Millions of workers across the world poured into the streets Wednesday for International Workers’ Day, an annual working-class rebellion known as May Day.
Bus drivers and housekeepers in Hong Kong rallied for a 44-hour workweek. Garment workers in Bangladesh demanded paid maternity leave. In the Philippines,workers marched for a higher minimum wage.
Some of the rallies were tame, but otherswere messy, dramatic, and even violent. Riot police in Turkey, Russia, France, and Italy clashed with crowds of agitated protesters and arrested hundreds of them.
Workers across the world have been spending May 1 this way for more than a century. Socialists in Europe picked the day to honor laborers killed in the Chicago Haymarket riot of 1886.
Workers in the city had gone on strike that year on May 1, demanding an eight-hour workday in the US and across the globe.
Clashes with police ended up killing eight people, and four labor leaders were later executed by hanging.
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