the bloody story behind labor day

Much of the world celebrates this Saturday, May 1, the Labor Day. For many, it’s just a day off. But this date remembers a bloodstained protest and the clashes, which marked a milestone in history and have been commemorated for 135 years.

What is remembered every May 1st is the so-called “Haymarket Riot”. This is the name of the Chicago square United States, where the movement began May 4, 1886 was the culmination of a series of protests that took place from the first day of that month.

The marches were held in support of the strike by workers who fought to justify the eight hour working day.

But during one of the protests, a person who could not be identified and made history in complete anonymity, threw a bomb on the police trying to disperse the workers.

A historic judgment

This action led to a trial of eight workers who were arrested. Five of these anarchist and communist workers were sentenced to death, although one of them committed suicide. The other three were detained.

These eight men were known as the “Chicago Martyrs”.

Over the years, this event has led to the commemoration of the International workers day, originally created by the labor movement, but quickly adopted by society as a whole in dozens of countries.

Although there are two important exceptions: the United States and Canada do not celebrate this day. Instead, they established what they call “Labor Day” for the first Monday in September of each year.

The context of the industrial revolution

We are in a time colored by the industrial Revolution And of course, the United States was at the forefront of this process. At the end of the 19th century, Chicago was the second largest city in this country.

Immigration in search of work came from all parts of the United States to this city, in addition to foreigners who formed the first humble working villages in the Chicago suburbs.

The motto which gave rise to the demonstration was to make prevail the maximum of “eight hours for work, eight hours for the sleep and eight hours for the house”.

Yes various labor movements began to emerge who sought to enforce their demands and complaints.

Before that, working hours can last up to 18 hours. And if an employer forced their workers to work more than that time, they were only fined $ 25 by the authorities.

By the mid-1880s, most workers in the United States were affiliated with the Knights of Labor, with significant anarchist influence, as well as the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

It was during its fourth congress, held in October 1884, that it was resolved that from May 1, 1886, the legal duration of the working day would be eight hours and if this claim was not executed, workers would strike right.

This further promoted the possibility of working for those who were unemployed, covering the shifts of workers who previously occupied the entire working day.

The law and the traps

The postulates of the new law looked promising for the working class. But in 1886, the American president Andrew Johnson enacted the so-called Ingersoll Law, which establishes eight hours a day, but also maximum hours of up to 10 hours and with clauses allowing people to work between 2 and 6 p.m. if the job warrants it.

Finally, working conditions hadn’t changed much and the situation was becoming unbearable.

Shortly afterwards, the trade union organizations began to demonstrate, despite a major press reviews who described the movement as “scandalous and disrespectful”, as “mad unpatriotic delirium” and that “it was the same as asking for a salary to be paid without respecting any working hour”. The cards have been drawn.

The start of the strike

Faced with the growing tension already perceived in the environment, The New York Times wrote: “The strikes to uphold the eight hours can do a lot to cripple our industry, decrease trade and slow our nation’s resurgent prosperity, but they will fall short of their goal.”

The press in general came to speak out saying that in more than eight hours the workers would start to demand whatever “the craziest anarchists” could suggest.

On May 1, 1886, approximately 200,000 workers went on strike to assert their rights. The city of Chicago was the epicenter of the battle, being one of the worst places in the United States in terms of working conditions.

Violence has invaded the streets. The workers’ mobilizations continued day after day, despite the fact that on May 2 the police had dispersed the crowd of more than 50,000 people with great brutality.

During the day of May 3, and at the insistence of the workers, the police began to repress more violently and a group of officers, without warning, shot at the crowd. They killed six people and injured dozens more.

On May 4, the situation was already overwhelming. An act of protest was scheduled that day at 7:30 p.m.

Out of control

The event took place, but at 9:30 p.m. the crowd (around 20 thousand people) was still gathered Haymarket Square.

The police inspector then decided to attack them because he considered that the act had to be finished and that the area had to be cleared. So he advanced with 180 uniformed policemen and the repression began.

At that time, an explosive device exploded which killed an officer (some chronicles speak of six police officers killed) and left several others injured. Lack of control has taken over the streets and the police opened fire on the workers. The death toll is unknown until today.

the siege and curfew and in the following days, hundreds of workers were searched and arrested, with torture, accusing them of murdering the policeman (or policemen).

The Supreme Court quickly began the trial of eight anarchist workers, and five of them were sentenced to death.

This is how these convicts came to be known as the “Chicago Eight”.

Years later, in 1893, the governor of Illinois pardoned three of the workers who had already been executed, noting that you could never prove who dropped the bomb and even less the link with the three condemned.

But it was too late. Very late. The three pardoned workers were never able to discover that their sentences had been revoked.

A few days later, finally, various sectors of the employers’ association agreed to recognize this eight-hour working day.

Thus, in 1889, the Socialist Workers ‘Congress of the Second International held in Paris instituted May 1 as “International Workers’ Day” to pay homage to the “martyrs of Haymarket”.

CB