As we face ever-increasing pressure to (again) work well beyond the 8 hour day (or even the 40 hour week for those who choose other shifts), it's important to remember that what is considered "full time" work has often been determined through strife and even bloodshed. Time was, after the Civil War when industrialization started to take off in the US, that people labored in the new factories six days a week, 10 hours a day. Calls for what today we'd term "better work/life balance" became louder amongst those working in dirty, dangerous factories and living in squalid conditions. The desire for "Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Sleep, Eight Hours for What You Will" became a rallying point. In October of 1886, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions met and decided that, beginning May 1, 1886, the eight-hour work day would become standard (no mention at the time of the five day work week, though). On that day, a Saturday, strikes and rallies happened throughout the United States. No number is recorded of how many marched in Madison, but Milwaukee turned out over 10,000 marchers and Chicago had strikers in the 30,000-40,000 range, and perhaps double that marching.

Do you remember the months following Act 10 and the marches on the Square in Madison? Then, as in 1886, the marches went on peacefully for several days. However, at the same time, strikers at the McCormick plant in Chicago had been battling their employer for a year for better working conditions. McCormick hired Pinkertons to beat the strikers. On May 3rd, the police opened fire on the picketers around the plant, killing at least three, perhaps as many as six. This kind of violence from employers and the state toward workers striking for their rights was unfortunately common throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries (the legislators and owners called hiring forces like the Pinkertons "labor discipline," as if people who worked the factories or the railroads or the mines were children getting unruly). In response to the murders of the striking workers, labor organizers called for a mass strike on May 4th. Somewhere around 3000 people marched on behalf of the striking workers, the 8 hour work day, and against police brutality. Think again of the people marching around the Capitol square. And now imagine that the police took out their batons and moved in to break up the "thugs" marching to demand that strikers not be shot, that 8 hours be a full day's work.

Into all that, someone threw a bomb. After that, the police opened fire.

There was no evidence who threw the bomb, but the state rounded up the "usual suspects" (then it was the anarchists, later it would be the communists and socialists, later yet would be other groups) and tried them for murder. The lack of evidence didn't seem to matter. The anarchists were found guilty and most were executed. Some escaped the noose when a new administration took another look.

But the violence on that day ended any hope for an agreement on the 8 hour work day, as the state, backed by the biggest employers, used the threat of "union thugs" as a means to quash any further labor unrest. As labor historian Erik Loomis put it, "though workers still dreamed of the 8-hour day, it would take another half-century and countless dead workers to see it become a reality."

May 1st has long been a time for holidays in the northern hemisphere. You can choose to celebrate Law Day, or Loyalty Day, or Beltane, or find a Queen of May. You can tie them together and celebrate from Earth Day to May Day! Or, you can celebrate the 8 hour work day and honor those who died bringing it about.