The slogans used by workers around the world on May Day – International Workers’ Day – have been reflecting workers’ concerns and responses to current events for nearly 130 years.

“Eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will” was one of the slogans used during the very first May Day demonstrations, in 1886, when over 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in support of their demand for an eight hour day.  Their numbers continued to swell, and during the next few days demonstrations were held all over the United States – culminating in a major rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. 

An unknown person – still unknown today – threw a bomb at police trying to disperse the workers, and eight anarchists were subsequently tried and convicted of conspiracy on the flimsiest of evidence.  Four were executed, one committed suicide in prison.  The remaining defendants were pardoned in 1893.

The bad old days?  Not at all.  In 2014, workers are still struggling for their rights - in Ireland, and around the world.

A quick look at the www.labourstart.org website shows just how important international union solidarity is:  for example, garment workers in Cambodia – where union activists have been murdered and others imprisoned without trial – would have no problem recognising the conditions facing those Haymarket workers back in 1886. 

Closer to home, under the cloak of austerity, Irish workers’ terms and conditions have been under attack since the beginning of the economic crisis.

The theme of this year’s Dublin May Day parade, being organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, is ‘Stand Up – Fight Back’ – against austerity and its offshoots, privatisation, poverty and emigration.  All trade unionists should support it.