May Day often referred to as Workers’ Day is a Public holiday usually celebrated on May 1st of every year. It was born of the strife which took place in the late nineteenth century for an 8 hour working day without slash in pay and with more humanitarian conditions, against the usual practice of 12 to 16 working hours often under pitiable conditions with records of numerous avoidable deaths and injuries to workers in so many instances, and life expectancy becoming very low at that time.
This struggle by workers for their emancipation from the shackles of serfdom andoppression began as early as the 1860’s but it was in the late 1880’s that organized labourwith the maximum support of majority of the working class was able to muster enoughmomentum to force the 8 hour workday on employers.
At that point, Workers had come to the harsh reality that Capitalism benefited only the bourgeoisies (bosses) who traded the proletariats’ (workers’) lives for profit. Therefore, they opted for Socialism which they saw as a better option and the way forward. In view of this, a number of socialist organizations sprung up throughout the latter half of the 19th century.
This idea was first born in Australia when the workers there decided in 1856 to organize a day of complete work stoppage with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favour of the eight hour working day. The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans who decided that there should be a universal work stoppage on May 1st and in 1886 about two hundred thousand of them left their work and demanded the eight hour day. But due to the unfortunate incidents of police brutality during a congress near the McCormick plant by the steelworkers, and ultimately the Haymarket massacre where a number of people were killed and hundreds of others injured after a peaceful meeting with the Mayor to discuss about the issue of Police brutality, workers were prevented for many years from repeating this demonstration. However in 1888 they renewed their decision for the continuation of the Workers’ Day celebration on May 1st.
Meanwhile, over a hundred years has passed since the first May Day celebration, so many Countries have embraced the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs and those who established May Day as an International Workers’ Day, and presently it is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more.
Here in our own clime, in Nigeria, May Day was first celebrated in 1980 when the then Kano State Governor, Late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi declared 1st of May that year as an holiday for workers. The Shehu Shagari Government followed suit in 1981 and since then Workers’ day has been marked annually in Nigeria on the first day of May by Workers of different Grade levels, Tribes, Religions and varying occupations in solidarity with their contemporaries all over the world.
In conclusion and in the exact words of Rosa Luxemburg in his Selected Political Writings “As long as the struggle of the workers against the bourgeoisie and the ruling class continues, as long as all demands are not met, May Day will be the yearly expression of these demands. And, when better days dawn, when the working class of the world has won its deliverance then too humanity will probably celebrate May Day in honor of the bitter struggles and the many sufferings of the past”.
