The "May Day" holiday, founded in 1889 by the "Second International" in Paris, commemorates the violent events of early May, 1886 in Chicago arising from a general labor strike over a mandatory 8-hour work day. According to this web reference, "Our Daily Bleed," "on Monday, May 3, a fight involving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out unionists & non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace them." (Click on "continue reading" to see complete text of this reference.) At another protest the following day an "unidentified" individual threw a bomb that killed seven police and injured 67 others.
These events illustrate the true role of trade unions, which is to elevate the power of groups of nameless, faceless bodies above the power of individuals. Despite their rhetoric for "empowerment" of the worker, their anarchist tactics and vicious treatment of non-unionized workers proves their real concern is for the power of their gang. The unions use this power to coerce employers to pay workers more than the free market of available labor would dictate, and to keep unproductive workers on their payroll.
In contrast to such collective economic measures, the only natural and sustainable form of economy among free men, and the only one devoid of coercion, corruption and violence, is unregulated capitalism. It is also the only way to eliminate poverty. As Edwin Locke states in this editorial, "It is time to rephrase Karl Marx: Workers of the world unite for global capitalism; you have nothing to lose but your poverty."
From http://www.eskimo.com/~recall/bleed/0501.htm:
MAY DAY! MAY DAY! MAY DAY!
Hundreds of thousands of American workers, increasingly determined to resist subjugation to capitalist power, poured into a fledgling labor organization, the Knights of Labor.
Beginning on May 1, 1886, they took to the streets to demand universal adoption of the 8-hour day. Chicago was the center of the movement. Workers there had been agitating for an 8-hour day for months, & on the eve of May 1, 50,000 were already on strike. 30,000 more swelled their ranks the next day, bringing most of Chicago manufacturing to a standstill.
Fears of violent class conflict gripped the city. No violence occurred on May 1 — a Saturday — or May 2. But on Monday, May 3, a fight involving hundreds broke out at McCormick Reaper between locked-out unionists & non-unionist workers McCormick hired to replace them. The Chicago police, swollen in number & heavily armed, quickly moved in with clubs & guns to restore order. They left four unionists dead &many others wounded.
Angered by the deadly force of the police, a group of anarchists, led by August Spies & Albert Parsons, called on workers to arm themselves & participate in a massive protest demonstration in Haymarket Square on Tuesday evening, May 4. The demonstration appeared to be a complete bust, with only 3,000 assembling. But near the end of the evening, an individual, whose identity is still in dispute (possibly a police agent provocateur), threw a bomb that killed seven police & injured 67 others.
Hysterical city & state government officials rounded up eight anarchists, tried them for murder, & sentenced them to death.
On 11 November 1887, four, including Parsons & Spies, were executed. All of the executed advocated armed struggle & violence as revolutionary methods, but their prosecutors found no evidence that any had actually thrown the Haymarket bomb. They died for their words — not their deeds.
250,000 people lined Chicago's street during Parson's funeral procession to express their outrage at this gross miscarriage of justice.
For radicals & trade unionists everywhere, Haymarket became a symbol of the stark inequality & injustice of capitalist society. The May 1886 Chicago events figured prominently in the decision of the founding congress of the Second International (Paris, 1889) to make May 1, 1890 a demonstration of the solidarity & power of the international working class movement. May Day has been a celebration ever since.
I would add, however, that a trade union could certainly be organized in a true capitalist system by individuals who freely and rationally consent to allow their union to bargain on their behalf for better wages and benefits.
So long as no one is coerced into joining the union, members are free to leave as they choose and the government maintains a strictly hands off policy towards all relations and negotiations between the union and the business or industry it is bargaining with there is nothing wrong with such an organization. This also pre-supposes that the business or industry continues to have every right to hire non-union workers if they haven't freely contracted otherwise.
Obviously any person or groups of persons initiating violence against others, regardless of their afiliations or reasons, should be quickly and justly punished by a proper government.
Posted by: Russ Shurts at May 2, 2003 12:48 PMI would settle for the govenment's enforcing the Beck decision, diallowing unions from making political donations without rank & file support. In my lifetime, I believe I will se it.
Posted by: jk at May 2, 2003 09:25 PM