From The "Common Struggle" Newspaper #7- THE ORIGIN OF MAY DAY:The 1886 General Strike

THE ORIGIN OF MAY DAY:The 1886 General Strike

We workers in the United States have not always had the eight-hour day. This, like most progress, was won through popular struggle. In the late 1800s, workers, including children, could suffer 16 or more hours a day under dangerous, stifling sweatshop conditions. They earned starvation wages and lived in cramped quarters. Like today, the bosses and the government kept the working class weak by sharpening the divisions of race, gender, immigration status, and other artificial differences. In 1886, however, workers obliterated these divisions and stood together as a class, beginning the fight that won the eight-hour day.

In Chicago, a strong labor movement pressed for, and was rewarded with, 8-hour legislation in 1867. This was supposed to be enacted on May 1st. When that day came, however, the bosses ignored the law and the government wouldn't enforce it. But when Chicago's militant workers went on strike to protest, the government did send the police to brutally crush the peoples' resistance. The despondent workers returned to their jobs. Nothing had changed for Chicago's toilers except their confidence that change could be achieved through legislation.

In 1886 another more radical 8-hour movement gained momentum, led in Chicago by migrant and other workers of the anarchist International Working People's Association (IWPA). A national coalition of unions called for a general strike for May 1st. A general strike is when all workers, regardless of profession, stop working. By crippling the economy workers demonstrate their power - without the workers, society could not continue; the bosses and the rest of the ruling class, on the other hand, are completely useless and even detrimental to the health of human society.

On May 1st, 1886 750,000 workers went on strike across the country— 400,000 in Chicago alone. Eleven-thousand marched in Detroit, 25,000 in New York City, and 80,000 marched through Chicago's streets. Their demonstration of unity terrified the ruling class. Determined not to concede anything and to greedily hoard all of the wealth they had robbed from the poor, the rich set out to crush the movement with violence.

The workers' momentum continued with strikes and demonstrations. On May 3rd, the striking "lumber shovers" union held a public meeting of 6,000 near the McGormick plant. The police attacked the meeting with guns and batons, killing one worker and wounding more. Outraged, anarchists posted a call in their daily German-language paper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung ("Workers'
Newspaper") for a May 4th protest meeting at Haymarket Square.

That night, thousands gathered at Haymarket to denounce police violence. The crowd listened calmly to speeches by migrant anarchist workers, such as August Spies and Samuel Fielden. Even the mayor of Chicago, who attended the beginninghalfoftherally,said,"nothinglookedlikely to happen to require police interference," and he advised police captain Bonfield to send his forces home. Bonfield didn't. Around 10PM, after the mayor and many attendees left, and as Fielden was calling the meeting to a close, Bonfield's force of 200 officers marched on the rally, threatening violence and demanding it break up. A bomb exploded in the police ranks, killing one instantly and injuring many. In the chaos, police fired indiscriminately, killing seven of their own officers and numerous demonstrators, though they never counted how many workers they slaughtered.

A reign of terror followed while the state prosecutor publicly advised the police to target anarchists: "make the raids first and look up the law afterwards." Police arrested all known anarchists and raided meeting halls, printing offices, and homes. Eight prominent anarchist speakers, newspaper editors, and unionists-August Spies, Sam Fielden, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Michael Schwab, Louis Lingg, and Oscar Neebe—were charged with the Haymarket bombing. Of the 8 men, 7 were immigrants, and only 3 were at Haymarket that night. The state prosecutor handpicked a biased jury and presented no evidence connecting them to the bomb.

As the prosecution argued in court, "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, Jiang them and you saviour institutions, our society/'l3o they" did." All received death sentences except Neebe, who was given 15 years. A massive international campaign forced the state to commute the sentences of Schwab and Fielden to life imprisonment, but on November llth, 1887, Parsons, Engel, Spies, and Fischer were hanged. The fiery young German carpenter, Louis Lingg, cheated the hangman, committing suicide in his cell the day before his execution. Six-hundred thousand attended their funeral.

While the Haymarket incident was initially seen as a set-back for the 8-hour movement, the event radicalized many more, including influential anarchists Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Gleyre. The American Federation of Labor and the anarchist IWPA took the streets again on May Day, 1890, and the movement for the 8-hour day pressed on. Carrying the legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs, organized labor began to make headway. The United Mine Workers achieved the eight-hour day in 1898, as did the Building Trades Council of San Francisco in 1900, printing trades across the US in 1905, and Ford Motor workers in 1914. In 1916, threatening a nationwide general strike, US railroad workers forced the government to pass the Adamson Act, which won them an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime.

Finally in 1938, massive militant movements of workers and unemployed forced the Roosevelt government to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing for many the 8-hour day with extra overtime pay, as well as a national minimum wage and the abolition of "oppressive child labor."

Via "Boston IndyMedia"- A Dissenting Voice-"Occupy Boston Struggles to Achieve Democracy"

Markin comment:

Markin comment October 8, 2011:

I have made the following observation about the Occupy Boston occupation (October 1, 2011)and the way things have gone. My objections center more on the lack of political clarity and motion now that people are moving to the streets, and getting ready to fight back. Below my comment I have posted a different kind of dissent which seems somewhat on the mark on the question the post addresses-who's running the show?
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Markin comment October 1, 2011

There is a lot of naive expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naive, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
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Occupy Boston Struggles to Achieve Democracy
by Boston IMC
(

No verified email address) 06 Oct 2011
Over the last few days the Occupy Boston protest has made some remarkable achievements. On the infrastructure front, an organized miniature city has emerged to feed, house and provide medical care for campers and visitors alike. Donations of food, equipment and supplies have been pouring in daily. The volume of corporate media coverage has been impressive, and the tone generally less hostile and dismissive than is usual for protest coverage.

This has all been accomplished in a remarkably egalitarian fashion. Formal leaders do not exist, and all decisions are made by consensus, at least in theory. General assemblies are held every morning and evening to attempt to make sure that everyone's voice can be heard.

Yet behind the scenes creeping authoritarianism threatens the occupation.

For starters, the protest marches that regularly leave from the camp are often far less democratic than the assemblies and working group meetings. While the march last Friday night was a freewheeling affair that went where marchers felt like, took the streets, and ended with a spontaneous demonstration in front of a (mostly empty) Federal Reserve building, subsequent marches have been heavily scripted by facilitators with little to no input from outside. A march on Monday morning featured a man with a bullhorn directing the route and tactics with no regard for the wishes of marchers. Anyone straying from the sidewalk was forcibly pulled back and scolded. Furthermore, the march target, originally the Fox News office, was changed to the State House in the middle of the night by a small handful of organizers, without any consultation with the general assembly. The bullhorn dude even attempted to end the march after a speech at the State House steps, but was finally overridden by his exasperated followers, who insisted on making a brief stop at Fox News before marching back to the occupation.

Even the general assemblies, on the surface a model of participatory decision making, have taken on an authoritarian tone. A small group of facilitators largely controls the meeting procedure. While in theory the facilitators are just another working group, open to all, they do not issue group reports like other groups such as Food, Medical or Outreach. In addition their meetings are not always well publicized, and they either have no group liaison or the liaison is seldom at the camp.

The result has been general assemblies where the process for getting a proposal before the assembly has been unclear or even nonexistent. Participants have been reduced to futilely expressing opinions with no obvious way to turn them into reality. Individual facilitators have used their control of the process to push their own agendas and stifle proposals they did not approve of.

None of the above is to say that the situation is beyond salvage. The facilitators meeting on Tuesday was announced, and newcomers were able to block several undemocratic proposals. In addition Direct Action, the working group responsible for planning marches and other protests, saw a flood of new people at their own Tuesday meeting, leading to refreshing discussions on a variety of topics and a couple of ideas for actions.

More importantly, the actions on Wednesday were a stunning rebuke to anyone who sought to control the occupation. These included a student march and blockade that stopped traffic on Atlantic Ave for about 20 minutes, and two marches, one with members of the Mass. Nurses Association, that took over the streets for hours with no preset routes.

More such actions are needed. If the Occupy Wherever movement is to grow into a genuine revolutionary force it must not be hijacked by liberals and politicians. Anyone who wants to prevent this should come to Dewey Square as soon as they can get there, ready to throw down.