Wednesday, May 01, 2019

May 1. International Workers’ Day

International Workers’ Day is a celebration of labour and the working classes that is promoted by the International Labour Movement which occurs every year on May 1. The date was chosen by a pan-national organization of political parties to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on May 4, 1886.
   The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International (International Socialist Congress), held from 14 to 18 August 1904 at Gebow, Amsterdam, 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.”
   May 1 must not be a holiday for workers! 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 8-hour workday.
   On May 4, the police acted against the workers supported the strike, when an unidentified person threw a bomb. The police responded by firing on the workers. The event lead to the death of eight and injury of sixty police officers as well as an unknown number of civilians killed or wounded.
   On the evening of May 4, a meeting was called, by means of an incendiary handbill, at a point in Desplaines Street, to listen to speeches about the strikes and a fight that had taken place between the police and a company of strikers.

Today: Average Usual Weekly Hours Worked on the Main Job in 2017

According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the data on average usual weekly hours worked in the main job broken down by total employment, full-time employment and part-time employment, show that the most countries are within the maximum limit of 8-hour per day (5 days a week), at least officially, as in true labor market environment many employers deploy their human capital a lot more than what they mention to their reports.

Δρ. Κωνσταντίνος Μάντζαρης, Dr. Konstantinos Mantzaris, Economistmk

Published at     
Sign-up to Economistmk© Newsletter.

Bold font phrases are clickable links.
Thanks for reading! Have a Creative Day!
This post has no comments yet.

0 comments: