The Case to Make May Day a Holiday
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By Mikhail Saavedra
There is a holiday celebrated worldwide on May 1th with two very notorious exceptions, Canada and the US are the only countries in the world that do not celebrate “International Workers Day” a holiday more widely spread around the world than Christmas!
International Workers Day commemorates the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886, when Chicago police fired on workers during a general strike demanding an eight-hour day, killing scores of them.
Around most of the world May Day is a national holiday. However, in the United States and Canada workers are not allowed the day off to celebrate and make their labor demands. It is high time that our countries join in the celebration of most of us; that’s right most of us are workers, yes even you reading this. All of us who contribute to creating wealth in this society with the fruit of our labor, be it on the floor of a factory or answering calls at a tech support centre or writing articles to help educate people, your teachers, the firemen who come running in the middle of the night, in short almost everyone is a worker.
Let this be a reminder that the reason you are by law entitled to 8 hours a day and not 16, or that the reason there is not a 6 years old working next to you is precisely because workers a long time ago decided to take matters into their own hands, that the only real reason there are even labor laws is because workers decided to organize and fight for their rights and not because some enlightened bunch of CEO’s decided to get generous overnight. Workers have lost many rights and the ever increasing levels of unemployment among workers/youth/women keep on adding incredible pressure on families and children. This while CEOs and the financial industry continue to receive bailouts for a job terribly done.
For that and many more reasons lets raise a cup this May 1st to all of us, and let’s look at our neighbors not as mere competitors, but recalling the spirit that moved those Chicago workers, let’s look at each other as potential allies in a fight for a more humane world.
For more information on International Worker’s Day go here.
or attend this event right here in Toronto:
“Come celebrate as communities and activists come together across borders to celebrate our resistance as workers striving for a world of of true peace, justice, equality and respect for all.”
MAY DAY FESTIVAL
Friday, May 1, 2009
6:00pm - 10:00pm
United Steelworkers Hall
25 Cecil St
Toronto, ON
Entrance FREE!
Food from all over the world!
Author: 
Publisher-Creator Mikhail Saavedra began life down by the deepest tip of southern Latin America. He started life with a deep curiosity for all things, with music and books being at the forefront, a curious child by all accounts. As he grew and opened his eyes to the world, he developed a sense of justice and dignity in part as a reaction to growing up in a military dictatorship. Alas, this did not fill him with fear or cynicism but a more rebellious spirit, which led him to being incredibly popular at the principal’s office and the local riot police department….
Then came Canada and it was here that he was able to formulate his deep desire to learn about the world, with Toronto being the kind of multicultural soup that could engage his need to know and embrace. It started with writing, then moved on to what became Toronto’s first Latin Alternative radio show, followed by an all-English show in the same vein. It was this desire to find the true “crossover” among people, which led him to the concept of “Alternavox”
He is a lover of wine, good food, Neruda, Eduardo Galeano, rebel music, revolutionaries, dancing, family and beautiful people. Believes that kindness in this much too cynical world is revolutionary, that you are a better person when able to give a little without asking for the change and that on the same token you should laugh at yourself and the madness surrounding you as often as possible as you set out to change the world bit by bit. 