Let's remember those who fought for our rights

By Husna Inayathullah

May 1 is a Government and public holiday in Sri Lanka. May Day celebrations are held on a large scale in major towns and cities the world over. Political party leaders greeting the crowds during the celebrations is a common sight on this day. Workers usually carry banners with political slogans and many parties decorate their vehicles.

May Day originated in America and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility. In the late 19th Century, the working class was in a frequent struggle to gain the eight hour work day as the working conditions were severe and the ordinary masses had to work 10 to 16 hours a day in unsafe conditions.

In 1860s the working class agitated to shorten the work day without a cut in pay but it was in 1880s that the organised labourers were able to gain strength to declare that eight hour work day.

Socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people at this time, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers’ lives for profit.

Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Socialism offered another option.

Socialist organisations

Many socialist organisations rose up throughout the later half of the 19th century, from political parties to choir groups. In fact, many socialists were elected into governmental office by their constituency.

But again, many of these socialists were unsuccessful by the political process which was so evidently controlled by big business and the bi-partisan political machine.

Tens of thousands of socialists broke ranks from their parties which was seen as nothing more than protection for the wealthy, and created anarchist groups throughout the country.

Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures. Emphasised worker controlled industry, and valued direct action over the bureaucratic political process. Anarchists and socialist made up the labour unions.At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labour), proclaimed that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labour from and after May 1, 1886.” The following year, the FOTLU, backed by many Knights of Labour locals, reiterated their proclamation stating that it would be supported by strikes and demonstrations.

Misgivings

At first, most radicals and anarchists regarded this demand as too reformist.Despite the misgivings of many of the anarchists, an estimated quarter million workers in the Chicago area became directly involved in the crusade to implement the eight hour work day, including the Trades and Labour Assembly, the Socialistic Labour Party and local Knights of Labour. As more and more of the workforce mobilised against the employers, these radicals conceded to fight for the 8-hour day.

With the involvement of the anarchists, there seemed to be an infusion of greater issues than the 8-hour day. There grew a sense of a greater social revolution beyond the more immediate gains of shortened hours.

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicentre for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public's eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists.

Albert Parsons, Johann Most, August Spies and Louis Lingg became household words in Chicago and throughout the country. Parades, bands and tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets exemplified the workers’ strength and unity, yet didn't become violent as the newspapers and authorities predicted.

Peace

Many workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers.

For six months, armed Pinkerton agents and the police harassed and beat locked-out steelworkers as they picketed. Most of these workers belonged to the “anarchist-dominated” Metal Workers’ Union.

During a speech near the McCormick plant, some two hundred demonstrators joined the steelworkers on the picket line.

Beatings with police clubs escalated into rock throwing by the strikers which the police responded to with gunfire.

At least two strikers were killed and an unknown number were wounded.

Full of rage, a public meeting was called by some of the anarchists for the following day in Haymarket Square to discuss the police brutality. Due to bad weather and short notice, only about 3,000 of the tens of thousands of people showed up from the day before. This affair included families with children and the mayor of Chicago himself.

Speculation

As the speech wound down, two detectives rushed to the main body of police, reporting that a speaker was using inflammatory language, inciting the police to march on the speakers’ wagon. As the police began to disperse the already thinning crowd, a bomb was thrown into the police ranks. No one knows who threw the bomb, but speculations varied from blaming any one of the anarchists, to an agent provocateur working for the police.

Enraged, the police fired into the crowd. The exact number of civilians killed or wounded was never determined, but an estimated seven or eight civilians died, and up to forty were wounded. One officer died immediately and another seven died in the following weeks.

Later evidence indicated that only one of the police deaths could be attributed to the bomb and that all the other police fatalities had or could have had been due to their own indiscriminate gun fire.

Aside from the bomb thrower, who was never identified, it was the police, not the anarchists, who perpetrated the violence.

Eight anarchists namely Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer and Louis Lingg were arrested and convicted of murder, though only three were even present at Haymarket and those three were in full view of all when the bombing occurred.

The jury in their trial comprised business leaders in a gross mockery of justice similar to the Sacco-Vanzetti case thirty years later, or the trials of AIM and Black Panther members in the seventies.

The entire world watched as these eight organisers were convicted, not for their actions, of which all of were innocent, but for their political and social beliefs. On November 11, 1887, after many failed appeals, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fisher were hung to death. Louis Lingg, in his final protest of the state's claim of authority and punishment, took his own life the night before with an explosive device in his mouth.

Travesty of justice

The remaining organisers, Fielden, Neebe and Schwab, were pardoned six years later by Governor Altgeld, who publicly lambasted the judge on a travesty of justice.

Today we see tens of thousands of activists embracing the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs and those who established May Day as an International Workers’ Day. Ironically, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognised in America where it began.

History has a lot to teach us about the roots of our radicalism. When we remember that people were shot so we could have the 8-hour day; if we acknowledge that homes with families in them were burned to the ground so we could have Saturday as part of the weekend; when we recall 8-year old victims of industrial accidents who marched in the streets protesting working conditions and child labour only to be beat down by the police and company thugs, we understand that our current condition cannot be taken for granted - people fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today, and there is still a lot more to fight for.

The sacrifices of so many people cannot be forgotten or we'll end up fighting for those same gains all over again. This is why we celebrate May Day.