Why Labor Day is celebrated on May 1st

The motto was: "Eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours of work". But none of this happened at the end of the 19th century.

At that time, American employees had to meet exhausting days of 12, 16 and up to 18 hours. The only limitation in some States was the prohibition on a person working 18 consecutive hours without justification. The fine for forcing the employee to date was $ 25.

International Workers Day commemorates May 1st, 1886, a date that marked a before and after in the history of the organized labor movement. That day, a strike began as a protest against the 8-hour day that lasted until the 4th of the month, at the time of the Haymarket uprising. ended with the execution of a group of anarchist syndicalists, later baptized as Martyrs of Chicago.

The demands of the workers were not new. By the end of the eighteenth century, workers had protested against the extremely difficult working conditions created by the industrial revolution in Britain.

In 1868, the American president Andrew Johnson established by law the reduction of working time at 8 am, after decades of workers' complaints, with clauses allowing these hours to be extended.

However, the compliance of businessmen with the Ingersoll law was not immediate and aroused much resistance.

The workers did not have clear rules and their rights had been violated. In this context, on May 1, 1886, it began in Chicago, the industrial epicenter of the United States. a strike that ended up spreading to the rest of the country.

They began to manifest 80,000 workers. And this figure increased when nearly half a million workers joined the strike in 5000 strikes across the country.

After several episodes of police repression against the strikers, where there were even deaths, a demonstration was held at Haymarket Square. He a person who has never been identified he threw an incendiary bomb on the police forces that killed 7 policemen and injured 60 in uniform. Security forces repressed the country with gunshots, leaving a number of dead and wounded among the workers. That day went into history as a "Haymarket Riot (or Mbadacre)".

Because of the serious events, 31 people were prosecuted for the facton June 21, 1886. Eight of them were sentenced, two to life imprisonment, one to fifteen years of forced labor and five to the death penalty. The process was tainted with irregularities and the accused 's guarantees were not respected. The convicted person's guilt has never really been proven.

A year later, in Illinos, it was acknowledged that the trial had not respected the rights of the accused and the governor pardoned the trade unionists who were in detention.

It was in Paris in 1889, during a congress of the second international (badociation of socialist, trade union and anarchist parties from all over the world), It was created on May 1 as a working day to commemorate the martyrs of Chicago.

However, in the United States and Canada, they celebrate the Labor Day (Work day) the first Monday of September. The origin was a parade held on September 5, 1882 in New York by the Noble Order of Knights of Labor. The celebration never changed until May 1, as US President Grover Cleveland feared the party would strengthen the socialist movement in the United States.