Is what we are celebrating today ‘Workers’ Day’, ‘Labour Day’ or ‘May Day’? They refer to the same day of celebration most commonly known as Workers’ Day – a nomenclature retained in Maltese as Jum Il-Ħaddiem. In the US and Canada it is referred to as Labour Day, celebrated the first Monday of September, while most countries celebrate it on May 1.

Few people are aware that Labour Day was started by the labour movement in the US, because it has for long been associated with communism. It started in US as a struggle started by the workers who were demanding higher wages and shorter hours of work.

At its 1884 Chicago national convention, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labour), declared that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1, 1886”. May Days became the focal points for the international revolutionary proletariat. In the chapter on ‘The Working Day’, a passage remained famous because it contains Karl Marx’s telling reference to the solidarity of class interests between black and white workers:

“In the US, any sort of independent labour movement was paralysed so long as slavery disfigured a part of the republic. Labour with a white skin cannot emancipate itself where labour with a black skin is branded. But out of the death of slavery a new vigorous life sprang. The first fruit of the Civil War was an agitation for the eight-hour day – a movement which ran with express speed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from New England to California.”

In an article written for May Day, 1913, Rosa Luxemburg, herself a revolutionary, emphasised the revolutionary character of the day: “The brilliant chief idea of the May Day celebration is the independent action of the proletarian masses, is the political mass action of the millions of workers.... The excellent purpose of the Frenchman Lavigne at the international congress in Paris combined with the direct international mass manifestation, the laying down of tools, is a demonstration and fighting tactic for the eight-hour day, world peace and socialism.”

The Church was always, to say the least, suspicious of revolutions. St Thomas Aquinas taught that the good of the multitudes consists in order, and peace which is the “tranquillity of order”.


38%

of Maltese people would feel uncomfortable or not accept working with a Muslim or black person.


In 1955, when the Italian Communist Party and its protests was very strong, Pius XII instituted the feast of St Joseph the Worker. But the relationship between Joseph and the cause of workers has a much longer history. In a continual effort to keep Jesus attached to the daily vicissitudes of human life, the Church has from the beginning proudly emphasised that he was a carpenter, obviously trained by Joseph in both the satisfactions and the drudgery of that vocation.

The Church has always insisted in the dignity of work insofar as it was a human activity. Humanity is God-like not only in thinking and loving, but also in creating. The worker, whatever his social status, is called to bear fruit with his hands and mind to build a better world.

A member of SOS Malta has been reported saying that “research we’ve carried out shows that the workplace is one of the few places migrants felt accepted and able to build relations”. Hypothesis proven positive! Because the workplace should not be looked at only as the place of production or service but more a place of human interaction, collaboration and solidarity.

This shows the trinitarian nature of work: worker – product/service – client. It is exploitation that destroys this pattern and the dignity of the worker. It is the elimination of exploitation that we should be actively engaged in.

Last October, Eurostat found that 38 per cent of Maltese people would be uncomfortable working with a Muslim person, and 38 per cent would not accept a black colleague. These are un-Christian attitudes. These attitudes, together with the issues of precarious work, should be very high on Maltese Church’s agenda during the remaining months of this Year of Mercy.

joe.inguanez@gmail.com

Fr Joe Inguanez, a sociologist, is executive director of Discern.

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