Tracing the global impact of labour movements

from Haymarket to today

In 1886, seven police officers and at least four civilians lost their lives in the infamous “Haymarket Affair” that saw American workers downing tools for their first ever work stoppage and participating in a strike demanding an eight-hour workday. One hundred years later, more than 1.5 million South African workers and thousands of students, taxi drivers, vendors, shopkeepers, domestic workers and self-employed people answered the call made by the Congress of South African Trade Unions to stay away from work. Cognisant of these events, we once again start the month of May by celebrating Workers’ Day.

While the day has traditionally been a reason for workers to come together and demand better working conditions, fair wages and other labour rights, the focus has increasingly started to lean to a demand for a more just and equitable society for all. It is also a day that is unequivocally linked to the labour union movement and the often derided “socialist”-leaning policies and viewpoints its members espouse. What many people forget, though, is that it is the same movement that was responsible for many of the things we take for granted these days, including the two-day weekend, better wages, improved working conditions, maternity leave, the abolition of child labour, paid holidays and pensions.

One of the main reasons I have chosen to focus on only one of the three public holidays we celebrate this month and write about unions is that I have been watching the recent growth in pro-union sentiment in the United States with keen interest.

Workers in what many would consider the epitome of capitalism – where people spend decades paying off their student loan debt, where the federally mandated minimum wage has not been increased since 2019 and where 66.5% of all bankruptcies, or 530 000 a year, are the result of a medical emergency – are increasingly saying: “Enough is enough!”

Workers in what many would consider the epitome of capitalism are increasingly saying: “Enough is enough!”

A report commissioned by the Economic Policy Institute shows that in 2023, more than 60 million workers wanted to join a union but could not do so, and that Americans’ desire for unions to have more influence in the country has increased from a record-low 25% in 2009 to 43% in 2024.

With reports of underpaid teachers having to spend their own money to buy school supplies for their classrooms, people needing to work multiple jobs just to make it to the end of the month, and employees working for companies owned by some of the richest people in the world facing unreasonably high injury rates, or having to avoid going to the bathroom in order to meet their targets, unreasonably long working hours as well as harassment and alleged racial discrimination, it is not hard to understand why.

To rub salt in the wounds, Oxfam reports that the richest 1% of the global population now owns 43% of all global financial assets and only 0.4% of the world’s largest and most influential companies are committed to paying staff a living wage. Record-speed increases in the prices of necessities are being blamed on global inflationary pressures, yet many companies are reporting record profits. According to surveys, the majority of young people say they believe that they face challenges and hardships their predecessors did not have, and that it appears impossible for them to ever attain the financial security of their parents’ generation. Considering this, it makes sense for them to look for anyone or anything that might help them make their lives even just a little bit better.

An interesting aside: while we celebrate Workers’ Day on 1 May in remembrance of the events of Haymarket being integral in the establishment of the tradition, America doesn’t, instead marking “Labor Day” on the first Monday of September. More surprisingly, though, seeing as it was the eight-hour workday movement mass stoppage by Australian stonemasons on 21 April 1856 that inspired the American strike, Australia doesn’t either!

Until next month, enjoy your journey.

David Bishop