In almost every country in the world, workers celebrate May 1st as May Day, or International Workers’ Day. It is a national holiday in more than 80 countries. May Day was created to commemorate one of the many bloody events in the labor history of the Untied States: The 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago. The tragedy refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. A peaceful rally in support of workers who were striking for an eight-hour day was held in the square. An anonymous provocateur threw a dynamite bomb at police after they began to forcibly disperse the supporters who had gathered at the public meeting. The bomb blast and subsequent gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers, four civilians, and the wounding of scores of others. Many, if not all of the deaths, including those of the police, were believed to have been caused by poorly trained police.
In the public prosecutions that followed, eight anarchists were arrested and subsequently convicted of conspiracy, notwithstanding the candid admission by the prosecution who conceded that none of the accused defendants had thrown the bomb. Seven of these anarchists were sentenced to death, and one was given a term of 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted by Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby to terms of life in prison, and one other defendant committed suicide in jail before he could be hanged. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893, Illinois’ new governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and publicly criticized the trial. In the United States, by contrast, the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor, suggested that the celebration of Labor Day for American workers be observed in September as a patriotic alternative to May Day. President Grover Cleveland, ever a supplicant of the business community and fearful that a May 1st commemoration of Labor Day could become an occasion to remind workers of the injustices they suffered, agreed in 1887 to support a Labor Day holiday in September as the Knights had proposed.
Despite President Cleveland’s proclamation, American workers continued to observe and to celebrate May1st well into the twentieth century. Parades in New York City, Chicago and in other metropolitan areas, drew millions of union members and supporters of workers’ rights. Eighty-one years ago, on May 1, 1933, Dorothy Day, appeared at a rally in Union Square to distribute the first edition of her newspaper and to announce the formation of her organization, the Catholic Worker movement, that to the present is based upon the humble poverty and a radical commitment to social justice inspired by the Gospels and the example of St.Francis of Assisi. Gradually, however, as the assault upon unions and workers’ rights began to gather momentum under the guise of combating Bolshevism and socialism, the meaning and the purpose of May Day, have been, by and large, successfully erased from the collective consciousness of Americans as revisionist scholars have continued to rewrite American history to depict it as the heroic efforts of the self -made “haves and soon-to-haves” to triumph over the forces of collectivism. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, May 1st was promoted as “Americanization Day” by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other groups as a counter to communists. In 1949, Americanization Day was renamed to Loyalty Day. In 1958, the U.S. Congress declared Loyalty Day, the U.S. recognition of May 1st, to be a national holiday.
Not to be outdone in his patriotic zeal, President Dwight Eisenhower established the first Law Day in 1958. Thereafter, in 1961, Congress issued a joint resolution that designated May 1st as Law Day, which was subsequently codified (U.S. Code, Title 36, Section 113). “Since then every president has issued a Law Day proclamation on May 1 to celebrate the nation’s commitment to the rule of law”, as the American Bar Association proudly proclaims on its website. In our nation what is the situation and what is the Christians position/perspective? In response to this Apostle Prince David Zilly Aggrey, the Rivers State Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) declaring the Month of May month of “Abundance Grace” at a special 2012 May Covenant and communion service in his Church charged employers and employees from the book of Luke 16:10-13, which reads: “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Explaining the charge on “streams of productivity”, he charged workers to (1) Be faithful in little, (2) Be faithful in Money, (3) Be faithful in another man’s work under you. To the employers he charge that they treat workers fair and pay or give them what is due them citing Isa. 58:6-12 – This is the kind of way employer should treat employees: God said, “I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims; quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places – firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build a new, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”
The effect of this continuing economic trend has been to show, once again, that the market economy, and the ideology upon which it is based, produces results quite different from its theory: In an world of unrestrained competition, only the few, the wealthier, the more powerful, the more resourceful, the better educated, the more mobile, will be able to maximize their opportunities; everyone else gets left behind. With the demise of the labor movement, the Nigerian workplace continues to be governed by the nineteenth century doctrine of employment-at-will, which further circumscribes the ability of most Nigerians to protect their livelihoods or to improve their conditions of work. The legal fiction of at-will employment essentially posits an equality of bargaining power between individual employers and employees: Each is free to accept or reject employment, resign or be fired without cause or restriction.
Since employers in “union-free” environments are legally permitted to unilaterally impose, almost without restriction, whatever conditions of work they require as to hours, compensation, and often restrictions on re-employment after discharge in the form of non-competition agreements, the relationship is again one of inequality in which the employees are burdened and the employers benefitted. In response to this conundrum, the operative political philosophy of this country, which is based upon John Locke’s model of politics, can provide no guidance or remedy whatsoever, since his politics envision nothing beyond solitary actors whose property must be protected as well as their rights of acquisition. The labor laws of Nigeria today are among the most restrictive and onerous in the developing world. Labor laws that are rigged in favor of the employers and the legal fiction of at-will employment need to be at the top of any agenda to reform the Nigerian economy and restore a vibrant middle class. Since corporations and employers are not required to show any loyalty to their employees, employees need to demand that our labor laws and our tax policies protect the rights of workers and the middle class, and place obstacles in the way of corporations, particularly multi-national corporations, from doing further damage to the Nigerian economy. The philosopher George Santayana reminds that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Reclaiming the Nigerian Dream must begin with reclaiming our collective history. Remembering the meaning of May 1st and expressing our solidarity with one another and with workers everywhere is an essential first step in that process.
Dr. Lewis Akpogena
08055059656
E-mail: akpogena@yahoo.com
