International Work Day: History and how May 1 began

There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you're killing today” These were the last words of August Spies, one of four innocent workers, who were executed after the explosion of a bomb in “Haymarks” in Chicago, in May 1886, where they lost their lives to the eight principal directors of the workers' movement, “Krim” for which Spies and his friends were being punished was to be militants in the war that workers had undertaken for their rights and eight-hour work.

May 1 is a holiday founded in memory of the martyrdom in <x0 Square <haymarket” and to commemorate and celebrate International Workers' Solidarity Day.

The history of violence in the United States in 1880 showed that employers would use their arsenal from courts to police. While the killings in one of Chicago's main squares showed how much the situation had deteriorated. But the workers' efforts for the 8-hour work day in 1880 demonstrated their determination.

The movement began in 1884, when the Federation of Organised Market and the Union of Workers (represented by the American Workers' Federation) drafted the resolution that “, starting on May 1st 1886, the working hours for all workers should have been 8-hour”.
On May 1, 1886, over 200,000 workers gathered in Chicago's central square would start strikes to claim their rights. While the newspapers would assess them as “absurde”. The death of seven policemen during the protests, initiated for many days, was the cause of Chicago Police's reaction to the workers ' movement. The result of a bomb dropped by police forces killed the eight main leaders of the Federation of Workers, thus turning May into the month of commemoration of workers' efforts to gain their rights.

Three years later, the Chicago event in 1889, the Second Socialist International, which took place in Paris (France), established the celebration of May Day as the day of unity, war and solidarity of all the world's workers. Today, almost 122 years later, May Day is celebrated worldwide as International Workers ' Solidarity Day. / KP/