What does May Day mean for workers and employees in 2024?
What does May Day mean for workers and employees in 2024?
International Workers’ Day, also known as Labour Day or May Day, is celebrated in over 160 countries, and mostly takes place on 1 May, or the first Monday of that month.
For many countries, the celebration coincides with a day’s rest in the form of a public holiday. However, it is also an opportunity to campaign for the rights of workers and employees, to show solidarity with other working people, and to celebrate the achievements of workers all over the world.
The Bridge Group, whose vision is of a fairer labour market where outcomes are determined by competence and hard work and not by socio-economic background, is marking the day by reflecting on the advances of workers’ and employees’ rights since the day was first celebrated nearly 150 years ago, but also the work that still lies ahead.
The origins of International Workers’ Day
In May 1886, 400,000 workers in many parts of the USA went on strike, demanding an eight-hour working day. Although the protests started peacefully, violence later broke out in Chicago, resulting in several people being killed, and others being sentenced to death or imprisoned. This event, known as the Haymarket Affair, became an international symbol of the struggle for workers' rights. Early in 1889, 1 May was declared International Workers’ Day by the Second International Socialist Workers Congress held in Paris, as a date to mark these events and to demonstrate for the right to an eight-hour working day. Since then, workers' movements all over the world have continued to fight for, and win, this right, and the day has broadened to be a global observance that celebrates the achievements of workers, the drive for fair working conditions, and a recognition of the critical role of workers in society.
Labour Day can also trace its roots to a protest about untenable labour conditions for stonemasons in Melbourne, Australia, which pre-dates the Haymarket Affair. In the UK, as in other countries in Europe, 1 May (or May Day) was historically associated with rural pagan festivals, marking the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. The original meaning of the day was gradually replaced by the modern association with the labour movement. The day became a particularly significant holiday in the Soviet Union and in the Eastern-bloc countries, with high-profile parades.
In the UK in 1978, the May Day Bank Holiday was instituted by Michael Foot, the then Labour Employment Secretary. The first official May Day Bank Holiday (on the first Monday of May) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, meant these three nations joined Scotland and the bulk of the world in marking International Workers’ Day.
Improvements in workers’ and employees’ rights
Thanks to the action that has been taken by workers over these years, fundamental rights and protections have been won, affecting millions of people. These include: the establishment of minimum wages, limits on working hours by day and by week, the right to paid holidays and sick pay, reversals in discriminatory hiring practices, the right to union organisations, improvements in workplace safety, and the prevention of child labour. Modern workers and employees owe their much-improved working conditions to the efforts of the activists who appealed for change, often at the risk of being fired or facing criminal charges or even death.
How the day is marked around the world
Today, in most countries, workers' achievements are celebrated and there are demonstrations in the streets demanding fairer pay and better working conditions.
The 'Eight Hour Demonstration Day' was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890, commemorating the previous struggle for an eight-hour working day by the carpenter Samuel Parnell. Parnell, who reputedly said "There are twenty-four hours per day given us; eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation." Parnell encouraged others to restrict their work to only eight hours a day, with the result that certain tradesmen in New Zealand were some of the first in the world to claim this right in 1840. Early Labour Day parades drew huge crowds demanding the enforcement of an eight-hour day for all workers. Today, Labour Day is a public holiday in New Zealand observed on the fourth Monday in October.
On 1 May 1890, as a tribute to the Haymarket Affair, the workers of France first demonstrated, although one year later nine people were killed and many injured in the town of Fourmies, in the North of France. Subsequently, the significance of May Day then became even more important in France, leading to the day officially becoming a day off in 1919. Demonstrations led to the “eight-hour day” law, as well as the 40-hour week, the first two weeks of paid holidays and the recognition of trade union rights. Today, Labour Day, or Fête du Travail, is a paid public holiday on 1 May, and is a day of demonstrations and trade union protests, often blocking the streets of Paris and the major cities of France.
International Workers' Solidarity Day, or Första Maj, has been an important part of Sweden's history for almost a hundred years. The first 1 May Workers’ Day was held in 1890, organised by the social democrats, although it wasn’t declared a public holiday until 1938. 1 May celebrations still engage numerous people demonstrating for workers' rights in many cities in Sweden, with thousands of workers marching to the union headquarters in Stockholm. It is also a day when student and men’s choirs gather on the steps of universities and in many parks all over the country.
In Spain, 1 May was declared the ‘Día del Trabajador’ in 1889, with both socialist and anarchist demonstrations leading to protests and violence in some regions. It was not, however, declared an official holiday until 1931 with the beginning of the Second Republic. During this time, the Spanish labour movement gained momentum, with workers demanding better working conditions and wages. However, the dictator, General Franco, banned the holiday in 1937, a ban which officially remained in place until 1978 when democracy was re-established. Today, in some cities, the public holiday is marked by parades, demonstrations, and rallies, where workers gather to show their support for the labour movement.
In Mexico, 1 May is a federal holiday that also commemorates the Cananea Strike of 1906, in which Mexican copper miners in Sonoro went on strike to demand better working conditions and the same pay as American workers who worked in the same mine. The demands were unmet, and the workers were forced to return to work, with several protesters having been killed during the strike. The result was subsequent general unrest, further strikes, and then the Mexican Revolution occurred. For this reason, the holiday that commemorates the struggle of the Mexican working class wasn’t officially celebrated until 1 May 1923. Today, workers and students usually get a holiday on Dia del Trabajo, and people celebrate with a day of rest, reflection and parades.
The eight-hour working day in 2024
It is somewhat sobering that International Workers’ Day, with its origins in workers’ demands for an eight-hour working day, takes place in 2024 at a time when many people continue to work more than eight hours a day. And the ongoing cost-of-living crisis means that for some, working long hours, perhaps in more than one job, is the only way to make ends meet.
Many professionals and other employees are also expected to work very long hours, in many cases without additional salary. This may be a result of staff shortages and squeezed budgets, or it may just be the norm.
Yet even where salaries are high, for example in some financial services and law firms, there remains the question of what an employer can justify expecting: how much pressure is appropriate? To what extent do organisations proactively safeguard their employees’ right to a life outside work?
Continuing inequalities
As income and wealth become increasingly polarised, employment outcomes for individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds and women are disproportionately affected.
The International Labour Organisation reveals that women continue to work longer hours per day than men in both paid and unpaid work. In the UK, since the financial crisis of 2009, male average hours per week have remained largely unchanged, breaking a long downward trend. But for women, the average weekly hours worked have actually increased over the past 25 years. The same study found that hours worked are not a strong indicator of household income. In fact, many employees in low-income households work long hours, and many in high-income households work fewer hours.
In 2022, data from Understanding Society (the UK Household Longitudinal Study) revealed that people in England’s most deprived neighbourhoods work longer hours than those in the rest of the country, but at the same time live shorter lives. Global research supports this finding, with workers in poorer countries tending to work more, and sometimes much more. For example, in Cambodia the average worker works around 2,500 hours each year, around 900 more hours than in Switzerland.
What now?
Thinking more broadly than the eight-hour working day, many would argue that working conditions in general have worsened. The last few years have witnessed a rise in part-time, short-term, badly paid work, with an increased prevalence of workers being hired casually, often without the usual rights to paid holidays, a minimum wage, pension, or redundancy pay. This includes the university sector, where there has been a disproportionate increase in the number of academic staff on part-time, hourly paid contracts.
In addition, growth in artificial intelligence, robotics and other new technologies, threaten further displacement of manual workers by mechanisation. Reduced representation by weakened trade unions has exacerbated further these threats to labour rights.
Decent work and fair pay are still, therefore, elusive to many. 1 May, International Workers’ Day, is not only an opportunity to reflect on the history of the labour movement and what has been fought for, but a reminder of the issues that still need to be addressed.