Labor Day Here And There
by digby
I was reminded yesterday of the Haymarket Affair of 1886 which, for those who aren’t from Chicago or aren’t students of labor history, probably don’t know precipitated what’s known as May Day — Labor Day — everywhere in the world but here. Being as “exceptional” as we are, we celebrate Labor Day in September, even though the international labor day holiday was conceived to honor martyred anarchists supporting American workers striking for the 8 hour day.
Wikipedia has a good rundown of the story if you’re not familiar with it. Suffice to say that it includes violence and Pinkerton infiltrators and, of course, a gross miscarriage of justice in which innocent people were executed … and later exonerated. It served as inspiration for the global labor struggles and various Marxist revolutions to follow.
American workers were at the forefront of the international labor movement back in the day, inspiring their brothers and sisters all over the world to collectively work for better conditions and wages for the working man and woman. It doesn’t comport with our vision of ourselves as hardy capitalist individualists hacking our way through the wild frontier with nothing more than a pick axe and a dream. But the truth, as usual, is a lot more complicated.
We don’t celebrate our labor history in this country because it’s inconvenient for the plutocrats to acknowledge that the worker’s movements formed it every bit as much as entrepreneurs and robber barons did. It’s telling that average people around the world to this day are familiar with this story — and Americans have no clue.
Update: Probably just as few Americans know about the history of the New Left and the labor movement, but Joan Walsh has it all for you in a fascinating post about a new book on the 70s and an interview with its author.
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