Today, 1 May, marks International Workers’ Day. A day that has been celebrated for over one hundred years by the working class all around the world. May Day, in its modern form, has its origins in the fight by the working class for an 8-hour working day. In the late 1800s, as the working class and trade union movement grew in strength and confidence, the demand for an 8-hour working day, instead of the common 12-16 hour days, became a central demand of the movement.
In America in 1886, a mass strike was organised on 1 May as part of the struggle to advance the demand for an 8-hour day. In Chicago, the police fired on striking workers, killing several, and this led to a further protest on 4 May in Haymarket Square. At this protest a stick of dynamite was thrown at the police (it is still not known who threw the dynamite), in response the police fired indiscriminately on the crowd, killing dozens of workers.
Subsequently, several prominent Chicago anarchists and socialists were arrested and put on trial for the dynamite attack. Following their blatantly rigged trial they were found guilty, and four of them were hanged. In 1889 the first meeting of the Second Workers’ International agreed that 1 May 1890 should see coordinated, international strikes to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs. Then in 1904 the International called on all workers organisations to formally, and energetically, demonstrate on 1 May to advance the demands for an 8-hour day, socialism and universal peace.
Writing in 1913, Rosa Luxemburg argued that the “brilliant, basic idea” of May Day, is that it involves the working class stepping forward for itself. Breaking with the limitations of hollowed out formal political processes, elections and bureaucracy – instead, May Day stands as a testament to the collective power of workers. This basic premise of May Day has remained steadfast for the international working class for the last hundred years.
Today, then, is a crucial day for the working class of the world to reflect on their shared struggles, their collective power, and renew their commitments to transform the world. To break from the poverty, barbarism and alienation that the current system produces, and instead build a world where the wellbeing and flourishing of all is secured.
In Britain, we have endured more than twenty years of stagnating wages, fifteen years of austerity, a ceaseless attack on workers’ rights and civil liberties, and seen the complete hollowing out of the last vestiges of our democratic system. This in turn has seen the re-emergence of mass poverty, insecurity in work and housing, and accelerating climate breakdown.
This May Day, the working class in Britain, as part of the international working class, must re-commit itself to the spirit of May Day, to the unquenchable fire of working class resistance and radicalism. In its more traditional, pagan, rendering, May Day was about the arrival of spring, re-birth and renewal. It is because of this double significance of May Day that we launch Rise today.
Rise is an organisation committed to building independent working class power, in order to fundamentally transform the world. For too long now the working class has suffered under the boot of a rapacious ruling class, and a degenerate social system that guarantees only immiseration, poverty and war. Rise will work to organise working class socialists, trade unionists and community activists, so that we can collectively begin to turn the tide against this barbaric system.
As the capitalist system remains mired in crises, that it can only address with increasing repression and declining living standards for the working class, we must plant the seeds of a better tomorrow. On this May Day, we commit ourselves to the hard, persistent work of building the organisational power our class needs, so that we can reap the harvest of a brighter tomorrow.
On this May Day we send fraternal greetings and solidarity to the struggling working classes around the world and re-commit ourselves to the pursuit of working class liberation, socialism and world peace.
If you agree with what Rise stands for, and if you are ready to get organised to build a better world, sign up to explore how you can best help support and build Rise.
Capitalism, which dominates every aspect of our lives, is in terminal decline, it will limp from crisis to crisis, each one more devastating than the last.
The injustices that produce the conflict in occupied Palestine will continue until the structures of apartheid and colonialism are dismantled. There will be peace, but only when Palestine is free, from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea. Rise will work tirelessly to hasten the day.
It is clear to everyone that our society does not work for us all. Working class people, who produce the wealth, and without whom nothing works, have seen their wages, living standards and quality of life collapse. At the same time, the wealth of a tiny minority in society grows without restraint.
