This year the newly formed Stroud Trades Council is marking May Day with a Rally and March starting from Bank Gardens, Stroud on Saturday 4th March (the nearest Saturday day to the actual 1st of May).
For some people May Day is a celebration of the beginning of Summer and is marked with various traditions such as dancing around a Maypole but for trade unionists it means something completely different and is celebrated around the World, not least here in Britain.
For us the day is International Workers’ Day when we celebrate our solidarity, highlight the need for better terms and conditions, remember people injured or killed at work and support fellow workers facing difficulties and problems at work. We do this with speeches, rallying calls and marches (usually with our banners and music) and it’s all done in a way that is fun and joyful as well as dealing with serious issues.
The 1st of May was originally chosen at an international conference in Paris in 1889 to commemorate 1886 events in Chicago, USA and was named International Workers’ Day.
In 1886, beginning on 1st May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour working day. On 4th May, the police acted to disperse a public demonstration in support of the strike when an unidentified person threw a bomb. The police responded by firing on the workers. The event led to the deaths of four civilians and one hundred and fifteen civilians were. inured. Hundreds of union leaders and sympathizers were later rounded up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial that was seen as a miscarriage of justice. The following day on 5 May, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers killing seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding chickens in his yard.
These days, industrial disputes tend to be more peaceful but the right to strike and to protest on many issues is being more and more restricted. Our labour laws are the most stringent they have ever been and require much more of trade unions when balloting than political parties or other organisations.
The new Stroud Trades Council has campaigned on a number of issues already including the successful defence of railway station ticket offices, against abuse of shopworkers and other workers who face the public at work as well as supporting the campaign for Fair Pay for Teachers and against education cuts.
The Rally will assemble in Bank Gardens at 11am with stalls and then a few short speeches from 11.30am before a march with banners in the town centre led by the Stroud Red Band.