Patiala- While celebrating May Day at 22nd Pathak, Nishkam Seva Club Regd. President N.S. Naulakha addressed the workers and said that the owners of companies of America, the most powerful country in the world, started making people work for 15 hours on their own. The workers protested and revolted against the company owners.
The company owners had forgotten that workers and hardworking people play an important role in the development of any country, society, institution and industry. It is because of the workers that countries around the world have developed today. On 1 May 1886, workers in India raised the demand for eight hours of work against the wishes of the company owners.
When they did not accept it, the workers union decided to go on strike and stopped work and went on strike in Chicago, America. The strike was just on its fourth day when a powerful bomb exploded there, causing a huge uproar in the peaceful May Day dharna and there was a stampede all around. But the workers did not back down from their demands and continued their peaceful May Day demonstration.
To disperse the workers, the government got the police there to fire tear gas shells on them, in which dozens of workers were killed and many others were injured. Ignoring the ongoing rebellion against the oppressive company owners, the government accepted the demand of the hardworking workers to work for eight hours. That is why May Day is celebrated to pay tribute to the martyrs of Chicago and a holiday was also declared on this day. Today May Day is being celebrated in 80 countries.
But in India, this day was celebrated every year by the union leader Comrade Singaravelu Chittar in front of the Madras High Court in Chennai in 1923 as Martyr's Day and a proposal was passed to celebrate it every year as Martyrdom Day and to make this day a government holiday. N.S. Navlakha and Gurcharan Singh Khalsa took the voice of the hardworking workers to the Punjab government. To reach the goal, I appeal today that instead of committing all kinds of atrocities on the hardworking labourers of Punjab, their legitimate demands should be accepted immediately.
This will benefit humanity and Punjab will move towards progress instead of rebellion. On May Day, I pay tribute to the martyrs of Chicago. Ashwani Sharma Duldi, Gurdev Singh, Ajaib Singh, Kewal Singh, Pyara Singh, Bhupinder Singh, Jagtar Singh, Jagdish Singh, Surjit Singh and Manoj Kumar etc.