Can International Workers Day re connect our increasingly fragmented working class in struggle, more questions than answers!

“And I hold it to be the most important and magnificent in the entire May Day celebration that on May 4, 1890, the English proletariat, rousing itself from forty years’ winter sleep, rejoined the movement of its class.” Frederick Engels.

May Day has been a day of workers solidarity internationally since the 19^th century. Sometimes a place of militant resistance and struggle , sometimes big social trade union gatherings with polite speeches from reformist leaders. In Eastern Europe after 1945 it became the formalised annual military symbol of state power, seeking to link elites and masses.

Some May Days have had global significance and need to be our aspiration for the future:

• In 1889, an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1st as a day in support of workers, in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago (1886).
• A year later1890, around 100,000 turned out on the London May Day demonstration, crowding out the platforms organised by Eleanor Marx and the new unions. Friedrich Engels, amongst them, quoted above.
• St Petersburg 1905: Despite the ban on unauthorised assemblies, attempts were made to openly organise May Day rallies, with protest strikes taking place on the following day in St Petersburg and other cities. Strikes continued throughout the month, peaking at 221,000 strikers in St Petersburg alone.
• In Berlin May Day in 2010 an approved far-right demonstration was blocked by socialists and anarchists. 10,000 leftists and anarchists were attacked by the police.^[

The militancy of May Day has varied globally over time depending on the strength and confidence of workers self-organisation. The most significant May Days have been those based on, and strengthening, existing struggles. Without that raw energy they can only mark time – useful maybe, but static.   

In more recent years International Workers Memorial Day on 28 April has also developed taking a targeted campaigning stance against unsafe workplaces and industrial diseases.

International Workers’ Memorial Day is observed to remember workers killed, injured, ormade ill due to work. The slogan for the day is “Remember the dead – Fight for the living,” highlighting the ongoing struggle for safer working conditions. Events are held globally. 

The message of working class unity and struggle has always been at the core of both.

Can our May Day events in coming years become a way to reinvigorate working class unity and struggle? Can they connect activists across our increasingly diverse and atomised working class communities.

The Durham Miners Gala with brass bands and banners leading thousands of marchers to hear militant speeches, drink beer and eat chips provides a model. A bloc of cycle delivery workers leading strikers, Palestinians, union banners and samba bands would make a great start to re-envisaging how we both celebrate and struggle. United, International, Fun, Colourful and all inclusive.

NB Featured image People throng through packed streets of Durham with many colourful banners displayed