by Joan Cavanagh, Archivist/ Director, Greater New Haven Labor History Association

“Peter McGuire is often called the father of May Day. Congress had passed an 8-hour law in 1868, but President Chester A. Arthur refused to enforce it, and employers largely ignored it. McGuire concluded that there was only one way for workers to get an effective 8-hour law: [McGuire]: “…an enactment by the workingmen themselves that on a given day eight hours shall constitute a day’s work. And they ought to enforce it themselves.”
— Excerpt from “Voices of Working People’s History,”
by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

The Greater New Haven Labor History Association will present a dramatic reading of “Voices of Working People’s History,” a 30-minute script about the origins of International Workers’ Day developed by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 1st on the New Haven Green. The reading will help to kick off the annual celebration of May Day and begin Labor History Month.

The narrators are Tony Rosso and Frank Panzarella, with remaining speaking parts filled by other members of the Association. The “Greater New Haven Labor History Players” will reprise the reading at the Association’s annual membership meeting on Sunday, May 16th from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 267 Chapel Street.

Joe Dimow and Mary Altieri are this year’s recipients of the Augusta Lewis Pass It On Award, given at the annual meeting to individuals or organizations who have contributed to local labor history and/or its preservation. Irm Wessel will present the award to Dimow, a veteran community activist who was a union steward in the United Auto Workers Union in the late 1930s. Anthony Riccio will give the award to Altieri, who was fired from Siegman Tie Company in the early 1930s for refusing to cross a picket line.

Finally, throughout the months of May and June, the Labor History Association’s exhibit, “New Haven’s Garment Workers: An Elm City Story” returns to New Haven from a successful tour around the state. It will be shown at Wachovia Bank, located at the corner of Church and Elm Streets, during the bank’s regular hours of 8:30 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For more information, e-mail info@laborhistory.org, visit www.laborhistory.org, or call (203) 777-2756, Ext. 2.