On the 1st of May every year , people across the globe take to the streets to commemorate International Workers’ Day, or May Day.
In dozens of countries, May Day is an official holiday, and for labour rights campaigners and workers, it is particularly important as the day is used to draw attention to problems facing workers all over the world.
May 1st was chosen as the Labour Day in commemoration of the Haymarket affair, which took place in Chicago, United States, in 1886. Workers in Canada and the US are forced to work 16 hours a day in a unsafe condition which led to agitation for 8 hours a day work time.
In October 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada decided that May 1, 1886, would mark the first day that an eight-hour workday would go into effect.
When that day arrived, between 300,000 and a half-million American workers went on strike in cities and towns across the country, according to various historians’ estimates. Chicago, which was the nucleus of the struggle, saw an estimated 40,000 people protest and strike.
On the 4 May 1886 at the Haymarket Square in Chicago, the police were trying to disperse a public assembly during a general strike for the eight-hour workday, when an unidentified person threw a bomb at the police. The police responded by firing on the workers, killing four demonstrators. 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.
In 1889, a meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne that called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s second congress in 1891. Subsequently, the May Day riots of 1894 occurred. The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 called on “all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.
The congress made it “mandatory upon the proletarian organizations of all countries to stop work on 1 May, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers. And so the commemoration of May Day began. In 1955, the Catholic Church dedicated 1 May to “Saint Joseph the Worker”. Saint Joseph is the patron saint of workers and craftsmen, among others.
Nigeria is not an exception as we join the rest of the world to celebrate the day. But, this is not a good time for workers and pensioners in the country. In some states, workers are being owed 15 months salary. Virtually, all the states of the federation is owing workers one thing or another.
If the plight of workers are this miserable, think of pensioners, From the federal government to the states, it was a tale of neglect and sheer abandonment of pensioners. Many have died untimely death because the government at all tiers failed to pay their pension emoluments.
The minimum wage in Nigeria is N18,000 which is about $40. This money cannot even buy a bag of rice. The call for the governent to increase the minimum to N56,000 by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) has not been heeded by the government.
While the workers are living in penury, elected officials are wallowing in luxury, wealth and waste. In a country where the take-home pay of a worker cannot even get him or her home, we have senator earning N30m per month. In a country where the workers cannot get good and affordable healthcare, functional transport system, regular power supply and needed social amenities, we have senators buying a bulletproof car N286m.
In a country where child delivery count an arm and a leg, where treatment of malaria put your account in red, we have government officials-elected and unelected-junketing to Europe and America to treat common cold at our expense. With the recession and the falling value of the naira, what is the exact worth of N18,000? Can a family of two survive on this amount?
We have a president who promised to make institutions world standard and optimal functionally. A president who vowed to put an end to medical tourism, an apostle of hope and change. He reneged on his promises when ill health came knocking on his door. He sojourn to the UK for months for medical treatment. While he was away, do you know the number of workers who have died from far lesser illnesses?
Corruption will forever continue to strive in Nigeria for as long as the working class suffer from poor remuneration and lack of basic healthcare and other things. For as long as the wide disparity persists between the wages of elected officials and workers.
There is no dignity in labour in Nigeria. By working, one is seeking economic emancipation but what you get is a lifetime of pain and suffering. It is not too late to reverse this trend, we can put our resources to good use starting with the welfare of the labour force.
This is not a day for speeches or cacophony of promises and lies, rather it should be a day for the commencement of setting things right with the workers.
