Today's May Day, the first 24 hours of that great three-letter month that marks, for me, the official escape from the New England winter. Being a senior and all, I expected this year's upcoming May Day would mean little more to me than yet another reminder that Commencement is quickly approaching and my time at Tufts is almost over. But I, in a flurry of procrastination, decided to do some background research: "From where does this May Day originate?" I asked myself.
Well, here goes.
On May 1, 1886, 80,000 workers in Chicago marched for limiting the normal working day to eight-hours. Over the next few days, workers from across the country joined in the movement, walking out on their jobs to demand more leisure time. At that time it was not unusual for a wage laborer to spend well over 10 hours a day on the job.
On May 3, the authorities, trying to break up an altercation between strikers and scabs, shot into a crowd and killed four people. The next day, a bomb exploded at a workers' rally in Chicago's Haymarket Square. Three prominent labor leaders were rounded up, blamed for the attack, and then quickly tried, convicted and hung. They would be honored by the movement as martyrs, and May Day (or International Workers' Day as it is also called) became an international tradition to commemorate the struggle of the working man (and later an opportunity for communist states to show off their military arsenals!?).
It wasn't until 1938 via the Federal Labor Standards Act, though, that the vast majority of workers in this country were legally guaranteed an eight-hour day.
So, with this historical background in mind, I got to thinking about my own imminent arrival in the working world (I'm an optimistic person by nature), an undoubtedly more humane place than it was 100 years ago. I have the courageous wage laborers that came before me to thank for that.
But as I consider life after Tufts - actually getting up in the a.m. on Fridays, not having time for Beirut marathons, or late-night BS sessions, or the pursuit of my various intellectual interests - I wonder, why does it have to be this way?
Why was the working class content with just eight hours of leisure a day (assuming a healthy eights hours of sleep)? Capitalism has been very good to us as a country - isn't it time we truly reap the benefits, slow down and enjoy the fruits of our labor? Wasn't it Aristotle who once wrote that "the first principle of all action is leisure"? And did not Cicero declare that "repose is an essential condition of happiness"? (Note: These are rhetorical questions.)
As Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law, wrote in his treatise "The Right to Be Lazy" (a philosopher after my own heart), "In capitalist society, work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy, of all organic deformity." And as Austin Kelley explained in the Nation earlier this year, Lafargue "asked...for the right to lie around on the daybed, the right to read and to nap, the right to feast and to make love. He declared the right to endless leisure."
That's why this May Day (today!) I intend on joining the people over at www.6hourday.org by working no more than six hours in protest. Sure, I have less than three hours of class today (with two exams, no less!), but you can be sure that I will be taking the rest of the day off (unless you count intramural basketball playoffs as work, which I don't) - and you should do the same. As the poorly-designed Web site (which has had 4,219 visitors since Sept. 3, 2003 and whose petition includes a whopping 350 signatures) explains, "It's been nearly 90 years since we've seen a reduction in the hours of the workday despite improvements in technology, machinery, and efficiency." Makes sense to me.
Imagine for a moment working just six hours a day, four days a week. How much more satisfying would life be if you could go to the office from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., take a two-hour lunch, be out of the office by 6 p.m. and have a three-day weekend every week? I find myself salivating at the prospect.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "That schedule is not economically viable, not now in this time of global competition. Don't some people work long hours by choice? What about those people who truly enjoy their jobs? And what about new immigrants in this country who deserve a chance to work for the American Dream? David, you can't be serious about this...either that or you're just scared about having to work for a living."
While it's true that I am not especially looking forward to having a full-time job, the work itself doesn't scare me - rather, it's the fear that a full-time job will consume my life and come to define who I am. And while I recognize the irony of my "Day of Inaction" falling on the same day as illegal immigrants' "Day of Action," I feel like we are on the same side of this battle - all workers everywhere in the world deserve more leisure time.
It's true, I admit, that a 24-hour week is not in the cards for most of us, regardless of how many people sign the online petition. But today, on the first day of May, while I'm lying on my couch eating an Uncle Ben's microwavable dinner, quoting "The Big Lebowski" and playing Xbox 360's FIFA 2006 against my housemate Keith (whose laziness is so extreme that he only gets dressed and leaves the house to go to Qdoba), I will be keeping the labor movement's spirit alive, and for that, future generations will have me to thank.
David Mitchell is a senior majoring in political science. His post-graduation plans include, among other things, finding a job.
