May Day celebrates the progress of the labor movement – Red Bluff Daily News

I am writing this on the evening of May 1. May Day, we call it. For me, it is one of my favorite holidays as it combines both left wing history with a bit of Paganism.

When I was a kid, we would fill up May Baskets full of treats and ring the doorbell of the person on whom we had crushes. It was then the tradition that the person who received the May Basket would run out of the house and attempt to kiss the person leaving the basket.

I remember leaving a basket at the age of 6 for a 6-year-old girl. I didnt run too fast, so she caught me. Why anyone would run from receiving a kiss from a person you like strikes me as odd.

The Pagans of northern Europe called the day Beltane. It is from this that we have the tradition of the May Pole, which actually started 2,000 years ago with the Romans, and maybe some of you have participated in such celebrations. It is the celebration of spring and fertility and new life.

Among my more Pagan friends I have had throughout life, the Beltane celebration had a bit of a more randy side. One lady of such a persuasion used to say: Hurray, Hurray, it is the first of May. Outdoor sexual activities begin today. Of course, she used a different word for the carnal nature of the holiday but this is a family newspaper.

May Day was designated the day of the worker back in 1889 by a bunch of socialists and trade unionists to commemorate the Haymarket Riot, which occurred in Chicago on May 4, 1886. The Haymarket strike was in support of something we all enjoy today the 8-hour work day.

Industrial relations at the time were horrendous and workers were often expected to work 6 days a week, working up to 16 hours a day for an average of $1.50 a day. The 1880s is often called the Great Upheaval due to the explosion of the labor movement along with a governmental backlash that often resulted in beatings and death.

On May 1, 1886, a general national strike was called by socialists, anarchists and trade union groups in support of the 8-hour day. The numbers of people who went out on strike was impressive 70,000 people in Chicago and 40,000 people in New York City went on strike. Milwaukee and Detroit similarly had thousands of people out on strike for the 8-hour day. Nationwide, it is estimated that between 350,000 and half a million workers went on strike that day.

The strikers all sang a popular song called The 8 Hour Day in which the last lyrics were: Eight hours wed have for working; eight hours wed have for play; eight hours wed have for sleeping in free Amerikay.

The strike lasted for a few days and on May 3, 1886, the police killed a couple of protesters in Chicago. This upset the strikers who then had a huge rally in Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4. The police came to break up the demonstration, which had begun peacefully, until someone threw a bomb at the police killing several of them. Mayhem ensued and Haymarket square was cleared within five minutes.

Eight police officers died during the riot and four protesters, 70 protesters were injured. Eventually 7 anarchists were sentenced to death by hanging for their unproven participation in the violence.

As often happens after a riot where there has been violence, a backlash against the labor movement ensued. In modern times, think of the negative Fox coverage of the Minneapolis riots after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. Something similar happened back in the 1880s.

However, by 1889, as mentioned above, Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor, in concert with a group of international Socialists called the Second International decided to begin a new push for the 8-hour day on May 1 of that year.

In the United States, it wasnt until 1937 and the New Deal that the 8-hour day became the standard for everyone with overtime established for work beyond the 8-hour day. However, the fight for the 8-hour work day began in earnest as early as the late 1860s. Some social innovations happen slowly. It took nearly 70 years of advocacy to establish the 8-hour work day in the United States.

May Day as the day of the worker is celebrated in 80 countries. Of course, most of us of a certain age remember the Soviet Union and its spectacular parades they used to have in Red Square. The tradition lingers on in many countries and it seems a bit ironic that the country that first designated May Day doesnt have it as an official holiday.

In the United States, Labor Day was created as a holiday by President Grover Cleveland after the Pullman Strike, but he moved it to the first Monday in September to avoid giving any credit to the socialists and the union folk who pushed for the holiday on May 1.

Allan Stellar is an RN and a freelance writer who moved to Red Bluff after the Camp Fire. He can be reached at Allan361@aol.com.

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May Day celebrates the progress of the labor movement - Red Bluff Daily News