May 1 is a Holy Day of Obligation for the 90%. BUY NOTHING.

May 1 is International Workers Day, a day of reverence for the 90%. Buy nothing. And shake an upraised fist in the general direction of privileged, Democratic Presidential turd, Grover Cleveland. He's the reason people around the world celebrate Labor Day on May 1, in rembrance of the Haymarket Affair, but you don't. It's a day for pursuing peace and remembering the bloody struggle that had to be fought (still does) simply to avoid needless workplace deaths and injuries. (I post this essay today so that you can purchase anything you may need in advance of May 1.)

If you don't know about the Haymarket Affair, your ignorance is no accident:

No single event has influenced the history of labor in Illinois, the United States, and even the world, more than the Chicago Haymarket Affair. It began with a rally on May 4, 1886, but the consequences are still being felt today. Although the rally is included in American history textbooks, very few present the event accurately or point out its significance.

http://www.history.com/topics/haymarket-rio

Following the Civil War, particularly following the Depression of 1873–79, there was a rapid expansion of industrial production in the United States. Chicago was a major industrial center and tens of thousands of German and Bohemian immigrants were employed at about $1.50 a day. American workers worked on average slightly over 60 hours, during a six-day work week.[12] The city became a center for many attempts to organize labor's demands for better working conditions.[13]

Employers responded with anti-union measures, such as firing and blacklisting union members, locking out workers, recruiting strikebreakers; employing spies, thugs, and private security forces and exacerbating ethnic tensions in order to divide the workers.[14] Mainstream newspapers supported business interests, and were opposed by the labor and immigrant press.[15] During the economic slowdown between 1882 and 1886, socialist and anarchist organizations were active. Membership of the Knights of Labor, which rejected socialism and radicalism, but supported the 8-hour work day, grew from 70,000 in 1884 to over 700,000 by 1886.

http://www.gutenberg.us/articles/haymarket_riot

Well in advance, labor leaders set May 1, 1886 as the date by which the safer, eight-hour day would become the standard throughout the U.S.A. When employers ignored the deadline, a demonstration was set for May 4 (when some celebrate the film Star Wars). Police sought to break up the demonstration, resulting in a riot and a bombing. This is referred to as the Haymarket Massacre.

Thirty-one were indicted. Of the eight convicted, seven were sentenced to death and one to fifteen years in prison. Four of the eight were hanged, including an immigrant who edited a German language newspaper and who had given a speech before the riot; one suicided the night before the scheduled execution; and the rest were later pardoned. The bomber, who was never found, may have escaped to Europe. The term "Haymarket Affair" includes events leading to the Haymarket Massacre, the Haymarket Massacre itself and subsequent events, including the hangings. Much more about the Haymarket Affair: https://www.democraticunderground.com/11179109; htttp://www.democraticunderground.com/11177664 (evolution of Labor Day). If the facts don't make your blood boil, best check your pulse.

After the Haymarket Massacre, the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, which organized the first labor parade in New York City, sought a day to honor the American labor movement and workers' contributions to "the strength, prosperity, and well-being" of this anti-labor country. President Cleveland, however, feared that Labor Day would be a commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre (as it damned well should be!}. However, Cleveland was also afraid not to yield to organized labor on the issue of a labor day. So, in 1887, the U.S. Labor Day was established in frickin' September. Thousands in the U.S. continued to march and demonstrate on May 1 nonetheless.

Far from being a gift to workers, Cleveland's recognition of Labor Day was a desperate political ploy to mollify the anger of the union movement he had just decimated. He and his Democratic Party rushed the federal holiday into law only days after his military assault on Pullman strikers.

https://hightowerlowdown.org/article/laborday/#.Ves3L8RHarW

Please notice: Plutocrats "cave" not when they fear politicians from another Party, because they don't fear their fellow duopoly members at all. Plutocrats "cave" when they fear uprisings by the hoi polloi. It was true in 1886-87; it was true during the first "Great" Depression; and it was true during the demonstration-rich 1960s (which, btw, ended with the 1970 Kent State Massacre, also oddly on May 4). It should have been true in 2008, but, instead they bailed out and immunized their fellow plutocrat! Why? But, I digress. (Maybe.)

IMO, joining most of the rest of the world (and, for some of us, our own ancestors) on May 1 in seeking peace and in honoring the Haymarket Affair martyrs and all other martyrs of the labor movement is an idea whose time is long overdue. The rest of the world does not celebrate Labor Day by grilling in the backyard, either:

The 1904 International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam, the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day

Peace, of course, is still unacceptable to many owners, when war brings more profits. One of the ways to honor the enormous sacrifices made by workers for us is to to demonstrate for peace and for workers' rights. Another is to tell the story of martyrs to the cause. Another is to buy nothing on May 1. (This should not interfere with celebrating Buy Nothing Day on November 24 for different reasons.)
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REMEMBER THE MARTYRS OF THE LABOR MOVMENT.

They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.

Isaiah 26:14

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 9:5

The singer/songwriters in the videos below, while not martyrs, are, to me, labor heroes, as are my own parents, both hard-working union members and supporters.

Her voice gone before this video was made, Florence Reece wrote the song in the 1930s, when her husband was involved in yet another bloody strike.


May 1, 1909 and May 1, 1933 NYC


May 1, 2013 Vienna and Rome

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thanatokephaloides's picture

I have a pair of old diaries I published at TOP which discuss the Haymarket Disaster in some detail. I plan to re-post them here.

Beltaine started off as the Pagan Holiday (Sabbat) beginning at sundown April 30, and ending 24 hours later. It is significant that the principal theme of Beltaine is the union of the God and the Goddess. The significance to we moderns is obvious, at least to me: Solidarity forever, for the Union makes us strong!

Nihil umquam in oblivione est! (Nothing is ever forgotten!)

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides

I did not mention Beltaine. It would be an interesting subject for its own thread. I hope someone does one.

I very much like the two DU posts about the Haymarket Affair linked in my essay. One is by Omaha Steve. Labor is his heart, too.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@thanatokephaloides Great connection!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Growing up in Chicago and being a union member for many years I was fully aware of the Haymarket Massacre and May Day (may 1st)and I am glad you posted the story for others to see. BTW the unions that are left here still talk about the affair and remind members of the sacrifices made by others so we can all have humane treatment, a 40hr work week, Vacations, breaks, etc. The area where this took place now has an expressway running through it and the rest is being gentrified. Also there are a few obscure memorials around the city and a 9ft statue of a policeman dedicated in 1889 in honor of 7 police officers killed. The statue has been vandalized several times over the years including being blown up twice by the Weatherman in 1969 and 70, it was redone a couple times and is now in front of CPD headquarters.

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@pro left

and the only memorial is to the cops, who probably were responsible for starting the riot?

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Alligator Ed's picture

as it was known then and probably still. My education was typically that watered down version of history still being force fed students in our public non-educational system. Although the strikers were of course publicized as being an unruly mob, protesting for higher wages; what was not taught was the virulent anti-labor stance of Grover Cleveland. I believe May 1 should be a day of education in our schools about the fruits of labor's organizations, now so often taken for granted that few realize it was the product of blood and sacrifice of unionists. Thanks for the history of Labor day being dissociated from the Labor Movement.

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@Alligator Ed

Safety was the reason for the eight-hour day. When workers got tired, they made mistakes that physically hurt them or their fellow workers. The right to collective action was also an issue, that being the only way to get any bargaining power at all against the owners. Sure, wages were part of it. Workers were being exploited big time. However, May 1 was, first and foremost, about the safer, eight-hour day.

The group was listening to speakers, not being unruly or a mob, until the police tried to force them to disperse. (IIRC, a curfew may have been involved.) They railroaded eight innocent men on no evidence, hanging August Spies for his newspaper and his socialism, not for throwing a bomb. They let the fricking bomber, the only wrongdoer, get away scott free.

Yes, and Cleveland was a turd. Then again, not many Presidents were pro labor, though Truman did veto Taft Hartley:

After spending several days considering how to respond to the bill, Truman vetoed Taft–Hartley with a strong message to Congress. Truman had expressed no opinion on the bill prior to his veto message. The committees considering the bill had requested suggestions from the Truman administration, but did not receive any.[16] With the administration taking no stand on the bill, it passed both houses with strong bipartisan support. A clear majority of House Democrats voted for the bill, while Democrats in the Senate split evenly, 21–21.[17]

Despite Truman's all-out effort to stop the veto override, Congress overrode his veto with considerable Democratic support, including 106 out of 177 Democrats in the House, and 20 out of 42 Democrats in the Senate.[18][13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Relations_Act_of_1947

For this and many other reasons, I squint when people say the Democratic Party is not what it used to be. I think it very well may be what it's always really been. I think the New Deal and the Great Society were the aberrations, not the rule.* And I think they were proposed and enacted to protect plutocrats from perceived danger from us. Once the danger passed, they (including Democrats), started dismantling or cutting back on the programs, much as Taft Hartley eroded the Wagner Act.

*I'm talking national level. At the local level, ward bosses, mayors, etc. probably "took care" of people--after they took care of themselves, of course.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace

A later statute, the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, passed in 1959, tightened these restrictions on secondary boycotts still further...
According to First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams, the Act "was the first law barring unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in support of or [in] opposition to federal candidates".[3]

Well, we see what Citizen's United decision has done with that provision.

P.S., I want to draft Bank of America to fight and bleed in the Iraqi/Afghani war. One CEO from each of their divisions.

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@Alligator Ed

Democrats controlled Congress. And EFCA should have been right there on Inauguration Day for Obama to sign, along with Lily Ledbetter (even if the SCOTUS probably would have invalidated it with a Scalia bs majority opinion). And Obama's comfortable shoes should been out in Wisconsin with him in them.

As Richard Trumka once said, "I've had a snootful of this sh*t." However, what did unions do? Form the Working Families Party, which votes almost 100% for Democratic candidates. The idea is, if your vote is on the WFP ticket, Democrats will see how much they need to represent you. HA! I can't believe the founders of that Party actually believe politicians give a crap on which ballot they get votes, as long as they get them.

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@Alligator Ed

about this at a school near you this May 1 or subsequent May Firsts. Smile

I taught for a while. I was always up for a valid reason to sit in the back of the classroom and watch, listen and learn myself.

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karl pearson's picture

I'd like to believe that the ghosts of the Haymarket Affair are haunting Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, because when first elected his mission was to break the unions in this state. Rauner "idolized" governors such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who with the Republican legislature, succeeded in passing anti-union laws. Rauner's approval rating hovers around 35%, but he plans to sink $50 million of his own money as a first installment to his re-election campaign.

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@karl pearson

All the more reason not to let this story die. All the more reason to re-tell this story and other stories, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory story and the story of bought and paid for police and Pinkertons beating workers. Every one who works stands on the shoulders of the labor pioneers and martyrs.

And it's not over. Right to work is the right to work for low wages. Not to mention how labor is being treated and exploited in other countries.

When I was a kid, my Sunday School used to sing a hymn, Tell It Again. I'll modify it for labor:

Tell it again
Tell it again
Our workers' story
Repeat oe'r and o'er
'Til none can say
Of the children of men
Nobody ever has told me before.

Educate, demonstrate and boycott.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Well done.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

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Mark from Queens's picture

Am lying in bed drowsy from a long day, but had to write to thank you.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

buy nothing.

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