FLASH NEWS
International Workers' Day/ How the movement to demand and secure working rights, freedoms and conditions began in 1884
2026-05-01 08:19:53 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
May 1st is known as International Workers' Day. This event was born from the struggle of workers to demand and secure their rights, freedoms, and working and living conditions.
"There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you are suppressing today."
These were the last words of August Spies, one of the four innocent workers who were executed after a bomb exploded in Chicago's Haymarket Square in May 1886, killing eight key leaders of the labor movement. The "crime" for which Spies and his comrades were being punished was being militant in the struggle that workers had undertaken for their rights and the 8-hour workday.
May 1 is a holiday established in memory of the martyrdom in Haymarket Square and to commemorate and celebrate International Workers' Solidarity Day.
The history of violence in the United States in the 1880s showed that employers would use their arsenal, from the courts to the police. While the murders in one of Chicago's main squares showed how much the situation had deteriorated. But the workers' efforts for the 8-hour workday in 1880 showed their determination.
The movement began in 1884, when the Organized Market Federation and Labor Union (predecessor to the American Federation of Labor) drafted a resolution that "beginning with May 1, 1886, the working day for all workers should be 8 hours."
On May 1, 1886, over 200,000 workers, gathered in Chicago's central square, would go on strike to demand their rights.
While newspapers would describe them as “absurd.” The deaths of 7 police officers during the protests, which had been going on for many days, were the cause of the Chicago Police's reaction to the workers' movement.
As a result of a bomb thrown by police forces, 8 key leaders of the workers' federation were killed, thus turning May into a month of commemoration of workers' efforts to win their rights.
Three years later from the Chicago event, in 1889, the Second Socialist International, which took place in Paris (France), established the celebration of May 1 as a day of unity, struggle and solidarity of all workers of the world.
Happening now...
Sali Brava
Nga Bato Kosova
ideas
Edi Rama's blessing and the vampire at our expense!
Nga Sidi Hasanaj
Spiropali dhe loja e pritjes për lidershipin
Nga Alban Daci
Berisha's persistence as a strategy of failure
Nga Ardi Stefa
top
Alfa recipes
services
- POLICE129
- STREET POLICE126
- AMBULANCE112
- FIREFIGHTER128