International Workers’ Day is a celebration of labour and the working classes that is promoted by international labour movement and that occurs on May 1 every year. That day, May 1, is also the traditional European Spring holiday of May Day. Therefore, May 1 is a national public holiday in more than 80 countries, but in only some of those countries is the public holiday officially known as Labour Day or some similar variant. In other countries, the public holiday marks the spring festival of May Day.
Whole 19th century was marked with exploitation of workers. Small paychecks.
Working every day 12 to 18 hours, kids and adults, and having no money to support their families, they were miserable. So everyone started a strike. The strike had the greatest momentum inthe USA.
On 1st May in 1886, 40 000 people of Chicago started protesting demanding 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and 8 hours of education. Police interfered immediately, killed 6 people, and hurt 50 people.
One of the leaders last words were “the time is going to come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you have shut today.”
In memoriam of that bloodshed that has happened in Chicago, on the 1st Congress in 1889 it was decided that 1st of May is going to be a symbol, and that every year they are going to organize worker strikes. In the next year, that day has become the International Day of Solidarity of Workers.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 1 (Bosnian and Serbian: Prvi Maj/Први Mај, Croatian: Prvi Svibanj) is an official holiday at the national level. Most people celebrate this holiday by visiting natural parks and resorts. Additionally, in some places, public events are organized.
On this occasion, portal Sarajevo Times wishes all citizens of BiH and throughout the world a happy 1 May-International Workers’ Day.
