I find it “funny” that most of the world celebrates labor/workers day on May 1st to commemorate the Chicago protest to fight for 8-hour shifts and workers rights but in the US they don’t even talk about it.
Labor Day in the US was chosen kinda arbitrarily to fall between independence Day and Thanksgiving Day
In 1886, the Chicago labour unions organized for protests on May 1 to demand an 8 hour day
On May 3rd strikers tried to confront strike breakers, police fired into the crowd of strikers, killing some
An anti-police, anti-big-business rally was organized for the next day in Haymarket Square
The May 4th rally was mostly peaceful, but there were police standing by
At 10:30 the police moved in en masse to break up the rally
As the police advanced, someone (it was never determined who) threw a homemade bomb into the path of the advancing police, killing 1 and injuring many
There was a huge gun fight, involving some protesters and a lot of police, many more people were killed, including police, many shot by their own fellow cops
The bomb throwing was blamed on the anarchists, the anarchist leaders were rounded up, found guilty in quick and massively unfair show-trials, and hanged
There was massive backlash against the unions and the anarchists, and the cause of the 8 hour work day was massively set back
Labour unions kept fighting for an 8 hour day, and decided to keep the May 1st date for their actions, with the first being 4 years later on May 1, 1890, but this time it was international, with strikes in Europe, Central and South America
As a movement representing workers, communist parties around the world adopted May Day as a significant day
After WWII, the US was in full-on anti-communist mode, and May Day came to be seen as a communist holiday, so they moved it to September 1st and made May 1st “Loyalty Day” instead.
Edited to add: the only really confusing part about the whole thing is the names. One of the main guys involved was named “Spies”, and another peripheral figure was named “Most”. That makes it really confusing when you get phrases like “Most thought hat…” or “Spies believed…”
I find it “funny” that most of the world celebrates labor/workers day on May 1st to commemorate the Chicago protest to fight for 8-hour shifts and workers rights but in the US they don’t even talk about it.
Labor Day in the US was chosen kinda arbitrarily to fall between independence Day and Thanksgiving Day
The history of that is pretty straightforward:
Edited to add: the only really confusing part about the whole thing is the names. One of the main guys involved was named “Spies”, and another peripheral figure was named “Most”. That makes it really confusing when you get phrases like “Most thought hat…” or “Spies believed…”
And that is deliberate
Does China celebrate or even acknowledge the Tiananmen Square Massacre? Same thing