LABOUR DAY OR MAY DAY OR WORKERS’ DAY
Official Name is: International Workers’ Day
Also called as: May Day
International Labour Day is also known as the International Worker’s
Day and May Day which is celebrated on an international level to promote
and encourage the international labour associations. It is being
celebrated all across the world every year on 1st of May which has been declared as the traditional spring holiday in the Europe.It
has also been declared as the national holiday in almost 80 countries
of the world whereas it is being celebrated as an unofficial event in
most of the countries. It the US and Canada, it is (Labour Day)
celebrated on 1st Monday
of the September month as an annual holiday for celebrating the great
achievements of the workers working in various fields.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY 2017
International Labour Day 2017 will be celebrated by the people (socialists and labour unions) all over the world on 1st of May, at Monday.
HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY
International Workers’ Day is the big celebration on the world level and it is celebrated to commemorate the 4th of
May of 1886, the Haymarket affair (Haymarket Massacre) in the Chicago.
It is the big event of that year when workers were on the general strike
for their eight-hour workday and police were doing their job of
dispersing the general public from the crowd. Suddenly, a bomb was
thrown from the crowd by an unidentified person and then the police
started firing the workers and four demonstrators were killed.
Here is a real statement about the event: “Reliable witnesses
testified that all the pistol flashes came from the centre of the
street, where the police were standing, and none from the crowd.
Moreover, initial newspaper reports made no mention of firing by
civilians. A telegraph pole at the scene was filled with bullet holes,
all coming from the direction of the police.”
It was decided to be celebrated on annual basis as a May Day in the
meeting (in 1889) of Paris through a proposal by the Raymond Lavigne
that international demonstrations is required to celebrate the
anniversary of Chicago protests. In the year 1891, May Day was
officially recognised by the International’s second congress to be
celebrated as an annual event.
However, May Day Riots occurred in the year 1894 and then in the year
1904, the following statement was given to the International Socialist
Conference at Amsterdam “all Social Democratic Party organizations and
trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First
for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of
the proletariat, and for universal peace.” and declared it “mandatory
upon the proletarian organizations of all countries to stop work on May
1, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers.”
WHY IS MAY DAY CELEBRATED?
International Labour Day or May Day is celebrated to finish the
struggle as well as to promote the requirement of an eight-hour work
day. Earlier the working condition of the labourer was very severe and
working hours was 10 to 16 hour a day even in the unsafe conditions.
Deaths, injuries and other dreadful conditions of the workers were very
common at the workplace during the 1860’s and working people were very
agitated throughout the workday until the 8-hour workday was declared.
The rising death of the working class people (men, women and
children) in many working industries, required to raise the voice for
the safety of the working group people by decreasing their working hours
in the industries. After the lots of efforts made by the workers and
socialists, eight-hours was declared as the legal time for the workers
in the national convention at Chicago in 1884 by the American Federation
of Labor.
Many people have sacrificed their lives during the Haymarket Massacre
which was held in the Chicago during the strike of workers. May Day is
celebrated to commemorate the event of Haymarket Massacre as well as to
promote the social and economic achievements of the working group
people.
HOW INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY IS CELEBRATED
International Labor Day is celebrated yearly as an official holiday
all over the world to celebrate the accomplishments of workers. People
enjoy celebrating the May Day or Labour Day by arranging the big party
and lots of programmes. They decorate the banners and flags using
colours just like an Independence Day celebration.
A variety of news and messages are distributed by the TV channels and
radio channels saying Happy Labor Day among people to increase social
awareness about the Labour Day. A variety of other events is also
organised by the International Labour Organization to celebrate the day.
The theme of the Labour Day party celebration becomes any cartoon
characters, western culture shows, sports, TV shows, movies, holiday
activities, crazy fun activities and much more. Other Labor Day
activities include a crossword puzzle, anagram puzzle, word search
puzzle, code cracker puzzle, word scramble puzzle, phrase matching game
puzzle and etc.
This celebration has become a historic significance all over the
world and celebrated by the Labour unions worldwide. A variety of
demonstrations, speeches, protests processions, rallies and parades are
organised by the working group people under the security arrangements to
protect violence.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY THEME
International Labour Day themes are planned by the members of the
International labour day. Some of the themes are mentioned below:
- The theme of International Labour Day of 2016 would be “Celebrating the international labour movement”.
- The theme of International Labour Day of 2015 was “Construct the Future of Cameroon in Peace, Solidarity and Decent Work”.
- The theme of International Labour Day of 2013 was “Let’s value work by providing the jobless with start-up capital support“.
- The theme of International Labour Day of 2012 was “Promote Employment by Supporting Prospective Entrepreneurs”.
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY QUOTES
- “The tendency of taxation is to create a class of persons who do not labor, to take from those who do labor the produce of that labor, and to give it to those who do not labor.” William Cobbett
- “Manual labor to my father was not only good and decent for it’s own sake but, as he was given to saying, it straightened out one’s thoughts.” Mary Ellen Chase
- “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level–I mean the wages of decent living.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “Workingmen are at the foundation of society. Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I will show you something that society can well dispense with.” Samuel Gompers
- “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” Martin Luther King Jr
- “Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over.” Henry George
- “Labor wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful – to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister.” Thorstein Veblen
- “Before the reward there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.” Ralph Ransom
- “Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.” Bob Black
- “Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.” Robert Green Ingersoll
- “If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.” Doug Larson
- “Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken.” Bill Dodds
- “International solidarity is not an act of charity: It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible.” Samora Machel
- “Without labor nothing prospers.” Sophocles
- “If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.” Abraham Lincoln
- “Nonbureaucratic, participative, solidarity-driven, noncommercial, arty. With all those manifest virtues, you have to wonder why a setup like this can’t seem to last any longer than a Labor Day weekend.” Bruce Sterling
- “Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.” Ulysses S. Grant
- “When people ask me, ‘Why can’t labor organize the way it did in the thirties?’ the answer is simple: everything we did then is now illegal.” Thomas Geoghegan
- “Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.” Adam Smith
- “Labor Day differs in every essential from other holidays of the year in any country. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflict and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.” Samual Gempers
- “It is labour indeed that puts the difference on everything.” John Locke
- “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln
- “What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.” Samuel Gompers
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION
International Labour Organization (ILO) is an agency located in the
United Nations, established to deal with labour issues on international
level. It has around 185 members of the total (193) UN member states. It
was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 1969 for promoting
peace among classes, deal with workers issues, providing them technical
assistance in order to develop nations.
It deals with all the complaints violating the international rules
for labour class people. It has tripartite governing structure means
“representing governments, employers and workers (usually with a ratio
of 2:1:1)” in order to create free and open debate between the social
partners and governmental body. International Labour Organization
secretariat works as an International Labour Office.
Its Governing Body has right to plan or take decision about
International Labour Conferences, adopting or organizing programmes,
electing the director-general, dealing with the member states about the
labour matters, appointing commissions of inquiry as well as supervising
International Labour Office actions. It has around 28 government
representatives, 14 employer representatives and 14 worker
representatives.
It organizes an International Labour Conference (parliament of
labour, having 4 representatives, 2 government, 1 employer and 1 worker
delegate) on annual basis in the Geneva in the month of June to make
general policies, planning programmes and deciding budget.
