Stuart Martin
Each year thousands of workers rally and march on May Day. May Day commemorates the worldwide fight by the working class for improved working conditions.
On May 1, 1886, Chicago workers led by the American Federation of Labor struck for an eight-hour working day. The capitalist response was to have the police harass the workers, trying to intimidate them. Three days later, workers peacefully rallied in Haymarket Square in defiance of the harassment, only to be fired upon by the police with several killed. Four of the workers' leaders were executed by the capitalist courts on November 11, 1887.
The first May Day marches were held across the world in 1890 in memory of those US workers who lost their lives, and to re-launch the campaign for the eight-hour work day in the US and in Europe.
Although some 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the Australian working class had won the eight-hour work day, May Day was embraced as part of the campaign to extend it to all Australian workers and to defend the gains from the capitalists' attempts to reverse it.
Since then, May Day has had a proud tradition of agitation. The issues of the day have always been prominent — such as the participation of the Women's Suffrage Societies in the 1890s, the fight for the unemployed in the 1930s, and the campaign against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s.
From 2001 there has been a shift to holding the May Day rally and march on May 1, rather than the closest Sunday. Initially, this began with blockades of stock exchanges initiated by socialists as part of the anti-globalisation movement.
However, just as many workers and students are keen to reclaim May 1 for May Day, the capitalist governments are determined to oppose it. In Perth in 2001, a peaceful blockade was attacked by police, and the following year the Sydney demonstration was also attacked by police.
The active involvement by the Victorian construction industry unions has cemented the trend in Melbourne toward holding the May Day rally on May 1, with construction workers striking on the day to demonstrate their commitment to making May Day a day of struggle again. As the late John Loh wrote in the construction workers' union journal in 2001: "May Day has traditionally been International Workers' Day since the 8-hour day struggles of the 1880s. However, it is many years since Australian unions supported a rally on May 1 and the success of the 2001 May Day means an old tradition has had new life breathed into it."
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, April 27, 2005.
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