TO ALL OUR MEMBERS,
READERS
WELL WISHERS &
PATRONS
S.S. MAHADEVAIAH
Editor & Rural
Postal Employees Family
MAY DAY – INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS DAY
H. Mahadevan, Working President, AITUC
A Glimpse of the
historic beginning:
The strike on
May 1, 1886 brought out 350,000 workers in the main center of Chicago, where
left wing influence was strong in the unions. The eight-hour day was won by
some 1,85,000 workers particularly in the building trades. The strike had an
enormous effect in stimulating labour movement, many unions dating their
beginning from the struggle. The great struggle also gave birth to
International May Day, the founding Congress of the ‘Second International’ in
Paris in 1889 establishing this as the day of celebration for world labour. The
big 1886 General Strike produced one of the most outrageous capital crimes
against the working class. At a meeting in Chicago Haymarket on May 4,
protesting the recent brutal killing of six strikers, at the McCormick Reaper Plant,
the police arrested several worker leaders. After a most outrageous campaign of
hysteria and organized frame-up Parsons, Spies Fisher and Engel were hanged on
November 11, 1887 and Neebe, Schwab and Fieldon were given long prison
sentences. Lingg was found dead in his cell, a suicide the police said. The
whole labour world rage with protest against the barbarous Haymarket tragedy in
which courts sank to the level of scabs and common gunmen in their desperate
efforts to destroy the American Labour Movement.
Engels writing
on 1st May 1890 a new preface to the German edition of the Communist
Manifesto said: “Working men of all countries, unite”. But a few voices
responded. Today as I write these lines, the European and American Proletariat
is renewing its fighting forces, mobilized as one army, under one red flag, for
one immediate aim: The standard eight hours working day to be established by
legal enactment as proclaimed by the Geneva Congress of the International in
1866 and again by the Paris Workers Congress in 1889. And today’s spectacle
will open the eyes of the capitalists and landlords of all countries to the
fact that today the working men of all countries are united indeed”.
In India
In 1889, 22
March the Lancashire textile workers in Britain organized a solidarity action
in support of the demand of the Indian workers for fixing up hours of work. Two
British worker leaders spoke there. In 1890, a meeting of 10,000 workers of the
Bombay Cotton Mills met under Lokhande’s leadership and two women workers spoke
there. The meeting demanded a weekly day of rest and the owners accepted it. On
25th September 1890, the Indian Government formed a commission. The
commission recommended a new Factory Law in 1891 which was put into effect from
1st January 1892. In this Factory Law, 11 hours of work was fixed
for women workers with an hour and half recess and 7 hours of work was fixed
for children.
A weekly day of
rest was also fixed. But no hours of work was fixed for men workers. In 1905,
the Lancashire workers sent a representation to the Secretary of State
demanding that the hours of work for men workers in India be fixed. In 1911,
the mill owners accepted 12 hours working day for male workers and 6 hours for
child workers. But the working class had not yet reached the position to demand
an 8 hour working day.
At the second
session of AITUC held at Jharia on 1st December 1921, the first
resolution adopted was “that this trade union congress declares that the time
now has arrived for the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India”.
Officially the Delhi session of AITUC in 1927 asked all provincial units to
observe May Day. Unofficially May Day was first observed in 1923. The meeting
took place at the Madras Sea Beach under the Presidentship of Comrade
Singaravelu Chettiar. It was demanded that May Day be declared as holiday. We should
note that it was the same Comrade Singaravelu Chettiar who made the inaugural
speech at the founding conference of the Communist Party of India, held from
December 25-27, 1925 in Kanpur. The Communists were in the leading role as the
moving spirit behind the working class movement and the AITUC in particular.
In 1925, Indian
sailors in the East End of London had observed May Day in a meeting at the Hyde
Park.
There had been,
during that period, several May Day programmes observed in India, in Calcutta,
in Kanpur, etc, with increasing mass participation of the workers. In 1943,
Nagpur May Day meeting was presided over by Shri Banerjee of the Indian National
Congress. In 1946, May Day was observed in Shahid Minar of today, presided over
by Mrinal Kanti Bose, Rajani Palme Dutt, a British Comrade. May Day 1950 was
observed inside the Thane Jail Compound, leading to a lathi charge and wounding
of 14 detainees, who had hoisted the red flag within the jail compound. The May
Day 1950 took particular note of those movements and adopted special and
particular resolution expressing solidarity with Telengana armed struggle against
landlords and the Nizam of Hyderabad and protesting against repression.
WFTU’s Call on May Day observance
The World
Federation of Trade Unions, founded upon the principle of all inclusive united
front of the genuine, class based trade unions of every nation, with the idea
in mind the Paris Congress of the WFTU in the preamble to its constitution,
amongst others, declared (a) to organize and unite within its ranks the trade
unions of the whole world, irrespective of consideration of race, nationality,
religion or political opinion, (b) to carry on struggle for extermination of
all fascist forms of governments, every manifestation of fascism, under
whatever form it operates, by whatever name it may be known, (c) to organize
common struggle of trade unions of all countries; against encroachments on the
economic and social rights of workers and on democratic liberties; for the
satisfaction of the needs of the workers for full employment; for the
progressive improvement of wages, hours and working and living conditions of
workers; for full and adequate social security to protect the workers and their
families against the hazards of unemployment, sickness, accident and old age;
for the adoption of all measures furthering the social and well-being of the
workers.
In order to achieve these aims, WFTU bases its work on the following principles (amongst others)
(a)
Full democracy within trade unions of all
countries and close collaboration amongst them.
(b)
Systematic exchange of information and
experience in trade union work with the object of strengthening solidarity of
the International labour movement.
(c)
Protection of the interests of workers in emigration
and immigration.
The WFTU policy
was also one of clear stand against the narrow sectarian position of the
Anarcho-Syndicalists; that the final goal of working class is socialism.
This year’s
May Day slogan of WFTU
“THE WEALTH
BELONGS TO THOSE WHO PRODUCE”
This slogan of
WFTU is very significant for the future role of the working class.
The global
economic crisis continues unabated, growth has not picked up, whatever growth
is there its gains are wholly expropriated by the capitalists, unemployment
continues at the alarming levels; inequalities are growing to dangerous levels;
8 richest men in the world own the same wealth as that of half the world’s
population; the attempts of the ruling classes to tide over the crisis, to
protect and increase their profits, by attacking the working and toiling
conditions of the living people and their hard won rights, by promoting loot of
national assets by the national and multinational corporations also persist.
In this context,
the May Day slogan of WFTU becomes very important and of immense necessity. The
social order must be changed by our continued struggles in different forms to
realize the call, The wealth belongs to
those who produce.
OUR RESOLVE
In our country,
today the capitalists seek to wriggle out of the global crisis by “imposing
further burdens on the working class and the other sections of the toiling
people. The attention is sought to be diverted by the ruling classes, different
pretexts are used – religion, caste, region, language, race, colour, gender;
the communal forces with the support of the ruling classes are resorting to a
dangerous game plan to push through the neo-liberal agenda; use of myths and
falsifying facts; evoking the so-called nationalism to defend the indefensible
anti-natural acts, provoke hatred, talk of justice for all while denying social
justice to most oppressed and deprived.
In these
circumstances, this year’s May Day becomes very important, to struggle on our
common demands, jointly placed in the CHARTER OF DEMANDS of all trade unions in
India, which include:
v
Fix National Minimum Wage as per 15th
ILC recommendation followed by Supreme Court judgment.
v
Abolish Contract Labour system and strictly
implement “Equal Wage for Equal Work”.
v
Comprehensive legislation covering social
security and working condition of all workers including agricultural workers.
v
Check unemployment through policies encouraging
labour intensive establishments and increasing employment a pre-condition for
investments/expansion.
v
Recognise all scheme workers as workers under
statues providing all benefits.
v
Immediately revoke ‘Fixed Term Employment”,
which is in violation of ILO Recommendation 204.
v
Defend, Extend, Democratise public sector; revoke
the decisions for privatization of many strategic sectors. No to FDI in core
sectors.
v
Stop anti-labour, pro-employer codification and
changes in labour laws.
v
Ratify ILO conventions 87 and 98 on Freedom of
Association and Right to Collective Bargaining, besides ILO convention 189 on
domestic workers.
v
Right to work as a Fundamental Right.
v
Stop dilution of OSH and Welfare programmes.
Ratify ILO Convention 155 and Recommendation 164; 179 on Home based workers.
v
Cut all subsidies and concessions given to
Corporates.
v
Scrap New Pension Scheme, restore Old Pension Scheme,
revamp EPS-95 to increase minimum pension and to implement Supreme Court
judgment on pension on actual salary.
v
Universal entitlement to maternity benefit.
v
Ensure effective implementation of Art 51A of
the Indian Constitution.
v
Free and compulsory education of all children,
Health care to all by strengthening public health infrastructure.
Struggle to ensure that the wealth belongs to those who produce.
►Long Live May Day
►Long Live AITUC – We hail the Centenary of AITUC
►Working Class Unity Zindabad
►Workers of the World Unite