Worker’s Day – 1 May 2015
On 1 May 2015, we, South Africans will celebrate Worker’s Day. This day, in effect, celebrates the role played by trade unions and labour movements, amongst others, in the struggle against apartheid.
Internationally, Workers/May Day pertains to the various socialist and labour movement celebrations conducted on 1 May. Workers/May Day arose out of the industrial struggle for an 8 hour working day.
Agriculture precipitated the creation of a working class. Approximately, 10 000 years ago, serfs, slaves, trades people and others, were forced to turn over the fruits of their labour to an exploiting class. Several hundred years ago, there emerged the modern working class, whose exploitation was camouflaged by the wage system. Men, women and children were forced to work long hours, in miserable conditions, just to earn a living. Those poor conditions gave rise to demands for limitations on the working day. In England women and children were only granted a 10 hour day in 1847. French worker’s demand for a 12 hour day was granted in 1848. In the United States, in 1836, the people succeeded in attaining a 10 hour day.
In 1889 over 400 delegates met in Paris on the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The international congress passed a resolution calling for an international demonstration to campaign for an 8 hour day. The demonstration was held on 1 May 1890 and was a resounding success. Although the 1889 resolution called for a once-off demonstration on 1 May, the day quickly became an annual event. Throughout the world, workers marked the celebration of labourers’ rights on May Day. Today, this day is celebrated in approximately 80 countries around the world.
Workers Day has been celebrated unofficially in South Africa since the 1980s. However, 1 May only became an officially recognised public holiday after the democratic elections of 1994. It is hardly surprising that our democratic government chose to commemorate this day and its ideology, after the fall of the oppressive regime.
South Africa’s mining industry’s history and the development of strong trade unions and communist ideologies, has largely determined our country’s labour history and the workers’ struggle. The history of labourers, in particularly black workers, to organise, is at the heart of the struggle against racism, and national liberation.
The roots of trade unionism and socialism are grounded in the huge white working immigrant population that arrived in South Africa, from Europe, in search of fortunes, and work, in the wake of the discovery of diamonds, and later gold. People were forced through intimidation, taxes, colonial and capitalist expansion, to become wage labourers in white owned mines, industries and agriculture.
Workers Day is also the story of the descendants of slaves, indentured labourers from Asia, and the poor and persecuted minorities of Europe, arriving in South Africa, and joining black working people in the fight for the right to a decent wage, equality, fraternity and freedom.
To this day, labour struggles continue, with the organised working class and the poor striving to overcome the massive inequalities, unemployment and the economic, political and social legacies of apartheid.
This public holiday serves to remind us of the power of the working class.
Labour in the PHSDSBC is represented by the following trade unions, viz. NEHAWU, DENOSA, PSA, HOSPERSA and NUPSAW. The State as the employer, is represented by the Department of Health and the Department of Social Development, both at a national and provincial level.
The Secretariat takes this opportunity to wish the PHSDSBC’s trade unions and their respective members, and all labour unions, labour movements and labourers across the country, including their respective employers, a HAPPY WORKERS DAY.