Today in Labor History May 1 "Mother" Jones was born, Coxey’s Army, IWW, immigrants stay home, more

May 1 is International Workers Day. May Day started in the United States. On the first May Day, May 1, 1886, the labor movement called for an eight-hour workday. Two days later, the Haymarket Massacre occurred in Chicago during a strike support rally. Haymarket has been indelibly linked to May Day ever since.

Read historian Dave Roediger's account of the origins of May Day, http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_2985

Find reading lists, links to May Day websites and other resources at the Holt Labor Library website, http://www.holtlaborlibrary.org/mayday.html

Learn more about the Industrial Workers of the World, a union closely linked to May Day, at www.iww.org

Other May 1 milestones:

May 1, 1830 - Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born. The renowned labor organizer, who lived to be 100, said, "I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression. My address is like my shoes; it travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong." For more about Mother Jones, see http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=89 and http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/majones.htm

May 1, 1888 - Nineteen machinists at the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad assembled in a locomotive pit to decide what to do about a wage cut. They voted to form a union, which became the International Association of Machinists.

May 1, 1894- The cross-country march by Coxey’s Army, thousands of unemployed workers, culminated in a march down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.

May 1, 1933 - The first issue of the Catholic Worker was published.

May 1, 2006 - Millions of immigrants, participating in a national day of mobilization, stayed home from work to demonstrate their economic power and demand comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration laws.

Labor history found here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_05_1_2011