Parallel to the industrial revolution, the vulnerable situation of workers and their unsustainable living conditions became an increasingly pressing problem. However, substantive change and regulation did not take place for a long time, when in 1817 the British manufacturer, Robert Owen he proposed reducing the 10-14 hour working day to eight hours, his idea was still nothing more than a utopia
Bloody clashes
As a result of a series of strikes and demonstrations, the working hours of women and children in Great Britain were maximized at 10 hours by the middle of the century, but this upper limit did not become common until the 1870s, according to the Múlt-kor.hu in his article. In Australia, masons and construction workers fought for the eight-hour working day in 1856, and the 1st International of 1866 put it this way: the introduction of the eight-hour working day is the first step on the way to the liberation of the working class.
The XIX In the second half of the 20th century, labor movements also strengthened in the United States. On May 1, 1886, a strike began in Chicago in order to introduce an eight-hour working day. Two days later, on May 3, the workers clashed with the police, resulting in four deaths. The next day, anarchists mixed in with the participants of the protest rally threw a bomb at the police, the response was again volleys of fire,
by the end of the day, more than a dozen dead were counted.
Solidarity and Saint Joseph the Worker
Following the huge international outrage, commemorative demonstrations were organized on the first of May in the following years, and in 1889, World War II. Its international congress decided that on May 1, 1890, trade unions and other workers’ organizations would march together in order to introduce the eight-hour working day. The first May 1st mass demonstration was held in Hungary in 1890, while the II. At the Second Congress of the International in 1891, the first of May was officially declared the “Fighter’s Day of the International Solidarity of the Working Class”.
In the last century, it became the biggest international workers’ holiday, especially in the Eastern Bloc. After the fall of the communist regimes, from the nineties of the last century, after the fall of the communist regimes, the first of May became the solidarity day of the workers. This day is also a Catholic holiday, in honor of Saint Joseph the Worker, the patron saint of workers – XII. Pius it was ordered by the Pope on May 1, 1955 in memory of the foster father of Jesus
