Today the First of May, is International Labour Day

May Day is a global day on 1 May each year to celebrate our victories as a movement, commemorate our defeats and dream of a better world to come.  

The May Day protests grew out of the struggle for the eight-hour day. Stonemasons in Melbourne and Sydney had won the eight-hour day as a general industry standard in 1856, setting an international benchmark. In the decades to come workers campaigned to extend the right to other industries.

On 1 May 1886 in the United States somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 workers took strike action for the eight-hour day. For the next three years, police and legal harassment prevented the workers from repeating this size of demonstration. But in 1890 a global day of protest was held to commemorate the 1 May strikes in the United States. 

In 1891, the Shearer’s Strike occurred in Australia when employers sought to introduce union-busting contracts and a reduction in pay rates. On 1 May 1891 at Barcaldine, Queensland, a protest march was held as part of the strike, connecting it to the international struggle of labour. Over 1300 workers marched (with around 600 on horseback),with union banners and carrying the Eureka Flag. This is one of the first May Day marches in Australia.

The original May Day protest was supposed to be just one protest. But it quickly grew into something much more: a global celebration of workers and our movement.

VAHPA members are continuing the struggle for not just better workplace conditions but for a better world. We have our own struggles to win, with threats to the viability of the health system, under-resourcing, over work, unsafe work practices, precarious employment, among other issues. But it is as important now to organise as unionists as it was back in 1856, to set new standards of workplace conditions and fight for a better health system; not just to defend what we have.