May 1 or May Day is International Workers' Day, commonly known as May Day. This day of labor solidarity is celebrated worldwide on May 1 every year. It is a day of celebration of the international labor movement. Working people and labor organizations in different countries of the world celebrate the day through organized processions and processions on the streets. May Day is a national holiday in about 80 countries of the world, including India and Bangladesh. It is celebrated privately in many other countries.
This day is celebrated to commemorate the sacrifice of the martyrs of Hay Market in Chicago, America in 1886. On that day, workers gathered at Hay Market demanding an eight-hour workday. The police who surrounded them started firing on the workers. As a result, about 10-12 workers and police were killed.
In 1889, the First Congress of the Second International was held in Paris, on the centenary of the French Revolution. There, Raymond Lavin proposed that the anniversary of the Chicago protests be celebrated internationally in various countries from 1890. This proposal was formally adopted at the Second Congress of the International in 1891. Later, a resolution was adopted on this occasion at the International Socialist Conference held in Amsterdam in 1904. The resolution called on all socialist democratic parties and trade unions to organize marches and processions on May 1st around the world to demand an eight-hour workday and to establish peace. At that conference, all trade unions around the world decided to 'compulsory non-work' on May 1st. In many countries, the working class demanded that May 1 be observed as a public holiday, and in many countries it was implemented. For a long time, socialists and communists chose May Day as the main day to express their demands. In some places, torches are also lit in memory of the self-sacrificing workers of Chicago's Hay Market. May Day is a significant day in many countries of the world, including the former Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, various Latin American countries, and Cuba.
This day is also being celebrated properly in Bangladesh and India. The first May Day was celebrated in India in 1923. May Day was recognized.
As important as work is, it is equally important to get adequate rest time. In that year, 1886, workers in the United States took to the streets demanding 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and the remaining 8 hours to spend as they wish. The workers clashed with the police. A few workers were killed, but their demand did not die.
May Day is celebrated all over the world in memory of those martyrs. The first date of May is therefore a day to remember those people who are world workers, who are the creators of this civilization. Rabindranath Tagore said of them, 'The pillars of civilization, standing tall with a lamp on their heads—everyone above them gets light, oil rolls down their bodies.' May 1 is the day of those workers. On this day, 'the hammer and sickle sing'. In this era of globalization, liberalization and privatization, new attacks are coming down on the working people. This day is also a day to understand your rights and be aware.
2026--This year's May Day call
On the eve of this May Day, a terrible attack is being launched on all levels of people, including the working class, in the interests of the growing crisis of capitalism and increasing the profits of the owner class around the world. In this situation, right-wing forces are raising their heads in countries. The victory of Donald Trump in the presidential election in America or the victory of forces like the extreme right-wing RSS and BJP in India is not an isolated incident. They talk about the people's welfare, but they are working only in the interests of imperialist investment capital, in the interests of big capital.
US President Donald Trump's tariff war and the creation of a new war frenzy to expand US dominance in the Middle East, the US-backed genocide in Israel and Palestine, and the attacks on Syria and Libya are not isolated incidents. The working class and peace-loving people in the international arena cannot accept this. The struggle of the left and the working class against imperialism and investment capital's exploitation and domination or the conspiracy of war must be intensified in the coming days. All sections of the working class, including workers, farmers, agricultural laborers, and the deprived, hardworking, peace-loving people, must be united.
On the eve of May Day in India, the BJP and RSS and the Adani-Ambani alliance are moving forward to implement an anti-worker labor code. They are trying to establish a medieval autocratic barbaric exploitation system by chaining the working class to increase the profits of the owner class. Although this labor code was created in 2019-20 due to strong protests and strikes by the working class, the BJP-RSS has not been able to implement it so far. But after coming to power for the third time, the Narendra Modi government is moving forward to reduce the rights earned by the working class. If the labor code is implemented, 75 percent of the workers in the country's organized industries will first be outside the labor law. The right to 8-hour work, minimum wage, permanent employment in permanent jobs, equal pay for equal work, the right to strike, the right of workers to unite and organize will all be affected. Collective action to realize the rights won through the long struggle of the working class is being considered a crime in this authoritarian labor code. Chapter 13 of the Industrial Relations Code 2020 states that trade union leaders can be punished with heavy fines or both, imprisonment and fine, for violating various provisions of the trade union act. This was not the case in the labour law earlier. Section 111 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) defines 'collective action' of workers as an organised crime. As a result, the police have taken action against trade union leaders, including imprisonment under non-bailable sections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the agent of imperialism and capitalists, has passed this bill like a thief in an empty parliament. It is now being implemented, ignoring the protests of central labor organizations.
The implementation of this labor code is intensifying the corporate exploitation system in factories and curtailing the constitutional and democratic rights of the working class. Its aim is to loot the country's labor force and national resources for the state-owned sector. The working class of India will not accept it.
Not only that, the Narendra Modi government has enacted the 'Amended Public Trust Act' in 2023 to make corruption and violation of labor laws by the owner class less serious. It has deactivated 180 cases against owners and withdrawn the provision of imprisonment. In the current year, on the eve of the budget, another 100 crimes have been deactivated and future inspections by the labor department have been practically stopped even if there are allegations of violation of labor laws.
From May Day to May 5th - Karl Marx's birthday
Every year, May 1, i.e. May Day, is celebrated as International Labor Day or International Workers' Day or International Workers' Solidarity Day. This day is celebrated in memory of the sacrifices of the martyrs who were killed in the Hay Market in Chicago, America in 1886. On that day, workers gathered in the Hay Market demanding an 8-hour workday and went on strike. The police started firing on the workers. Many workers were killed in the police attack, and four labor leaders were hanged.
Every year, May 1, i.e. May Day, is celebrated as International Labor Day or International Workers' Day or International Workers' Solidarity Day. This day is celebrated in memory of the sacrifices of the martyrs who were killed in the Hay Market in Chicago, America in 1886. On that day, workers gathered in the Hay Market demanding an 8-hour workday and went on strike. The police started firing on the workers. Many workers were killed in the police attack, and four labor leaders were hanged.
A resolution was adopted on this occasion at the International Socialist Conference held in Amsterdam in 1904. All democratic parties and trade unions were called upon to organize marches and processions on May 1st around the world to demand an 8-hour workday and to establish peace. At that conference, all labor organizations decided to ‘compulsorily not work’ on May 1st. May Day is a significant day in many countries around the world, including the former Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. Military parades are organized on this occasion in all those countries.
In 1923, the Labour Party of Hindustan decided to celebrate this day in India.
The red flag was hoisted in Chennai on International Workers' Day. This day is celebrated in more than 80 countries. It is marked as a very important day in the political history of the world.
May 5- Karl Marx's birthday.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818. Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, social scientist, political theorist and socialist revolutionary. Marx is one of the most influential figures in all of human history. Marx's most important works include the three-volume "Capital" and the "Communist Manifesto" written jointly with Friedrich Engels.
Marx's theories on society, economics, and politics are known as 'Marxism'. According to Marx, the history of the world to date is the history of class struggle.
Human societies develop through class struggle. In the capitalist system, this struggle manifests itself between the ruling class (who simultaneously controls the state and the factories) and the working class (whose only means of livelihood is to sell their labor in the capitalist's factories for a minimum wage). Marx said that the working class receives only a fraction of the new value created by their participation in the production process as wages. The vast majority of the surplus is appropriated by the owners of capital.
Following dialectical materialism, Marx claimed that capitalism, like previous social systems, would collapse due to its internal divisions and class struggle, and socialism would emerge. Marx believed that class consciousness would emerge among the working class through continuous class struggle in the unstable and crisis-prone capitalist system. As a result, unity will develop among them and this united working class will overthrow the ruling class and establish a classless social system. Marx believes that the working class has no alternative to uniting and establishing socialism to end the oppression of the existing capitalist system and demand their own liberation. Marxism is increasingly relevant in the context of the dangers looming before the working class during the period of the establishment of the dominance of capitalists in the post-globalization era.
May Day Oath
International Workers' Solidarity Day is a day for the working class and working people of the world to take an oath. This year marks the centenary of May Day in India. In 1923, M. Singaravelu raised the red flag of May Day in the then Madras.
For these 100 years, the struggle of the working class of India has been going on, going on, and will continue in the future.
May Day once again reminds us of the aggressive nature of world capital. The owners of large capital are building mountains of profit by plundering labor power from natural resources. The production and services of almost all countries are being swallowed up by international investment capital. The concentration of capital continues. As an inevitable result, inequality has taken an unprecedented form. In fact, such severe inequality has never been seen before in the entire history of capitalism. India is the proof of this. 60 percent of the country's total wealth is accumulated in the hands of 1 percent of the people. Capitalism is giving rise to a crisis of unemployment all over the world. A huge number of young people are unemployed. The vast majority of the world's people are suffering from hunger, extremely low incomes and deprivation. Capitalism is a danger to human civilization, this is being proven once again in the third decade of the 21st century.
Capitalism is failing to cope even with its own crisis. It is in the grip of recession. The crisis in production is being compounded by a deep crisis in the financial sector. One bank after another is going bankrupt, which is bound to have an impact on the entire world economy. This crisis has proven the utter failure of neoliberalism. Those who advocated neoliberalism even a decade ago have now been proven to be fools.
This crisis has had a serious social and political impact on the rise of the far right. The far right is gaining ground in many European countries. The far right has become active again in many countries in America and Latin America.
In India too, communal forces are making all-out efforts to create a Hindutva state instead of a democratic state. Uniting people who are disoriented in the crisis of capitalism on the basis of religion, caste, and radical opposition to minorities and immigrants are common features of the extreme right in all countries. This force is the enemy of the working class.
In India too, the movement of the working people has taken a larger form during this period. On the one hand, the central government is formulating policies for the unbridled profits of the corporates, state-owned assets are being looted, and the rights of the working people are being gradually curtailed. On the other hand, the working class has developed an all-India and industry- and sector-based struggle. Along with the organized working class, the workers of the unorganized sector are gradually joining this struggle.
Not only that, but the unity of the movement of the workers along with the rural workers, farmers and agricultural labourers is developing. The recent rally in Delhi reflects this joint strength. The main pledge of this May Day is to mobilize the people to overthrow the anti-worker, anti-people and anti-national Modi government by building a struggle based on alternative policies.
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