Plan B Forum

A holiday begun in 1886 in the United States.

Yrs,
Rubato

The Foreman's Job

The working class can kiss my ass
I got the foreman's job at last.

You can tell old Joe I'm off the dole -
He can stick his Red Flag up his 'ole!

Then raise the Workers' Bomb on high!
Beneath its shroud we'll gladly die!
Though all our critics do shout, "Balls!"
They'll be beneath it when it falls.

Today is also Lemonade Day and Batman Day

"You dancin'?"
"You askin'?"

Obama used the word "comrade" when addressing Bernie Sanders last night. The audience seemed a bit slow on the uptake, however.

rubato wrote:A holiday begun in 1886 in the United States.

Yrs,
Rubato

But the USSR added such panache!

Actually "Labor Day" (US) is in September and has nothing to do with "International Workers Day" (May 1). The US version is of course a celebration of workers kowtowing to the almighty capitalist state and being congratulated for being running dogs of bourgeois complacency. IWD was a weapon in the struggle of labor vs. capital - a demonstration of solidarity by the revolutionary biscuits of the world (A. Sayle) - and is now a finger or two waved in the general direction of (cont. p94)

IWD began in the U.S. In 1886 on May 1st. It was changed to sept. Because of knee-jerk anti communist hysteria.

You can look it up.


Yrs,
Rubato

I looked it up and found that IWD for May 1st every year was first proposed in 1889 by the Second International congress in Paris - it would be an international day of solidarity, timed to commemorate the May 4, 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago.

Canada originated "Labour Day" in April 1872 and it became an annual Spring event in some places. In 1894, when the Canadian government made it an official countrywide holiday, it was moved to September. Perhaps there was some avoidance of May 1st there. However, the official reason seems to be that there was already an Easter holiday and it would be better to have a nice day off after Summer. Perhaps it was to conform to the (by then) established USA pattern?

All seem to agree that in the USA the inaugural event was on Sept 5, 1882. In both countries, there have been efforts to move the holiday to May 1st but these have always failed.

The US Dept of Labor has:

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

The History Channel has:

As manufacturing increasingly supplanted agriculture as the wellspring of American employment, labor unions, which had first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. Many of these events turned violent during this period, including the infamous Haymarket Riot of 1886, in which several Chicago policemen and workers were killed. Others gave rise to longstanding traditions: On September 5, 1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in U.S. history.

The idea of a “workingmen’s holiday,” celebrated on the first Monday in September, caught on in other industrial centers across the country, and many states passed legislation recognizing it.Congress would not legalize the holiday until 12 years later, when a watershed moment in American labor history brought workers’ rights squarely into the public’s view. On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives.

Wickedpederast has:

The origins of Labour Day in Canada can be traced back to December 1872 when a parade was staged in support of the Toronto Typographical Union's strike for a 58-hour work-week

American Peter J. McGuire, co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was asked to speak at a labour festival in Toronto, Canada on 22 July 1882. Returning to the United States, McGuire and the Knights of Labor organised a similar parade based on the Canadian event on 5 September 1882 in New York City, USA. On 23 July 1894, Canadian Prime Minister John Thompson and his government made Labour Day, to be held in September, an official holiday. In the United States, the New York parade became an annual event that year, and in 1894 was adopted by American president Grover Cleveland to compete with International Workers' Day (May Day)

I'd be interested in your 1886 source..... edited to add: is it the May 4th Haymarket strike rally and bombing that you refer to? May 1st 1886 had been chosen in 1884 as the date by which the 8 hour day should be legally enforceable - and of course it wasn't. So there were strikes and marches beginning then in support of that goal. But this was after September "labor day" parades had begun.

I celebrate labor day every day I labor, which is pretty much every day.

Pagan holidays should always be celebrated.

Gob wrote:Pagan holidays should always be celebrated.

Historians believe the first maypole dance originated as part of Germanic pagan fertility rituals.  Originally, the dancers danced around a living tree.  While dancers usually perform this dance in the spring on May 1 or May Day, those in Sweden perform it during their midsummer celebrations.

A fertility rite; dancing around a pagan phallic symbol.  Now I know where the old rhyme came from:


-"BB"-

To those miscreants in Seattle (who trashed the place):

This is the best way to celebrate May Day.

No.

The BEST way would be a much larger hi-resolution photo of those ladies celebrating.

*runs*

Jarlaxle wrote:No.

The BEST way would be a much larger hi-resolution photo of those ladies celebrating.

*runs*

Ask and ye shall receive, Jarlaxle:
http://famousmonsters.com/wp-content/up ... an-010.jpg

-"BB"-