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Magazine

ORIGIN OF LABOR’S MAY DAY RECALLED;

MAY DAY AND THE SHORTER

The origin of May Day is indissolubly bound up with the historic
struggle for the shorter workday. Today, when the struggle for the shorter
work week is again on the order of the day, it is important to recall the ear-
lier struggles which inthe 1880’s were the inspiration for the celebration of

May Day.

-The PT here publishes extracts from the pamphlet “The History of
Mav Day” by Alexander Trachtenberg. The events he describes here led
up to the huge demonstrations in Chicago’s Haymarket Square
where police and their agents created a riot which led to the imprison-
ment and execution of leaders of the .8-hour movement.

1 struggles which directly
gave birth to May Day, were
initiated in the United States in
1884 in the movement for the 8-
hour day.

However, a generaion before, a
National labor organization, the
National Labor Union, which at
first gave great promise of devel-
Oping into a militant organizing
centre of the American working
Class, took up the question of a
Shorter workday and proposed to
organize a broad movement in its
behalf.

The first years of the Civil War
1861-1862, saw the dissappearance
Of the few national trade unions
Which had been formed just be-
fore the war began.

The years immediately follow-
ing, however, witnessed the unifi-
Cation on a national scale of a
number of local labor organiza-
tions, and the urge for a national
federation of all these unions be-
came apparent.

On August 20, 1866, there gather-
ed in Baltimore delegates from
three scores of trade unions who
formed the National Labor Union.
The movement for the national
Organization was led by William
H. Sylvis, the leader of the recon-
Structed Molder’s Union, who al-
though a young man, was the
Outstanding figure in the labor
Movement of those years.

Sylvis was in correspondence
with the leaders of the First Inter-
National in London and _ helped
to influence the National Labor
Union to establish relations’ with
the General Council of the Inter-
National. (The First International
Was the International Working-
Men’s Association, formed in
London in 1864. Karl Marx was
a leading member of its council.)

Tt was at the founding conven-
tion of the National Labor Union
In 1886 that the following reso-
lution was passed:

“The first and great necessity
Of the present, to free labor of
this counry from capitalist slav-
ry, is the passing of a law by

Which 8 hours shall be the nor-
Mal working day in all states
the American Union. We are
Tesolved to put forth all our
Strength until this glorious result
It attained.”
_ The same convention voted for
Mdependent political action in
Connection with the securing of
legal enactment of the 8-hour
day and the “election of men
Pledged to sustain and represent
Classes,”

Right-hour leagues were
formed as a result of the agita-
tion of the National Labor Union;
and through the political activity
Which the organization devel-
ped, several state governments
adopted the 8-hour day on public
Werk and the U.S. Congress en-
acted a similar law in 1868. The

spired leader of the 98-hour
Movement =was- the Boston. ma-
423 i

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chinist, Ira Steward.
8-HOUR-DAY DECISION

The decision for the 8-hour day
was made by the National Labor
Union in August, 1866. In Septem-
ber of the same year the Geneva
Congress of the First International
went on record for the same de-
mand in the following words:

“The legal limitation of the
working day is a preliminary
condition without which all fur-
ther attempts at improvements
and emancipation of the working
class must’ prove abortive . . -
The Congress proposes 8 hours
as the ‘legal limit of the working
day.”

In the chapter on “The Work-
ing Day’ in the first volume of
Capital, published in 1867, Marx
calls attention to the inaugura-
tion of the 8-hour movement by
the National Labor Union. In the
passage, famous especially be-
cause it contains Marx’s telling

reference to the solidarity of

— class interests beween the Negro

and white workers, he wrote:

“In the United States of
America, any sort of independ-
ent labor movement was para-
lyzed so long as slavery disfig-
ured a part of the republic. Labor
with a white skin cannot eman-
cipate itself where labor with a

black skin is branded. But out
of the death of slavery a new
vigorous life sprang. The first
fruit of the Civil War was an
agitation for the 8-hour day—a
movement which ran with ex-
press speed from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, from New England
to California.”

Marx calls attention to how
almost simultaneously, in_ fact
within two weeks of each other,
a workers’ convention meeting
in Baltimore voted for the 8-
hour day, and an international
congress meeting in Geneva,
Switzerland, adopted a similar
decision. ‘‘Thus on both sides of
the Atlantic did the working
class movement, spontaneous
outgrowth of the conditions of
production,’’ endorse. the same
movement of the limitations of
hours of labor and concretize it
in the demand for the 8-hour day.
That the decision of the Geneva
Congress was coordinated with
the American decision can be
seen from the following portion
of the resolution: ‘‘As this limi-
tation represents the general de-
demand of the workers of the
North-American United States,
the Congress transforms this de-
mand into the general platform
of the workers of the whole

Grad

“Why it’s sheer Communism to give them a s
¢ know what to do with their leisure time,

won
fat.”

horter work week — they
and they'll just get lazy and

‘consitute a

IWA members are shown on the Allied Engineering picket line in the show-

Section

‘WORK DAY

down battle between labor and employers last summer. The past year was
marked by increased attacks on labor by the Socred govt. and employers.

world.”
MAY DAY BORN

The First International ceased
to exist as an international or-
ganization in 1872, when its head-
quarters were removed from
London to New York, although
it was not officially disbanded
till 1876.

It was at the first congress of
the reconstructed International,
later known as the Second Inter-
national, held at Paris in 1889,
that May First was set aside as a
day upon which the workers of
the world, organized in their polit-
ical demand; the 8-hour day.

The Paris decision was _ influ-
enced by a decision made at Chi-
cago five years earlier by dele-
gates of a young American labor
organization, October 7, 1884, the
Organized Trades and Labor
Unions of the United States and
Canada, later known under the
abbreviated name, American
Federation of Labor.

At the fourth Convention of this
organization, October 7, 1884, he
following resolution was passed:

“Resolved by the Federation of
Organized Trades and Labor
Unions of the United States and
Canada, that eight hours shall
legal day’s labor
from May First, 1886, and that
we recommend to labor organi-
zations throughout their jurisdic-
tion that they so direct their
laws as to conform to this reSo-
lution by the time named.”

Although nothing was ‘said in
the resolution about the methods
by which the Federation ex-
pected to establish the 8 - hour
day, it is self-evident that an

‘ organization which at that time

commanded an adherence of not
more than 50,000 members could
not declare ‘‘that eight hours
shall constitute .a legal day’s
work’’ wihout putting up a fight
for it in the shops, mills, and
mines where its members were
employed, and without attempt-

ing to draw into the struggle

for the 8-hour day still larger
numbers of workers.

The provision in the resolution
that the unions affiliated to the
Federation ‘‘so direct their laws
as to conform to this resolution”
referred to the matter of paying
strike benefits to their members

who were expected to strike on
May First, 1886, for the 8-hour
day, and would probably have
to stay out long enough to need
assistance from the union.

As this strike action was to be
national in scope and involve all
the affiliated organizations, the
unions, according to their by-
laws, had to secure the endorse-:
ment of the strike by their mem-
bers, particularly since that
would involve the expenditure
of funds, etc. It must be remem-
bered that the Federation was,
organized on a voluntary, feder-
ation basis, and decisions of a
national convention could be
binding upon affiliated unions
only if those unions endorsed
these decisions.

@ The pamphlet, ‘The His-
tory of May Day,” is available
at the People’s Co-op Book-
store, 341 W. Pender. Price,
35c.

Award winning actress RITA
MORENO (above) addressed
an Easter peace demonsira-
tion of over 2,000 people in
Los Angeles. She said that
“war is unthinkable” but just
stopping testing was not
enough top revent it. 70,000
people gathered at the peace
demonstration in London,
Eng., and, significantly, over
80,000 turned out all over
West Germany, despite police
threats and harrassment.

April 26, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5