 1886 Some 200,000 workers began the strike, while another 200,000 conquered the eight hours with the simple threat of stopping.
According to various reports, In Chicagowhere the conditions of the workers were worse than in other cities, the mobilizations continued on May 2 and 3.
A hard episode of the fight was the incident that occurred in one of the few companies that did not stop that day, the McCormick agricultural materials factory that hired strikebreakers.
On May 2 a concentration of the dismissed workers of McCormick was held to protest about 1,200 dismissals and the brutal police abuses.
While the meeting was taking place in front of the factory, and when the anarchist August Spies was in the stands, the siren sounded for the start of a strikebreaking shift, and a pitched battle began. The Police, without warning, proceeded to fire at point-blank range on the crowd, causing 6 deaths and several dozen wounded.
Spies He immediately published a manifesto in the Arbeiter Zeitung: “If the workers are shot, we will respond in such a way that our masters will remember it for a long time”
He also called an act of protest for the next day, in Haymarket Square.
Permission was obtained from the mayor to hold the event at 7:30 p.m. in Haymarket Park. The events that took place there are known as the “Haymarket Revolt”.
“Great speakers will be present to denounce the latest atrocities committed by the police, the shooting of our classmates yesterday afternoon. Arm yourself workers and make a strong presence!” expressed one of the pamphlets calling for the rally.
indiscriminate fire
The concentration brought together more than 3,000 strikers, but towards the end of the act and when there were 200 attendees left, a detachment of 180 heavily armed policemen showed up and an officer gave the order to shoot.
A bomb went off and the police turned Haymarket “into a zone of indiscriminate fire, there were deaths and more than 200 injuries.”
An offensive was then unleashed against the anarchists. Newspapers were closed, workers’ houses and premises were searched and rallies were prohibited.
In Chicago, the jails were filled with thousands of revolutionaries and strikers.. In this context, the entire printing team of the Arbeiter Zeitung was arrested and the police detained 8 anarchists: George Engel, Samuel Fielden, Adolf Fischer, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Albert Parsons, Oscar Neebe and August Spies. All were members of the International Association of Working People.
According to various reports, the trial was totally rigged. They were accused of “complicity of murder” although it could never be proven that they were involved in or related to the bomb incident since most of them were not present and one of the two who were present was the speaker at the time the bomb was dropped.
end of maySeveral sectors of the US employers had already agreed to grant the eight-hour day to several hundred thousand workers.
But the 8 anarchists were sentenced to death. As the day of execution approached, the sentences of Oscar Neebe, Samuel Fielden, and Michael Schwab were changed to life imprisonment, and Louis Lingg was found dead in his cell.
black friday
At noon on November 11, 1887, Spies, Engel, Parsons, and Fischer were led to the gallows.. During the walk, the four of them sang La Marseillaise Anarchist. That day would be remembered as “Black Friday”.
The episode was memorably portrayed by José Martíwho worked as a correspondent in Chicago for the newspaper La Nación in Buenos Aires.
“They come out of their cells. They shake hands, smile. The sentence is read to them, their hands are tied behind their backs with handcuffs, their arms are tied to their bodies with a leather sash and they are put on a white shroud like the tunic of Christian catechumens.. Below is the audience, seated in a row of chairs in front of the scaffold as in a theater… Firmness on Fischer’s face, prayer on Spies’s, pride on Parsons’s, Engel makes a joke about his hood, Spies shouts: ‘the voice that you are going to stifle will be more powerful in the future than how many words I could say now’. Their hoods are lowered, then a sign, a noise, the trap gives way, the four bodies fall and sway in a terrifying dance.
In July 1889the Second International instituted the “International Worker’s Day” to perpetuate the memory of the events of May 1886 in Chicago.
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