In India, Labour Day is on May 1st. This day is Labour Day in many countries throughout the world. The aim of Labour Day is to celebrate the contributions that workers make to our society and to our economy. The first Labour Day to be celebrated in India was celebrated in Chennai in 1923.
Another name for Labour Day is International Workers Day. Both names are used throughout the world, and you may hear May 1st being described by both names in India as well. The great thing about the name International Workers’ Day is the fact that it emphasises that May 1st is a day for bringing together workers not only nationally but also internationally into a coherent movement. On this day, workers realise that when they work together, they can achieve so much more than when they are divided.
In India, Labour Day is a public holiday. It will be marked in diaries and calendars each year, and there will usually me media articles, political speeches and so on to mark the day.
Labour Day is also a day when workers get educated about their rights, form processions in the streets, and take the opportunity to make demands about ways in which their rights and working lives could be improved upon in the future. In fact, Labour Day has its roots in the movement to limit the working day to 8 hours. Other topics that have been focused on throughout the world on Labour Day have included child labour, maternity pay, and the need for equal pay for all genders.
Labour Day is significant because the vast majority of people are workers. Whether you work in a cafe, as a manual labourer, as a scientist or as a teacher, you are doing work and thus International Workers Day or Labour Day is for you. This is a day for acknowledging and harnessing the power of workers, for uplifting and motivating them, and for bringing them together as a mutually supportive unit. Take the opportunity on the next Labour Day to learn more about your rights, perhaps to join a Trade Union if you do not already belong to one, to celebrate your fellow workers and perhaps to think more about the direction that your career is taking - and the direction that you want it to take. If you do not work yourself, you can always take advantage of the opportunity provided by Labour Day to learn about workers’ rights and to celebrate and do a good deed for any workers in your life - whether they are friends or family members.
So there you have it: Labour Day is an annual public holiday in India and it falls on the same day every year - May 1. In addition, when you celebrate Labour day in India, you are celebrating simultaneously with workers in countries all over the world (though in some countries, as in India as well, the day may go by an alternative name which is International Workers Day).
Laura