ANARCHIST HISTORY:
MAYDAY:






Another May Day has come and gone, but the struggle lives on. May Day actually has anarchist origins. Here's a post from last year, one that bears repeating, on the anarchist origins of this day.
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INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
RECOVERING MAY DAY FOR THE ANARCHISTS:
Throughout the various May Day posts in this and in other years Molly has often mentioned the intimate connection between the labour festival of May Day and anarchism-and also how many other varieties of "socialists" attempt to downplay this connection. Molly has her own view about these 'socialists" and how their "socialism" is far too often a mere "covering story" for the ambitions of a new managerial ruling class. Not that anarchists are all Simon pure either, but the all too frequent faults of anarchism throughout its history are usually far removed from the twisted ambitions of a would be ruling class.
Anyways, there are numerous screeds on the internet about the anarchist origins of May Day. Here's a recent one from the Anarchist Writers' Blog, one that in Molly's opinion is one of the best. A tip of the Canadian tuque to the boy from Glasgow(I think) for this one.
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Reclaim May Day: An anarchist history:

— Anarcho
May 1st is a day of special significance for the labour movement. While it has been hijacked in the past by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the labour movement festival of May Day is a day of world-wide solidarity. A time to remember past struggles and demonstrate our hope for a better future. A day to remember that an injury to one is an injury to all.

The history of Mayday is closely linked with the anarchist movement and the struggles of working people for a better world. Indeed, it originated with the execution of four anarchists in Chicago in 1886 for organising workers in the fight for the eight-hour day. Thus May Day is a product of "anarchy in action" -- of the struggle of working people using direct action in labour unions to change the world ("Anarchism . . . originated in everyday struggles" -- Kropotkin)

It began in the 1880s in the USA. In 1884, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada (created in 1881, it changed its name in 1886 to the American Federation of Labor) passed a resolution which asserted that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labour organisations throughout this district that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution." A call for strikes on May 1st, 1886 was made in support of this demand.

In Chicago the anarchists were the main force in the union movement, and partially as a result of their presence, the unions translated this call into strikes on May 1st. The anarchists thought that the eight hour day could only be won through direct action and solidarity. They considered that struggles for reforms, like the eight hour day, were not enough in themselves. They viewed them as only one battle in an ongoing class war that would only end by social revolution and the creation of a free society. It was with these ideas that they organised and fought.

In Chicago alone, 400 000 workers went out and the threat of strike action ensured that more than 45 000 were granted a shorter working day without striking. On May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of pickets at the McCormick Harvester Machine Company, killing at least one striker, seriously wounding five or six others, and injuring an undetermined number. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. According to the Mayor, "nothing had occurred yet, or looked likely to occur to require interference." However, as the meeting was breaking up a column of 180 police arrived and ordered the meeting to end. At this moment a bomb was thrown into the police ranks, who opened fire on the crowd. How many civilians were wounded or killed by the police was never exactly ascertained.

A reign of terror swept over Chicago. Meeting halls, union offices, printing shops and private homes were raided (usually without warrants). Such raids into working-class areas allowed the police to round up all known anarchists and other socialists. Many suspects were beaten up and some bribed. "Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards" was the public statement of J. Grinnell, the States Attorney, when a question was raised about search warrants.

Eight anarchists were put on trial for accessory to murder. No pretence was made that any of the accused had carried out or even planned the bomb. Instead the jury were told "Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial. These men have been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted because they were leaders. They are no more guilty than the thousands who follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save our institutions, our society." The jury was selected by a special bailiff, nominated by the State's Attorney and was composed of businessmen and the relative of one of the cops killed. The defence was not allowed to present evidence that the special bailiff had publicly claimed "I am managing this case and I know what I am about. These fellows are going to be hanged as certain as death." Not surprisingly, the accused were convicted. Seven were sentenced to death, one to 15 years' imprisonment.

An international campaign resulted in two of the death sentences being commuted to life, but the worldwide protest did not stop the US state. Of the remaining five, one (Louis Lingg) cheated the executioner and killed himself on the eve of the execution. The remaining four (Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer) were hanged on November 11th 1887. They are known in Labour history as the Haymarket Martyrs. Between 150,000 and 500,000 lined the route taken by the funeral cortege and between 10,000 to 25,000 were estimated to have watched the burial.

In 1889, the American delegation attending the International Socialist congress in Paris proposed that May 1st be adopted as a workers' holiday. This was to commemorate working class struggle and the "Martyrdom of the Chicago Eight". Since then Mayday has became a day for international solidarity. In 1893, the new Governor of Illinois made official what the working class in Chicago and across the world knew all along and pardoned the Martyrs because of their obvious innocence and because "the trail was not fair".

The authorities had believed at the time of the trial that such persecution would break the back of the labour movement. They were wrong. In the words of August Spies when he addressed the court after he had been sentenced to die:

"If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement . . . the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation -- if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there, behind you -- and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out."

At the time and in the years to come, this defiance of the state and capitalism was to win thousands to anarchism, particularly in the US itself. Since the Haymarket event, anarchists have celebrated May Day (on the 1st of May -- the reformist unions and labour parties moved its marches to the first Sunday of the month). We do so to show our solidarity with other working class people across the world, to celebrate past and present struggles, to show our power and remind the ruling class of their vulnerability. As Nestor Makhno put it:

"That day those American workers attempted, by organising themselves, to give expression to their protest against the iniquitous order of the State and Capital of the propertied . . .

"The workers of Chicago . . . had gathered to resolve, in common, the problems of their lives and their struggles. . .

"Today too . . . the toilers . . . regard the first of May as the occasion of a get-together when they will concern themselves with their own affairs and consider the matter of their emancipation."

Anarchists stay true to the origins of May Day and celebrate its birth in the direct action of the oppressed. Oppression and exploitation breed resistance and, for anarchists, May Day is an international symbol of that resistance and power -- a power expressed in the last words of August Spies, chiseled in stone on the monument to the Haymarket martyrs in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago:

"The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."




To understand why the state and business class were so determined to hang the Chicago Anarchists, it is necessary to realise they were considered the "leaders" of a massive radical union movement. In 1884, the Chicago Anarchists produced the world's first daily anarchist newspaper, the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung. This was written, read, owned and published by the German immigrant working class movement. The combined circulation of this daily plus a weekly (Vorbote) and a Sunday edition (Fackel) more than doubled, from 13,000 per issues in 1880 to 26,980 in 1886. Anarchist weekly papers existed for other ethnic groups as well (one English, one Bohemian and one Scandinavian). As Martyr Oscar Neebe clearly argued, "these are the crimes I have committed: I organised trade unions. I was for reduction of the hours of labour, and the education of the labouring man, and the re-establishment of 'Die Arbeiter Zeitung', the workingmen' paper."





Anarchists were very active in the Central Labour Union (which included the eleven largest unions in the city) and aimed to make it, in the words of Albert Parsons (one of the Martyrs), "the embryonic group of the future 'free society.'" The anarchists were also part of the International Working People's Association (also called the "Black International") which had representatives from 26 cities at its founding convention. The I.W.P.A. soon made headway among trade unions, especially in the mid-west and its ideas of direct action of the rank and file and of trade unions serving as the instrument of the working class for the complete destruction of capitalism and the nucleus for the formation of a new society became known as the "Chicago Idea" (an idea which later inspired the Industrial Workers of the World which was founded in Chicago in 1905).





This idea was expressed in the manifesto issued at the I.W.P.A.'s Pittsburgh Congress of 1883:
**"First -- Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e. by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international action.
**"Second -- Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organisation of production.
**"Third -- Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organisations without commerce and profit-mongery.
**"Fourth -- Organisation of education on a secular, scientific and equal basis for both sexes.
**"Fifth -- Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race.
**"Sixth -- Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis."





In addition to their union organising, the Chicago anarchist movement also organised social societies, picnics, lectures, dances, libraries and a host of other activities. These all helped to forge a distinctly working-class revolutionary culture in the heart of the "American Dream." The threat to the ruling class and their system was too great to allow it to continue (particularly with memories of the vast uprising of labour in 1877 still fresh. As in 1886, that revolt was also meet by state violence). Hence the repression, kangaroo court, and the state murder of those the state and capitalist class considered "leaders" of the movement.





The Chicago anarchists, like all anarchists, were applying their ideas to the class struggle. They were forming unions organised and animated with the libertarian spirit. They saw that anarchism was not a utopian dream but rather a means of action -- of (to use Bakunin's words) "creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself" by means of direct action, solidarity and organising from the bottom up. That was why they were effective and why the state framed and murdered them.





On the 115th anniversary of the first May Day, we must apply our anarchist ideas to everyday life and the class struggle, inside and outside industry, in order to make anarchism a possibility. As Kropotkin put it, "anarchism was born among the people; and it will continue to be full of life and creative power only as long as it remains a thing of the people."





Reclaim the anarchist spirit of May Day. Make everyday an International Day of solidarity and direct action!
"I say to you: 'I despise you. I despise your order; your laws, your force-propped authority.' HANG ME FOR IT!"
Louis Lingg

"The existing economic system has placed on the markets for sale man's natural rights . . . A freeman is not for sale or for hire"
Albert Parsons

"You may pronounce the sentence upon me, honourable judge, but let the world know that in A.D. 1886, in the State of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future; because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice!"
August Spies

"every anarchist is a socialist but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist . . . the communistic anarchists demand the abolition of political authority, the state . . . we advocate the communistic or co-operative methods of production."
Adolph Fischer

CANADIAN LABOUR- WINNIPEG:

THE WINNIPEG WOBBLY ISSUE #4:







Our local branch of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union here in Winnipeg is as active as ever. Speaking of May Day (see last post) the IWW has brought out a special May Day edition of the Winnipeg Wobbly. Check it out, especially for the announcements of events here in this burg surrounding the month long May Works (May Day on steroids ????). Here's the announcement from the Winnipeg Wobbly Blog.

WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA
Winnipeg Wobbly #4: May Day Special
Check out the new special May Day edition of our newsletter, the Winnipeg Wobbly!

Included in this edition:

**May Day: The REAL Labour Day
**Party Politics don't Work
**The Belgrade 6 are free!
**Report Back from Winnipeg Israeli Apartheid Week
**Selected Events from the MayWorks Festival



Click Here For The Winnipeg Wobbly Vol. 1 Issue 4

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:

IRANIAN MAY DAY STATEMENT:

The following statement of workers' organizations in Iran is a translation published at the Facebook group 'Support Workers' Councils in Iran'. Workers' councils are one method of both workers' struggle against the state and other bosses in 'revolutionary times' and also one method whereby people have tried to organize production outside of the system of management direction. In Iran today some of the most repressed segments of society are those workers who are struggling for their rights in the face of the clerical regime's unwavering support for the employer class. Should the clerical fascist regime ever be overthrown you can be assured that an independent workers' movement will play an utterly critical role in its downfall. Until that day Iranian workers continue to hold the line against both boss and state. Here is their statement on the international labour day- May Day.

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Joint May Day, International Workers Day, Resolution (Workers Organizations in Iran)
May 1st is the international day of working-class solidarity and the day of global protest against poverty, destitution, and injustice. On this day, millions of workers the world over stop work, take over the streets, and express their anger and disgust at the numerous ...problems the capitalist system has visited on humanity, and loudly call for freedom from oppression, exploitation, and for building a better day. While voices of protest against the hardships inflicted by the capitalist system and calls for justice for workers the world over are heard on May 1st, there is a ban on celebrations of the occasion in Iran.

At this moment, the workers who organized last year’s May Day events have been sentenced to prison or are on the brink of receiving heavy sentences and dozens of labor leaders and activists are in jail for setting up labor organizations and defending their right to do so. This lack of social rights for workers has been the order of the day in Iran for the three decades since the February 1979 revolution, which reduced wages to a quarter below the poverty line. Routine are long delays in the payment of wages, layoffs and unemployment for masses of workers. Temporary and blank contracts, ubiquitous today, have forced a hellish situation on millions of workers and their families. To ensure higher profits, capital is hell-bent on taking the last loaves from the tables of millions of workers and redirecting them to the valets of owners, by closing down plants and cutting public subsidies.

But as we, the workers of Iran showed in the 1979 revolution and in more recent years, we will not tolerate this misery and injustice. Despite prisons and repression, the people of Iran will resist this trampling on our most basic human rights and will not allow our lives and subsistence to be destroyed any further. We are the principle producers of the wealth and riches in the society. It is our inalienable right to reap the rewards of our labors. While protesting these conditions, which have put Iranian workers and the majority of the Iranian people under enormous duress, we stress the following rights and call for the immediate and unconditional implementation of all of them:

1. Organizations independent of the government and employers, strikes, protests, demonstrations, assembly, and free speech are our inalienable rights; these demands should be recognized as unconditional social rights of workers and all Iranian people.

2. We see the cutting of subsidies (management of aid) and the minimum wage as a gradual death sentence on millions of workers and their families. We call for an immediate halt to these plans and demand an increase of the minimum wage.

3. All back wages owed to workers should be paid immediately, without any excuses; the non-payment of wages should be considered a criminal act – wage theft – and the damages incurred paid to the workers.

4. Expulsions and layoffs of workers should be stopped and all those laid off or of retirement age who can work should receive unemployment benefits in accordance with a dignified, humane living.

5. We demand the eradication of temporary and blank contracts, job security for all workers and wage earners, the highest standards of health care and safety on the job and the eradication of all governmental bodies from the workplace.

6. We call for an end to capital punishment and the immediate and unconditional release of Ibrahim Maddadi, Mansour Osaloo, Ali Nejati, and all labor and other social and protest movement activists from prison, and a halt to judicial prosecution against them.

7. While condemning any attacks on workers and people’s protests, we see protests against injustice and declaring one’s opinion as inalienable rights of workers and all people.

8. We demand the repeal of all discriminatory laws against women and full and unconditional equality of women and men in all aspects of social, economic, political, cultural, and family spheres.

9. We demand a dignified life of well-being devoid of economic worries for retirees and the eradication of all discrimination in payment of pensions and entitlement to social security and health care.

10. Child labor should be eradicated, and all children, regardless of the economic and social standing of their parents, gender, national, racial, and religious backgrounds, should enjoy equal and free education, welfare, and health care benefits.

11. We declare our support for all social liberation movements and strongly condemn the arrest, sentencing, and incarceration of these movements’ activists.

12. While declaring our strong support for the demands of the teachers, nurses, and other working strata of the society, we see ourselves as their allies and call for the immediate realization of their demands.

13. We are part of the world labor movement and as such condemn the expulsions and any kind of discrimination against Afghan and other nationalities of immigrant workers, for any reason. 14. While appreciating all the international support for the struggle of the workers of Iran and strong support for the protests and demands of workers all over the world, we see ourselves as their allies and now more than ever emphasize the international solidarity of workers to overcome the perils of the capitalist system.

15. May 1st should be a national holiday and included in the official calendar and all illegalities and limitations on its celebration should be eliminated.

Long live May 1st,

Long live the international solidarity of workers!

May 1, 2010, Ordibehesht 11, 1389 Tehran and Municipality Vahed Bus Workers Syndicate Haft Tapeh Sugar Refinery Workers Syndicate Free Assembly of Iranian Workers Re-inauguration board of Metal and Mechanical Syndicate Re-inauguration board of Painting Workers Syndicate Kermanshah Electrical and Metal Workers Trade Society Pursuing Committee for the Formation of Free Workers Organizations Coordination Committee for support of the Formation of Workers Organizations Support Society for Laid off and Unemployed Workers in Saghez Women’s Council

Source: Iran Labor Report

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-IRAN:

FREE THE MAYDAY DETAINEES:

Recent may day gatherings in the Islamic Republic of Iran were marred by state repression and over 150 arrests. Over 100 of these people are still being detained. Here, via the online labour solidarity site Labour Start, is a call from the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran. (IASWI) for support of those still in prison.

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Iran: A Call for the International Campaign to Free May Day Detainees:

Workers and labour organizations in Iran and all over the world!

On May First, the International Workers’ Day, many workers and their families assembled in Laleh Park of Tehran in response to the May Day Organizing Committee (consisting of independent labour organizations in Iran). People gathered to present their demands and to commemorate the May Day; however, they as well as other visitors of the park were violently attacked by the security-intelligence forces and plain-clothes agents. These forces used all kinds of tools and equipments to assault people, as the result of which many got severely injured and more than 150 people while being beaten were taken to custody. At this time, about 100 of the above are still incarcerated.

The people who were so brutally beaten and arrested had not committed any crime. They were repressed because they wanted to commemorate their international day, along with billions of other workers around the world, and put forward the demands of million of working people of Iran. They are being oppressed because of their efforts to form independent organizations. Many of them just like thousand other workers in Iran have not been paid for months. They are now in such unbearable situation only because they raised their protest voice together.

Everyday, the families of the May Day detainees have been gathering outside courts and judicial offices but they have been badly treated and never received a clear answer from the judicial authorities. We, millions of workers and toilers and egalitarians, are responsible towards our imprisoned colleagues and their families and must not leave them on their own. We have to engage in united and immense efforts for the freedom of all prisoners.

We therefore launch a campaign for the freedom of May Day detainees and call on all workers’ and human rights’ organizations in Iran and internationally to denounce these arrests, demand unconditional freedom of all detainees and support the legitimate demands of workers in Iran, which was stipulated in their 2009 (1388) May Day resolution. All concerned organizations and individuals are urgently requested to take any necessary and possible measures, depending on their capacity, in support of the May Day detainees.

LONG LIVE CLASS SOLIDARITY OF WORKERS OF THE WORLD

Please send the report of your actions, statements and solidarity messages to campain1may@gmail.com .

May 9th, 2009 (Ordibehest 19, 1388
The May Day Organizing Committee:
• The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company
• The Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company
• The Free Union of Workers in Iran
• The Founding Committee of the Syndicate of Building 's Painters and Decoration's Workers
• The Collaborative Council of Labour Organizations and Activists
- The Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations
- The Committee to Pursue the Establishment of Free Workers’ Organizations
- A Group of Worker Activists
- The Women’s Council
• The Center for Workers’ Rights in Iran

Supported by:
The Electrical & Metal Workers' Trade Association in Kermanshah, The Association in Support of the Sacked Workers of Saqhez, The Committee in Defence of Haft Tapeh Workers, Workers of The Parris textile Factory in Sanandaj, Workers of the Shin Baft Spinning and Textile Factory in Sanandaj, Workers of Shahoo, Sanandaj Textile, Gharb Baft, Ajor Shil, Shir Paak Araa, Gunnny Baafi (Gunny Making) Sama, Fajr Flour and Nirou Rakhsh factories, Service workers of Sanandaj’s Tohid Hospital, A group of Retired Workers of Sanandaj, Workers of Farsh Gharb Company in Kermanshah, Dena Laastic (Rubber), A group of workers of Ghaa-en Cement, A group of Workers of Aslavieh …
(more names to be added)

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A sample letter:

Here is the sample letter that the IASWI has presented for the use of supporters earlier this May. It can still be used, modified as the most recent facts, to send to Iranian authorities at this later date.

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Sample protest letter: Protest against repression of May Day Events in Iran:
Send your protest letters to:

To: info@leader.ir ; dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir ; info@judiciary.ir ; iran@un.int ; ijpr@iranjudiciary.org ; info@dadiran.ir ; office@justice.ir; matbuat@mfa.gov.ir; info@police.ir
Cc: info@workers-iran.org;


According to the May Day Organizing Committee in Tehran, the May Day rally and celebration in Tehran, which was organized by independent Iranian labour organizations in Laleh Park, on May 1st, 2009, was violently attacked by security and intelligence forces and many were beaten and over 150 people arrested. The intelligence forces brutally attacked the event’s participants including women and children, by baton and tear gas etc., and forced hundreds of people out of the park. May Day rallies in City of Sanandaj, amongst others, were also attacked by security forces and plain clothes officers and many were beaten and arrested.

Five days after the May Day police crackdown, about 130 women and men are still incarcerated. They are detained in unacceptable conditions in section 204 of Tehran’s Evin Prison.

We condemn these attacks on workers’ rights to organize and celebrate May Day events. We are asking for the immediate and unconditional freedom of all May Day detainees. We also demand that the government to respect workers’ rights to organize, assemble and strike, put an end to persecution of labour activists, free all jailed workers and not to interfere in the affairs of independent workers’ organizations.

Please mail your protest letter to (optional):

Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The Presidency,
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 21 649 58 80
**
Leader of the Islamic Republic:

Ayatollah Sayed *Ali Khamenei

The Office of the Supreme Leader

Shoahada Street

Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran

Fax: 011 98 251 7774 2228

**

Head of the Judiciary:

Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi

Ministry of Justice,

Ministry of Justice Building

Panzdah-Khordad Square

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Fax: 011 98 21 3390 4986 (may be difficult to reach)

**

Ambassador,

Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations Institutions in Geneva, Chemin du Petit-Saconnex 28, 1209

Geneva, Switzerland,

Fax: +41 22 733 02 03,

E-mail: mission.iran@ties.itu.int
**
CC: International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (info@workers-iran.org).

You can also send your protest letters to the Iranian Embassy in your country: click: http://www.worldembassyinformation.com/iran-embassy/index.html

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:

RECOVERING MAY DAY FOR THE ANARCHISTS:

Throughout the various May Day posts in this and in other years Molly has often mentioned the intimate connection between the labour festival of May Day and anarchism-and also how many other varieties of "socialists" attempt to downplay this connection. Molly has her own view about these 'socialists" and how their "socialism" is far too often a mere "covering story" for the ambitions of a new managerial ruling class. Not that anarchists are all Simon pure either, but the all too frequent faults of anarchism throughout its history are usually far removed from the twisted ambitions of a would be ruling class.

Anyways, there are numerous screeds on the internet about the anarchist origins of May Day. Here's a recent one from the Anarchist Writers' Blog, one that in Molly's opinion is one of the best. A tip of the Canadian tuque to the boy from Glasgow(I think) for this one.

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Reclaim May Day: An anarchist history:
Fri, 05/01/2009 - 05:52 — Anarcho
May 1st is a day of special significance for the labour movement. While it has been hijacked in the past by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, the labour movement festival of May Day is a day of world-wide solidarity. A time to remember past struggles and demonstrate our hope for a better future. A day to remember that an injury to one is an injury to all.

The history of Mayday is closely linked with the anarchist movement and the struggles of working people for a better world. Indeed, it originated with the execution of four anarchists in Chicago in 1886 for organising workers in the fight for the eight-hour day. Thus May Day is a product of "anarchy in action" -- of the struggle of working people using direct action in labour unions to change the world ("Anarchism . . . originated in everyday struggles" -- Kropotkin)

It began in the 1880s in the USA. In 1884, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada (created in 1881, it changed its name in 1886 to the American Federation of Labor) passed a resolution which asserted that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labour organisations throughout this district that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution." A call for strikes on May 1st, 1886 was made in support of this demand.

In Chicago the anarchists were the main force in the union movement, and partially as a result of their presence, the unions translated this call into strikes on May 1st. The anarchists thought that the eight hour day could only be won through direct action and solidarity. They considered that struggles for reforms, like the eight hour day, were not enough in themselves. They viewed them as only one battle in an ongoing class war that would only end by social revolution and the creation of a free society. It was with these ideas that they organised and fought.

In Chicago alone, 400 000 workers went out and the threat of strike action ensured that more than 45 000 were granted a shorter working day without striking. On May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of pickets at the McCormick Harvester Machine Company, killing at least one striker, seriously wounding five or six others, and injuring an undetermined number. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. According to the Mayor, "nothing had occurred yet, or looked likely to occur to require interference." However, as the meeting was breaking up a column of 180 police arrived and ordered the meeting to end. At this moment a bomb was thrown into the police ranks, who opened fire on the crowd. How many civilians were wounded or killed by the police was never exactly ascertained.

A reign of terror swept over Chicago. Meeting halls, union offices, printing shops and private homes were raided (usually without warrants). Such raids into working-class areas allowed the police to round up all known anarchists and other socialists. Many suspects were beaten up and some bribed. "Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards" was the public statement of J. Grinnell, the States Attorney, when a question was raised about search warrants.

Eight anarchists were put on trial for accessory to murder. No pretence was made that any of the accused had carried out or even planned the bomb. Instead the jury were told "Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial. These men have been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted because they were leaders. They are no more guilty than the thousands who follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict these men, make examples of them, hang them and you save our institutions, our society." The jury was selected by a special bailiff, nominated by the State's Attorney and was composed of businessmen and the relative of one of the cops killed. The defence was not allowed to present evidence that the special bailiff had publicly claimed "I am managing this case and I know what I am about. These fellows are going to be hanged as certain as death." Not surprisingly, the accused were convicted. Seven were sentenced to death, one to 15 years' imprisonment.

An international campaign resulted in two of the death sentences being commuted to life, but the worldwide protest did not stop the US state. Of the remaining five, one (Louis Lingg) cheated the executioner and killed himself on the eve of the execution. The remaining four (Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and Adolph Fischer) were hanged on November 11th 1887. They are known in Labour history as the Haymarket Martyrs. Between 150,000 and 500,000 lined the route taken by the funeral cortege and between 10,000 to 25,000 were estimated to have watched the burial.

In 1889, the American delegation attending the International Socialist congress in Paris proposed that May 1st be adopted as a workers' holiday. This was to commemorate working class struggle and the "Martyrdom of the Chicago Eight". Since then Mayday has became a day for international solidarity. In 1893, the new Governor of Illinois made official what the working class in Chicago and across the world knew all along and pardoned the Martyrs because of their obvious innocence and because "the trail was not fair".

The authorities had believed at the time of the trial that such persecution would break the back of the labour movement. They were wrong. In the words of August Spies when he addressed the court after he had been sentenced to die:

"If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement . . . the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation -- if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there, behind you -- and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out."

At the time and in the years to come, this defiance of the state and capitalism was to win thousands to anarchism, particularly in the US itself. Since the Haymarket event, anarchists have celebrated May Day (on the 1st of May -- the reformist unions and labour parties moved its marches to the first Sunday of the month). We do so to show our solidarity with other working class people across the world, to celebrate past and present struggles, to show our power and remind the ruling class of their vulnerability. As Nestor Makhno put it:

"That day those American workers attempted, by organising themselves, to give expression to their protest against the iniquitous order of the State and Capital of the propertied . . .

"The workers of Chicago . . . had gathered to resolve, in common, the problems of their lives and their struggles. . .

"Today too . . . the toilers . . . regard the first of May as the occasion of a get-together when they will concern themselves with their own affairs and consider the matter of their emancipation."

Anarchists stay true to the origins of May Day and celebrate its birth in the direct action of the oppressed. Oppression and exploitation breed resistance and, for anarchists, May Day is an international symbol of that resistance and power -- a power expressed in the last words of August Spies, chiseled in stone on the monument to the Haymarket martyrs in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago:

"The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."

To understand why the state and business class were so determined to hang the Chicago Anarchists, it is necessary to realise they were considered the "leaders" of a massive radical union movement. In 1884, the Chicago Anarchists produced the world's first daily anarchist newspaper, the Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung. This was written, read, owned and published by the German immigrant working class movement. The combined circulation of this daily plus a weekly (Vorbote) and a Sunday edition (Fackel) more than doubled, from 13,000 per issues in 1880 to 26,980 in 1886. Anarchist weekly papers existed for other ethnic groups as well (one English, one Bohemian and one Scandinavian). As Martyr Oscar Neebe clearly argued, "these are the crimes I have committed: I organised trade unions. I was for reduction of the hours of labour, and the education of the labouring man, and the re-establishment of 'Die Arbeiter Zeitung', the workingmen' paper."





Anarchists were very active in the Central Labour Union (which included the eleven largest unions in the city) and aimed to make it, in the words of Albert Parsons (one of the Martyrs), "the embryonic group of the future 'free society.'" The anarchists were also part of the International Working People's Association (also called the "Black International") which had representatives from 26 cities at its founding convention. The I.W.P.A. soon made headway among trade unions, especially in the mid-west and its ideas of direct action of the rank and file and of trade unions serving as the instrument of the working class for the complete destruction of capitalism and the nucleus for the formation of a new society became known as the "Chicago Idea" (an idea which later inspired the Industrial Workers of the World which was founded in Chicago in 1905).





This idea was expressed in the manifesto issued at the I.W.P.A.'s Pittsburgh Congress of 1883:
**"First -- Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e. by energetic, relentless, revolutionary and international action.
**"Second -- Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organisation of production.
**"Third -- Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organisations without commerce and profit-mongery.
**"Fourth -- Organisation of education on a secular, scientific and equal basis for both sexes.
**"Fifth -- Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race.
**"Sixth -- Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis."





In addition to their union organising, the Chicago anarchist movement also organised social societies, picnics, lectures, dances, libraries and a host of other activities. These all helped to forge a distinctly working-class revolutionary culture in the heart of the "American Dream." The threat to the ruling class and their system was too great to allow it to continue (particularly with memories of the vast uprising of labour in 1877 still fresh. As in 1886, that revolt was also meet by state violence). Hence the repression, kangaroo court, and the state murder of those the state and capitalist class considered "leaders" of the movement.





The Chicago anarchists, like all anarchists, were applying their ideas to the class struggle. They were forming unions organised and animated with the libertarian spirit. They saw that anarchism was not a utopian dream but rather a means of action -- of (to use Bakunin's words) "creating not only the ideas, but also the facts of the future itself" by means of direct action, solidarity and organising from the bottom up. That was why they were effective and why the state framed and murdered them.





On the 115th anniversary of the first May Day, we must apply our anarchist ideas to everyday life and the class struggle, inside and outside industry, in order to make anarchism a possibility. As Kropotkin put it, "anarchism was born among the people; and it will continue to be full of life and creative power only as long as it remains a thing of the people."





Reclaim the anarchist spirit of May Day. Make everyday an International Day of solidarity and direct action!
"I say to you: 'I despise you. I despise your order; your laws, your force-propped authority.' HANG ME FOR IT!"
Louis Lingg

"The existing economic system has placed on the markets for sale man's natural rights . . . A freeman is not for sale or for hire"
Albert Parsons

"You may pronounce the sentence upon me, honourable judge, but let the world know that in A.D. 1886, in the State of Illinois, eight men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future; because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty and justice!"
August Spies

"every anarchist is a socialist but every socialist is not necessarily an anarchist . . . the communistic anarchists demand the abolition of political authority, the state . . . we advocate the communistic or co-operative methods of production." Adolph Fischer

AMERICAN LABOUR:

THE VIRTUAL MAY DAY MARCH:

The clock is ticking, but May day isn't over yet. Here's an appeal from the US United Farm Workers to join what they call a "virtual march" for immigration reform in the USA.

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Join the virtual immigration march:
Today thousands across the country will march to demand that Congress do the right thing on immigration reform.

This issue is vital to the UFW and to the farm workers we represent. Farm workers do the hardest, most difficult jobs that others won't do. They help feed this nation. Yet, they are faced with fear and intimidation because many employers use the threat of deportation to keep on exploiting them.

Please join us in fighting for immigration reform by participating in a virtual May Day march that we are doing along with other immigration groups. Help us show Congress that there is a growing movement that stands with the President to pass real immigration reform this year.
It’s time to end this cycle of fear and abuse and achieve real change for working families. To do so, we need your help to move the campaign forward. Please take action today and join the virtual march.

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THE LETTER:

Please go to THIS LINK to send the following letter to the US Congress.

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I'm writing to voice my support for comprehensive immigration reform.

A Senate Judiciary hearing this week, is asking whether or not 2009 is the right time to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform.

It's time. We need to end this cycle of fear and abuse and achieve real change for working families.

As your constituent, I want you to know that I support the President's pledge to move on real reform this year. I hope that you will work with the White House to make sure it gets done.
We need real immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented, smart enforcement against exploitative employers, and a better process for future immigration so families are not separated.

I ask you to work with the President to pass real immigration reform this year. I look forward to knowing where you stand on this issue.
Thank you,
Sincerely,

[Your name]

[Your address]

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:

ANARCHIST COMMUNIST STATEMENT ON MAY DAY:

The following, from the Anarkismo website, is the joint statement of five platformist organizations from three different continents on what may day means to them.

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May Day: Defend, Widen and Share the Struggle:
Translated version in Italiano Ελληνικά
Anarchist Communist May Day statement

May Day: Defend, Widen and Share the Struggle

Today as in the past, May Day means respect for mobilizations throughout the world by workers who suffer, at times even paying with their lives, for the sake of their struggles to improve the condition of men and women who labour under the control of capitalism.

As anarchist communists, we support the struggle for a radical change to a society of freedom, equality and solidarity, but we do not forget that in many countries, workers do not even have the most basic possibility to organise into unions, and many work in subhuman conditions for subhuman pay. Our thoughts today go to these workers, as we seek to strengthen the networks of support for the struggles of all the peoples of the world.

In Western countries, the 'cradle of freedom', the fate of working men and women has grown worse over the last two decades: casualisation, flexibility, magic words adopted by the Left as well as the Right, whose effects are now plain for everyone to see in the harsh effects of a crisis which grew out of lower wages and the destruction of jobs.

Everywhere one can see the difficulties of finding work, the increase in the use of blackmail against anyone who tries to organise political and social opposition, the growing insecurity for the future of the young and the not so young. And yet despite all this, profits are growing, financial mafias are infiltrating all areas, and it is increasingly difficult to carry out union and political activity with the aim of effecting real change.

The choice of States and the leaders of the G20 is repression, oppression and exploitation. Their first choice is to rescue the banks and the businesses. The workers can expect nothing, and in the meantime have to resort to getting into debt in order to survive.

But even in the hard times of a crisis, May Day continues to remind us that the only way to win rights is through struggle by the workers, self-organised and federated. But what we win is not won forever.

Our gains must be defended, widened and shared through more struggles.

The mobilizations throughout the world over the last few months of crisis serve to remind us that mass struggle, from below, self-managed, is in the workers' blood, in their historical memory, and stands in opposition to the leaders of international capitalism and the governments of the whole world in the name of social justice and the defence of the material interests of the world of labour.

It is the task of anarchist communists and revolutionaries to protect this memory and ensure that it remains a part of today's struggles, as an active force which is part and parcel of the workers' movement, a movement which must become a real revolutionary force capable of destroying capitalism and ushering in a new age of freedom, equality and solidarity.
1st May 2009
Alternative Libertaire (France)

Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)

Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

Common Cause (Canada)
Related Link: http://www.anarkismo.net

AMERICAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:

MAY DAY GREETINGS FROM THE WORKERS' SOLIDARITY ALLIANCE:

The following is the May Day statement from the American anarchosyndicalist Workers' Solidarity Alliance (see also their My Space page). The following text has been taken from the A-Infos website.

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US, Anarchist WSA May Day Greetings:

Dear friends, fellow and sister workers and comrades:

The Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) extends our May Day Greetings to all workers across the world.

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As the international struggle against capitalism and the state continues, and intensifies, it is our hope that the libertarian-socialist spirit of these struggles continue to develop and deepen and that our movement, the international class struggle anarchist movement, will also grow and develop and become an organized and visible part of the growing struggles. On this year of the 123rd Anniversary of the Chicago Haymarket Martyrs valiant struggle for workers' freedom, let us not let their spirit and their efforts to create a new world be forgotten. On this occasion, let us also not forget the duplicity of the bosses, nor the inhumanity of the state,whenever the hegemony and tyranny of these over society is seriously challenged, as it was challenged by our murdered brothers, the Haymarket Martyrs.

In the spirit of the Haymarket Martyrs then, let us not be fooled by the empty promises of bosses, bureaucrats, and politicians; let us instead learn to depend upon the solidarity of a united working-class, awakened to class consciousness, and dedicated to creating a future without bosses and rulers. A working class that unites across race, gender, sexual orientation and immigration status.

We are not fooled by Obama's rhetoric of a better and more just society. Clearly we recognize the historic significance of his election. Yet his cabinet is filled with those who continue to favor the corporate world. In some instances they will wage their fight against the working class in subtle ways. In other, the attack will be more frontal and in your face.

We must be vigilant. We must not forget that we live in a class society, regardless of who sits in the White House. We need to continue to march, we must continue to protest, we must continue to organize from below and we must build a new movement in the face of many odds.

Thus, let us work and struggle together to bring direct democracy and worker self-management to the workplace, while not overlooking the fight to attain better working conditions in the here and now. Let us fight for better housing and tenant control. Lets us struggle for community, as well as, workers control. Let us also stand in solidarity with our fellow workers around the world who are undergoing persecution due to their workplace organizing, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or because of their status as immigrants.

Finally, let us strive together to reach our full development as the genuine productive forces of society and to assume our rightful status in the world as the masters of our own destiny. Motivated by the fact that unlike our bosses, our landlords, bankers, politicians or bureaucrats, that we, the members of the working class, do not live off the exploitation and oppression of others.

As the cold days of winter turn into the warm days of spring, may the cold days of capitalist and state oppression also soon come to an end.

Yours in solidarity and struggle,

WORKERS SOLIDARITY ALLIANCE

General Offices

339 Lafayette Street - Room 202

New York, NY 10012

usawsany@hotmail.com

www.workersolidarity.org

CANADIAN LABOUR:

CUPE ON MAY DAY:

Here is the May Day statement of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). It is, of course, a little sparse on the full details of the origins of this day, but it has a good trend to saying what should be done in the future.

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CUPE May Day Statement:
On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of North American workers mobilized to fight for an eight-hour work day. The events that took place that week – at Haymarket Square in Chicago and beyond – have come to symbolize the tenacious and revolutionary spirit of the labour movement.

For more than 100 years, May Day has been a time for workers around the globe to take stock of how far we’ve come, and the distance we have yet to go.

In the international spirit of May Day, we must remember that the fight for a safe and fair workplace extends beyond our borders. This May Day, CUPE will be working to prevent the ratification of a free trade agreement with Colombia, a country that has violently suppressed the rights of trade unionists. Trade unionists and civil society activists risk death simply for advocating basic labour rights; since 1986, over 2,500 have been killed by the state and its paramilitaries in Colombia. In 2008 alone, over 49 trade unionists were assassinated. Now more than ever, it is essential that the Canadian labour movement stand in solidarity with workers around the globe who are fighting to achieve even the most fundamental labour rights.

The global economic crisis has only emphasized the need for a strong labour movement. Workers across Canada are fighting to protect their jobs and pensions, and to improve access to employment insurance. CUPE and the labour movement will not stand idly by and watch employers and governments attack workers and public services. The solution is not to break unions; the solution is to provide stimulus through public services, create jobs in all sectors, and to keep money in our communities rather than in corporate pockets.

CUPE members from coast to coast to coast can be proud of the accomplishments of our brothers and sisters in our union. We have had countless positive contract negotiations, and our membership has worked hard to make our union better and stronger.

While May Day is a time to celebrate all that we have achieved in the past, let it also be a time to rejuvenate, refocus, and reaffirm our conviction to move forward.
In solidarity,
Paul Moist

National President
Claude Généreux

National Secretary-Treasurer

AMERICAN LABOUR:

MAYDAY AND MIGRANTS:

Here's another May Day article, this one from the Sweat Free Communities coalition. Do drop by their website to see the full article that they mention in their lead-in how uniforms for the New York Police Department are being produced in a law breaking sweatshop. Interesting.

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SWEATSHOP FOR POLICE UNIFORMS:
Earlier this week, just days before May Day - International Workers' Day - New York authorities raided a sweatshop in New York City that was making uniforms for the NYPD. They said the factory had repeatedly and flagrantly violated the law, forcing workers to work 80 hour weeks with no overtime wages and no day off. Employees were also instructed to lie to factory investigators. Sixteen current and former workers are owed $500,000 in back wages and damages.

The struggle for workers' rights in this country is also the struggle for immigrants' rights. Most garment workers in the United States are immigrant women. Discrimination and outdated immigration laws contribute to widespread exploitation in the garment industry. This May Day, we invite and encourage you to take part in strengthening the ties that bind the anti-sweatshop movement and the immigrants' rights movement. Here are a few suggestions - do one, or do them all!

Attend a May Day Rally in your area, in support of a more just immigration policy and pro-worker policies like the Employee Free Choice Act. Check out these two lists of events:

anewdayforimmigration.org

immigrantsolidarity.org

Participate in Made in L.A.'s Community Screening Campaign

Find and attend a film screening near you. You can also screen the film yourself, using these tools. And check out this new video clip that Made in L.A. producers are launching today specifically for anti-sweatshop groups to use! Take a look and spread the word.

Get to know Elisa and Victoria by watching this powerful video of immigrant workers organizing in Massachusetts to improve conditions at Eagle Industries, where they make gear for the U.S. military, funded by our tax dollars.

Contact an immigrants' rights group in your community to invite them to endorse your local sweatfree campaign, and to commit to work in solidarity with them.

Ask President Obama to support a new path toward humane immigration policy. In April, President Obama announced that he plans to work on new immigration legislation this year. Take a look at American Friends Service Committee's recommendations to the president and send him your message through the White House website or call his office.

In honor of May Day, donate to SweatFree Communities to support our ongoing organizing for worker justice.

Thank you for joining me in celebrating International Workers' Day. And enjoy your weekend - just as the labor movement intended you to!In solidarity, Liana Foxvog National Organizer, SweatFree Communities
For the latest news,

visit SweatFree Communities' web site.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR:

THE ORIGINS OF MAYDAY-A WOBBLY VIEW:

Tomorrow, Friday May 1, will be May Day, the day that most of the world considers to be the real Labour Day. The origins of this commemoration are quite often unknown, sometimes deliberately in the case of Communist parties who want to obscure its anarchist ancestry. Here from the website of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW- often referred to as "the Wobblies") is a capsule history of the birth of May Day. Go to the IWW website for a list of some of the events that wobs will be participating in on this day.

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May 1: International Worker’s Day - Día Internacional De Los Trabajadores:
Yet again May Day quickly approaches. Since 2006 the immigrant rights marches- made up of millions of undocumented migrant workers along with their supporters, families and children- has brought back May 1st to its original roots in the US. But many are still unaware of its origins in US labor history and the impact this commemorative day still has internationally- such as you can still walk into neighborhoods in Mexico and find streets such as “Calle Los Mártires de Chicago” (Martyrs of Chicago Street).

Below is a short, pamphlet length piece I edited on the origins and radical history of May Day. For an in depth look you might try Paul Avrich’s classic “The Haymarket Tragedy” and AK Press offers a listing of books they carry on the subject here. -AW
What is May Day and why is it called International Workers Day?
May 1st, International Worker’s Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States and Canada. This is despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880’s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day led by immigrant workers. The recent historic marches and protests for immigrant rights, which began with “El Gran Paro Americano 2006,” have brought back into our memories May 1 as an important day of struggle. Although the history of the day has largely been forgotten in the United States, it is still actively remembered and celebrated today by workers, unionists and oppressed peoples all over the world. In fact you can still walk through neighborhoods in Mexico and find streets such as Calle Los Martires de Chicago in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, commemorating the leaders of the eight-hour day movement who were imprisoned and executed.

It is not surprising that the government, business leaders, mainstream union leaders, and the media would want to hide the true history of May Day, portraying it as a “communist” holiday celebrated only in the Soviet Union. In its attempt to erase the history and significance of May Day, the United States government declared May 1st to be “Law Day,” and gave us instead Labor Day—a holiday devoid of any historical significance other than a three weekend holiday at the end of the summer.
The Story of the Eight-Hour Day Movement
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day’s work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike (meaning a strike of all workers at all workplaces) to achieve the goal, since years of lobbying and legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers across the US were involved in the May Day movement.

The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People’s Association which believed in using education and direct action to create a free and revolutionary society based on the end of capitalism, the end of inequality based on class, race and sex, and where working and oppressed peoples and communities were able participate and have a meaningful voice in society. Their movement was based in the working class immigrant communities of the city, mainly among Germans, and was centered around a vibrant radical community that included daily and weekly newspapers in several languages, cultural clubs, youth groups, choirs, sports teams and especially within labor unions.

Businesses and the government were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago’s Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers. Many participated in strikes and hundreds of thousands- estimated between 300,000 and 1 million- participated in marches and parades on that day. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality of the police.

The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others.
The Story of the Haymarket Martyrs
Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected anarchists and socialists and hundreds were arrested without charge. Anarchists in particular were harassed, and eight of Chicago’s most active leaders in the movement—Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe—were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bomb-thrower (only one was even present at the meeting, and he was on the speakers’ platform). On August 19th seven of the defendants were sentenced to death and Neebe to 15 years in prison.

After a massive international campaign for their release, the government “compromised” and commuted the sentences of Schwab and Fielden to life imprisonment. Lingg cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell the day before the executions. On November 11th 1887 Albert Parsons, George Engel, August Spies and Adolf Fischer were hanged. Six hundred thousand working people turned out for their funeral. The campaign to free Neebe, Schwab and Fielden continued.

On June 26 1893, Governor Altgeld set them free because they were innocent of the crime for which they had been tried. They and the hanged men had been the victims of “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge.” Evidence later came to light that the bomb may have been thrown by a police agent working for Captain Bonfield, as part of a conspiracy involving certain steel bosses to discredit the labor movement.
The Legacy of the Haymarket Incident
When Spies addressed the court after he had been sentenced to die, he was confident the repression of the government would not succeed. “If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement . . . the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation—if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there, behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.”

Nevertheless, rather than suppressing labor and radical movements, the events of 1886 and the execution of the Chicago anarchists actually mobilized many generations of radicals. Two lesser known but inspirational revolutionary women emerged out of this legacy. Emma Goldman- who would become a famous anarchist speaker, feminist and labor activist from the 1910’s through the 1930’s- was a young immigrant from Russia at the time, later pointed to the Haymarket affair as her moment of political birth. Lucy Gonzalez Parsons, widow to Chicago Martyr Albert Parsons, was born in Texas as a slave and was of Black, Native American and Mexican ancestry, played a leading role in campaigning for the release of the imprisoned activists. Active in anarchist and labor movements long before the Haymarket incident, she continued to play a role in labor organizing (participating in the founding of the radical Industrial Workers of the World), advocated for women workers, published an anarchist newspaper The Liberator and fought for racial justice up until her death in 1942 at 89 years old.

By covering up the history of May Day, the government, business, mainstream unions, and the media have attempted to hide an entire legacy of dissent in this country. They are terrified of what a similarly militant and organized movement could accomplish today, and they suppress the seeds of such organization whenever and wherever they can. As workers, students and community members committed to building a new and free society, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize around issues of vital importance to working-class people today.

LOCAL EVENTS-WINNIPEG:

MAY DAY IN WINNIPEG:

Like most civilized places on the globe (or perhaps in imitation of such places) Winnipeg will also have its own May Day march tomorrow. Here's the lowdown from the Winnipeg Events calender.

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May Day March:
Join the annual Winnipeg Labour Council march in celebration of May Day. This year will also mark the 90th Anniversary of the Winnipeg General Strike. In recognition of this the march will go past many of the sites that are part of that history.

The march will start in Point Douglas, one of Winnipeg's oldest communities, opposite what was the Vulcan Iron Works in 1919. It will then go past Victoria Park; the site of the original Labour Temple; Hell's Alley and the site were Mike Sokolowski was shot and killed in the charge of the NWMP. With Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress and others.
Assemble at 6:00 pm, Joe Zuken Memorial Park (corner of Sutherland & Maple).

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The May Day march is only part of a month-long "May Works" Festival here in the Peg. Here's a brief listing of events from the May Works site. Refer to the original for more details. Some of what is listed below, of course, begs for comment, and perhaps I'll do same in a future post.

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Event Calendar
May 2009:
01
May Day March (6:00 pm)
Bringing Home the Bacon: An Exhibition of Art and Labour in Manitoba (8:00 pm)
02
GWG: Piece by Piece with music by Maria Dunn (1:30 pm)
Manitoba Cuba Solidarity (7:00 pm)
03
Spring Concert (1:30 pm)
May Day Banquet (6:00 pm)
04
May 4 Capitalism Hits the Fan (7:00 pm)
07
Insurrection (7:30 pm)
08
Rekindling the Spirit of 1919 - Conference (7:00 pm)
09
Rekindling the Spirit of 1919 (10:00 am)
Mostly Mandolins (8:00 pm)
10
General Strike Bus Tour (12:00 pm)
Rise Up Singing (7:30 pm)
12
The Trial of William A. Pritchard (7:30 pm)
13
Kerry Pither's Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror (7:00 pm)
14
The Notorious Mrs. Armstrong (2001) (7:00 pm)
21
Privatize this! (5:00 pm)
22
"Tory Times: The Right is Wrong" (7:15 pm)
23
Strike! - Winnipeg Shocks the Nation (1:00 pm)
24
Doors Open Festival (10:00 am)
30
MayWorks Picnic (12:00 pm)
Event Archives