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.)
___________________________________________________________________________________

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