05/01/2026
Happy May Day!
While we generally celebrate labor/labor unions in Sept on.... Labor Day 😂 the rest of the world honors May 1st as International Workers' Day.
Which is slightly ironic since its origins are very American! It's almost like there's a class of folks who don't want us to know our own history...
Anywho! On 5/1/1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions proclaimed the 8 hour day as the standard full day.
2 years later 300k workers went on strike in the US to celebrate the 1st May Day celebration in history. In Chicago alone 40k people went on strike.
Over the course of the next few days violence broke out when police attacked protestors with clubs, protestors responded with a thrown rock, and police did what they do....and escalated the situation resulting in 2 deaths and scores of injuries.
When protestors gathered in Haymarket Square the next day the violence was ratcheted up. No one knows for sure who threw the bomb (both sides blamed the other) but police again opened fire and killed at least 7-8 civilians.
This is obviously a very sparse overview. Most never have learned any of this because almost immediately there were attempts to erase this bit of history.
(Oh and it wasn't until the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 that the 40 hr work week was made the legal standard in the US)
When I tried to select a few books for today... I picked more than a few!
I've always been passionate about labor unions. In my lifetime alone labor membership has been decimated, thanks Reagan 🙄, and the wealth gap exploded.
For reference during the French Revolution, a la let them eat cake, the top 10% held ~60% of the wealth. In the US that same demo holds ~67%
Clearly there is something deeply broken in our system.
For I picked Folk Punk to tie this all together!
Folk Punk is strongly anti-capitalism & anti-consumerism. They promote community support, self sufficiency, and grassroots organizing.
This years running theme is how fu***ng scared they are of us working together. So I hope today you'll pick up a book or 3 to learn more and connect with your community to stand together! ✊🏻
