Mayday

Fearing workers insistence on celebrating Labor Day, police started its attacks early in the morning. At 6:30AM, the police attacked workers gathering in front of DISK (Progressive Labor Union’s Confederation). Police used tanks and pepper gas against the workers waiting peacefully in front of their unions.

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971
Kauffman, L A

The protest was organised by the Moroccan association for human rights (AMDH) after a call by the National Solidarity group for the Mayday Detainees (INSAD), those arrested at May Day include workers, unionists, students and the unemployed.

Celebrate May Day on the basis of internationalism
In the whole world, we can see various organizations, parties and states observing May Day, the international working class day this year. We can read and hear different statements and saw mobilizations from these organizations paying lip service to the gravedigger of capitalism.

In Tehran, in which only the government-sponsored Workers’ House is legally permitted to hold rallies, thousands of workers with independent slogans participated in the event at the Shiroodi (former Amjadie) stadium and did not let the official event conclude. Alireza Mahjoub, the head of the Workers’ House, was interrupted by chanting workers and could not finish his speech.

The second one day strike called by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) will hit a range of services including courts, passports, tax, Jobcentres, galleries and driving tests. The May Day stoppage comes as the government continues to axe more than 100,000 civil and public servants, insist on below inflation pay rises and plough on with privatisation.

ZimOnline reported: Relations between Mugabe and the ZCTU are hostile with the workers’ federation blaming wrong government polices for plunging the economy and workers into misery.

In turn, Mugabe accuses the ZCTU of conspiring with his Western enemies and of using genuine worker grievances as pretext to instigate Zimbabweans to revolt and overthrow his government.

An article looking at the ancient pagan roots of Mayday, through the Haymarket martyrs to International Workers Day and the UK anti-capitalists in the late 1990s.

Originally a pagan holiday, the roots of the modern Mayday bank holiday are in the fight for the eight-hour working day in Chicago in 1886, and the subsequent execution of innocent anarchist trade unionists.

The event was organized by “the First of May Council”, which was a committee consists of the city’s labour activists that acted independently from the government-sponsored Workers’ House.

The Los Angeles-based No hr4437 network said: “We are calling No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.) to protest the anti-immigrant movements across the country.

Little is known about the early life of Lucy Parsons. She claimed to have been born the daughter of a Mexican women, Marie del Gather and John Waller, a Creek Indian, and orphaned at age three. From there she said she was raised on a ranch in Texas by her maternal uncle. However, later research has pointed to the possibility that she was a slave in Texas.

An article and critical accoung about May Day - International Workers Day 1999 in London, which took the form of a demonstration on the Underground and concentrated on public transport issues.

Information about the Mayday demonstrations in London in 2000.

"Police break up procession: 69 arrested in West End"
An article on the events of Mayday in Trafalgar Square, London in 1950.

The autobiography of ALBERT R. PARSONS, born: June 24 1848 -- Montgomery, Ala, USA. Sentenced: Death Executed: November 11 1887.

In compliance with your request I write for publication, in the Knights of Labor, the following "brief story of my life, a history of my experience and connection with Labor, Socialistic and Anarchistic organizations, and my views as to their aims and objects and how they will be accomplished, and also my connection with the Haymarket meeting of May 4, 1886, and my views as to the responsibility for that tragedy."

Albert R. Parsons, Haymarket Martyr and anarchist on the movement for an eight-hour working day in March, 1886.

Archived libcom.org web feature for the events of Mayday - 1 May, International Workers Day - 2004.

Information about the Mayday demonstrations which occurred in London, 2001.