International Workers’ Day: May 01

Dr. Parveen Kumar*

First day of fifth month celebrated as International Workers Day, International Labour Day or May Day honors workers’ rights, addressing different challenges they face at their workplace and the need for fair working conditions. Celebrated on May 1^st, the day commemorates the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago which observed a general strike for the eight-hour workday. On this day in 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first ever May Day celebration in history. A glimpse back to the history reveals that in the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to have an eight hour working day. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labour was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class. At this time, socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers’ lives for profit. Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution.

Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labour movements grew, a variety of days were chosen by trade unionists as a day to celebrate labour. May 1 was chosen to be International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. In that year beginning on May 1, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday. The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.  In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public’s eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists. More and more workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty US states officially celebrated Labour Day. Thus by 1887 in North America, Labour Day was an established, official holiday but in September, not on 1 May. In 1889, a meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne that called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s second congress in 1891. May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began.

The day in the year 2026 focuses on Ensuring a Healthy Psychosocial Working Environment for workers at their workplace. It highlights mental health & well-being by tackling workplace stress, burnout, and ‘always-on fatigue in the digital age. It also ensures Safety & Climate action by ensuring safe working conditions and climate transitions and green job shifts. The May Day also brings into focus on social justice by promotion of fair wages, gender equality, and rights for informal workers and also recognizing the resilience and struggles of the global workforce.

The farming community is a class of agriculture workers that work in farms and is are not confined to a particular gender. If we analyze the data, we see that in 2001, of the 100 cultivators in India 67.1 were male and 32.9 were female and within a decade in 2011 the male went up to 69.7 and female came down to 30.3. Similarly of 100 agricultural labourers in India in 2001, 53.7 were male and 46.3 were female and a decade later in 2011 the number was 57.3 for males and 42.7 for females. The agriculture workers have been in the forefront in ensuring food and nutritional security to all of use. Despite all this, there are frequent reports of the agriculture workers being harassed by landlords and owing to the apathy from respective governments, some of them are leaving agriculture and some others are committing suicides. All this comes as a shock to all of us. Agriculture is a dangerous occupation also. Let us take the case of United States where agriculture is also called the backbone of the country. A few years ago, agriculture ranked eighth as one of the most dangerous occupations. Today agriculture ranks as fourth dangerous occupation. According to the U.S Bureau of Labour Statistic, fatalities and injuries among agricultural workers are on the rise. Farm workers are 800 per cent more likely to dies on the job than in other industries. The National Safety Council of the U.S reports that of the about 3.1 million peoples who work on America’s 2.3 million farms and ranches, 1300 die each year and 120,000 are injured. This means for every 100,000 farmers. About 25 die each year and equipments injure another 243 and five per cent of these injuries result in permanent disabilities. In agrarian economies, such things should usually not happen.

Farmers’ who produce everything on this planet should be ensured with appropriate protection and safety. They should enjoy certain exclusive rights related to agriculture that must be upheld to give due recognition to them in their efforts to produce food for all of us. This is also necessary to save them from the unnecessary harassment from different sources. Farming must be made more sustainable and remunerative by adopting practices which do not promote usage of external inputs, but use of local resources.

The country had 29 separate labour laws with outdated and overlapping provisions, making compliance complex and time-consuming for workers and employers. Many laws were created during the pre-Independence and early post-Independence era, and no longer suited modern industry practices, technology, or new forms of employment. The Multiple licences, registrations and returns increased paperwork and made it difficult for businesses especially for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME)  to operate smoothly. Most of the protections applied only to specific categories or sectors, leaving large numbers of informal and unorganized workers uncovered. The rise of gig work, platform jobs, fixed-term employment and flexible service-based roles required updated regulatory frameworks.

For the welfare of workers, Indian government has also come up with  four Labour Codes  (the Code on Wages, 2019,  Industrial Relations Code, 2020, Code on Social Security, 2020, Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code, 2020) replacing 29 earlier labour laws. The reform aims to modernize labour regulation, strengthen worker protections and create a simpler, future-ready framework supporting a resilient workforce and Atmanirbhar Bharat. The Code of Wages, 2019 merges four key laws (The Payment of Wages Act, 1936; The Minimum Wages Act, 1948; The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976) into a single framework. It brings uniformity in wage rules, ensures fair and timely payment, promotes gender equality and simplifies compliance for employers while strengthening workers’ rights. The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 combines and simplifies provisions from earlier laws like the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. It seeks to balance worker rights with industrial stability by streamlining rules on union recognition, employment terms and dispute resolution. The Code on Social Security, 2020: It merges nine existing laws like The Employee’s Compensation Act, 1923, The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, The Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 into one unified framework and extends benefits to all workers, including those in the unorganized, gig and platform sectors. It covers maternity, health, life insurance and provident fund benefits while promoting digital processes and easier compliance. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020: It consolidates 13 labour laws such as Factories Act, 1948, Plantations Labour Act, 1951, and Mines Act, 1952. All the four new labour laws aims to ensure safer working conditions, guarantee for their genuine rights while simplifying compliance for businesses, creating a more efficient, fair and future-ready labour workforce and a robust framework.

The author writes on agriculture and social issues; can be reached at pkumar6674@gmail.com