by Jim
On May 1 1886, 80,000 workers and their families walked down Chicago's Michigan Avenue in the worlds first ever May Day Parade. At the same time 340,000 workers in 12,000 factories across the US downed tools in a general strike to demand an eight-hour day. They demanded that their employers provide work for the thousands who were being made unemployed by new machinery.
The next day Chicago police attacked peaceful strikers with guns and clubs, killing one and wounding several. The next day 6,000 striking lumber workers marched to the aid of strikers at the McCormick Harvester factory who had been locked out over a wage dispute. When picketers tried to stop scabs entering the plant, the cops opened fire, killing four and wounding many others. A protest was called the next day.
The meeting in Haymarket Square was peaceful and rain soon dispersed many of the crowd. With only a few hundred remaining the police attacked. A bomb was thrown and exploded among the police who immediately opened fire. A Chicago policeman was killed in the explosion.
It has never been discovered who threw the Haymarket bomb, but it seems it was certainly none of the eight anarchists who were put on trial for it. Six of them were not even there! A right-wing judge and hysterical press ensured 5 of the 8 were sentenced to death.
In 1889, the American delegation attending the International Socialist congress in Paris proposed that May 1 be adopted as a workers' holiday to commemorate working class struggle and the 'Martyrdom of the Chicago Eight'. Instead of breaking the back of the labour movement as the authorities hoped at the time, May Day has become a day for workers and students to show their hatred for the capitalist system, and the willingness to defend themselves from the attacks from the ruling class. May 1968 in France saw in the biggest general strike of the century, and the trade union and anti-capitalist demonstrations today show that our opposition to a system that starves, bombs and exploits humanity cannot be defeated.
