Happy First of May: We need greater workers' rights

(Patria) - The Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP) wishes all readers, media partners and citizens of BiH  a happy First of May - International Workers' Day, which is marked in countries around the world with demonstrations, strikes and rallies so that the significance of this date is not forgotten. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, this is not the case, but workers and unions are calling for greater respect for workers' rights.

On the first of May 1886, in the United States of America, specifically in Chicago, bloody protests broke out. Workers employed in the textile industry demanded that their working hours be eight hours a day. The protests escalated into a conflict between workers and police, and many of them were killed.  Two years before these protests, in 1884, the Federation of Trade Organizations and the Workers' Union adopted a resolution on the eight-hour workday. The resolution was supposed to come into effect on the first of May 1886. 

However, the workers' demands were not accepted. The protest in Chicago was organized by the International Workingmen's Association. On the first of May 1886, about 40,000 textile, shoemaking and workers from other branches of the economy gathered in Chicago.  Around 5,000 strikes by dissatisfied workers were held across the USA with the slogan - three eights - eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and eight hours of cultural uplift. The first two days of protests were without incidents, but on May 3, four workers were killed and a large number were wounded. The following day, protests against police brutality were held in Haymarket. At the very end, a bomb was thrown, killing one police officer. The police opened fire and again killed one worker and wounded many.

The police treated the workers brutally, homes were searched, and the Court sentenced eight of the protesters to death, despite a lack of evidence. Three were acquitted only in 1893.

Four years after the turbulent events in Chicago, across Europe, this date became an official state holiday. The first May Day celebration in Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in Vareš in 1894.