May Day: Festival for the Workers
May Day has long been a celebration of working class movements and struggle. Keith Flett looks at the radical history of international workers' day and how this can provide inspiration for today.
After a long period when the workers' day was either assumed to be nearly dead, or institutionalised and no longer a threat to authority, it is back. Recent years have seen growing protests on 1 May, and the anti-capitalist movement in many countries has made the day its own. The spirit of rebellion to be found in such protests is now being brought together to form a new and powerful movement.