Accra, Ghana, May 1, 2019//-Workers throughout the world observed today, May 1, as statutory holiday characterised by parades and speeches of encouragement from political leaders.
Addressing workers to mark the day in Accra, Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo made it clear that “Our nation Ghana at 62 remains very much a work in progress.
A lot of things remain to be done to improve upon the quality of our lives in all three stages – the period of preparation to work, the period during which we work and the period during which we take a deserved rest from work,”
He explained that, “I know I state the obvious but I do want to make the point that I do not need to be persuaded about the importance of work the circumstances in which we work. I also want to reiterate that the fact that we are all in it together whether it is in management or government or on the shop floor the project of our existence succeeds if we work together and pull together.
The President who used the occasion to outdoors the “Ghana Beyond Aid” charter said, “Ghana Beyond Aid is setting our nation on an irreversible pathway of development.
With the blessing of the Almighty and our collective effort, we will march boldly from poverty to prosperity so that we can create the Ghana our forefathers envisaged”.
The Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in a separate message to Ghanaian workers said, “As we celebrate the day let us also use the occasion to reflect on what we can do in our individual and collective capacities to accelerate Ghana’s development in our respective fields of endeavour to increase productivity, improve the lives of Ghanaians, customer service and make the country globally competitive”.
Historically in the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions.
As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it was not until the late 1880’s that organised labour was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.
.At its national convention in Chicago, held in 1884, the Federation of Organised Trades and Labour Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labour), proclaimed that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labour from and after May 1, 1886.”
On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history while in Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike.
Today, May Day is celebrated by thousands of activists embracing the ideals of the Haymarket Martyrs – those executed in the USA during the early struggles – and those who established May Day as an International Workers’ Day.
When Ghana became independent in 1957, Ghanaian workers observed their first May Day in 1965, three years after a full-fledged Republican status at which Dr Kwame Nkrumah, an intimate friend of labour, was declared the “First Number One Worker” and was decorated with a May Day Award by the Trades Union Congress under the leadership of Mr J.K. Tettegah, Secretary-General.
The May Day celebration was suspended in the wake of the first military coup on 24 February 1966, which toppled Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention People’s party (CPP) Government.
The celebration was resumed after the January 13, 1972 military coup led by General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong. The event was marked with a Grand National parade held at the forecourt of the Accra Community Centre.
It was attended by hundreds of workers from the Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area which saw the formal institutionalisation of May Day awards to selected dedicated workers of the TUC led by Secretary-General Alhaji A.M. Issiful.
Ghanaian workers celebrated the day under the theme, “Sustainable Pension for all: The Role of Social Partners.” According to Susie Afua Adoboe, Vice Chairman of the National May Day Planning Committee, the theme was carefully chosen because “pension affects every worker from the day you go to work”.
By Oppong Baah, African Eye Report
