Haymarket Affair, also called Haymarket Riot or Haymarket Massacre, violent confrontation between police and labour protesters in Chicago on May 4, 1886, that became a symbol of the international struggle for workers’ rights. It has been associated with May Day (May 1) since that day’s designation as International Workers’ Day by the Second International in 1889. On May 3 one person was killed and several injured as police intervened to protect strikebreakers and intimidate strikers during a union action at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company that was part of a national campaign to secure an eight-hour workday. To protest police
“As far as I’m concerned, those people don’t exist.” Arizona Republican Governor Jack Williams, telling farm workers they’d be arrested if they were to strike and boycott during harvest seasons (May 1972). May Day harkens back to celebrations of spring, a renewal and fertility. In Rome, I witnessed one such event: the festival of