Australian labour movement
The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial and political wings. Trade unions in Australia may be organised on the basis of craft unionism, general unionism, or industrial unionism. All unions in Australia are affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, many of which have undergone a significant process of amalgamations in the late 1980s and early 1990s; the leadership and membership of unions hold and have at other times held a wide range of political views, including communist and right-wing views. According to ABS figures, in August 2013, there were 1.7 million members of trade unions in relation to their main job. A further 4% did not know whether they were trade union members or not, while 1% were trade union members not in conjunction with their main job. Of those who were a trade union member in relation to their main job, over two thirds had been members for five years or more. Trade union membership has declined over recent years, with 2013 being the lowest proportion in the history of the ABS series.
According to ACTU figures, the number of members of trade unions in 1983 was 2,376,900 but by 2002 it was 1,833,700, declining. The Australian Labor Party at both a federal and state/colony level pre-dates, among others, both the British Labour Party and the New Zealand Labour Party in party formation and policy implementation. In particular, the 1910 federal election represented a number of firsts: it was Australia's first elected federal majority government; the colony of New South Wales came into existence in 1788 as a penal colony. Some dispute that Australia had slavery, but the convicts transported to the colony were required to work, without pay, either for the administration or could be required to work for private landholders. Others the "Kanaka" from the South Pacific islands, were either kidnapped or otherwise induced into exploitative long-term indentured service contracts. Following British laws, trade unions in Australia were suppressed under the Combination Laws of 1799 and 1800.
A trade union or other association could be regarded as illegal because of being a "restraint of trade". The British Master and Servant Act 1823, subsequent updates, were regarded as biased towards employers, designed to discipline employees and repress the "combination" of workers in trade unions; the law required the obedience and loyalty from servants to their contracted employer, with infringements of the contract, or disobedience, subject to criminal penalties with a jail sentence of hard labour. On the other hand, the position was liberalised and through the British Trade Union Act 1871 and the Conspiracy, Protection of Property Act 1875 trade unions were legitimised. Craft unions in Australia began in the early 19th century as craft associations of skilled urban workers who sought to organise, to increase their low wages and decrease their high number of hours. By 1902, the Master and Servant Act 1823 had been modified to include forfeit of wages if the written or unwritten contract for work was unfulfilled.
Absence from place of work was punishable by imprisonment of up to three months with or without hard labour. There were penalties of up to ₤10 for anyone who harboured, concealed or re-employed a'servant' who had deserted or absconded or absented himself from his duty implied in the'contract'; the Act was used against workers organising for better conditions from its inception until well after the first United Kingdom Trade Union Act 1871 was implemented, which secured the legal status of trade unions. Under the Master and Servant Acts enacted in the Australian colonies in the 1840s, employees who left their employment without permission were subject to being hunted down under the Bushrangers Act; as little as one hour’s absence by a free servant without permission could precipitate a punishment of prison or the treadmill. In the Melbourne jurisdiction, between 1835 and 1845, when labour shortages were acute, over 20% of prison inmates were convicted under the New South Wales Master and Servant Act for offences including leaving place of work without permission and being found in hotels.
In the 1800s, most Victorians worked up to six days a week. There was no sick leave, no holiday leave, employers could sack employees at any time, without giving a reason. On 18 August 1855 the Stonemasons Society in Sydney issued an ultimatum to employers that in six months time, masons would only work an eight-hour day; however men working on the Holy Trinity Church in Argyle Cut, on the Mariners Church, in Lower George Street, could not contain their enthusiasm and decided not to wait. They pre-emptively went on strike, won the eight-hour day, celebrated with a victory dinner on 1 October 1855. On 21 April 1856 Stonemasons led by Cooper Bridges, building workers on building sites around Melbourne stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight-hour day, their direct action protest was a success, they are noted as being among the first organised workers in the world t
South Australia
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres, it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, fifth largest by population, it has a total of 1.7 million people, its population is the second most centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital, Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are small. South Australia shares borders with all of the other mainland states, with the Northern Territory; the state comprises less than 8 percent of the Australian population and ranks fifth in population among the six states and two territories. The majority of its people reside in greater Metropolitan Adelaide. Most of the remainder are settled in fertile areas along River Murray; the state's colonial origins are unique in Australia as a settled, planned British province, rather than as a convict settlement.
Colonial government commenced on 28 December 1836, when the members of the council were sworn in near the Old Gum Tree. As with the rest of the continent, the region had been long occupied by Aboriginal peoples, who were organised into numerous tribes and languages; the South Australian Company established a temporary settlement at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, on 26 July 1836, five months before Adelaide was founded. The guiding principle behind settlement was that of systematic colonisation, a theory espoused by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, employed by the New Zealand Company; the goal was to establish the province as a centre of civilisation for free immigrants, promising civil liberties and religious tolerance. Although its history is marked by economic hardship, South Australia has remained politically innovative and culturally vibrant. Today, it is known for numerous cultural festivals; the state's economy is dominated by the agricultural and mining industries. Evidence of human activity in South Australia dates back as far as 20,000 years, with flint mining activity and rock art in the Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain.
In addition wooden spears and tools were made in an area now covered in peat bog in the South East. Kangaroo Island was inhabited; the first recorded European sighting of the South Australian coast was in 1627 when the Dutch ship the Gulden Zeepaert, captained by François Thijssen and mapped a section of the coastline as far east as the Nuyts Archipelago. Thijssen named the whole of the country eastward of the Leeuwin "Nuyts Land", after a distinguished passenger on board; the coastline of South Australia was first mapped by Matthew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin in 1802, excepting the inlet named the Port Adelaide River, first discovered in 1831 by Captain Collet Barker and accurately charted in 1836–37 by Colonel William Light, leader of the South Australian Colonization Commissioners"First Expedition' and first Surveyor-General of South Australia. The land which now forms the state of South Australia was claimed for Britain in 1788 as part of the colony of New South Wales. Although the new colony included two-thirds of the continent, early settlements were all on the eastern coast and only a few intrepid explorers ventured this far west.
It took more than forty years before any serious proposal to establish settlements in the south-western portion of New South Wales were put forward. On 15 August 1834, the British Parliament passed the South Australia Act 1834, which empowered His Majesty to erect and establish a province or provinces in southern Australia; the act stated that the land between 132° and 141° east longitude and from 26° south latitude to the southern ocean would be allotted to the colony, it would be convict-free. In contrast to the rest of Australia, terra nullius did not apply to the new province; the Letters Patent, which used the enabling provisions of the South Australia Act 1834 to fix the boundaries of the Province of South Australia, provided that "nothing in those our Letters Patent shall affect or be construed to affect the rights of any Aboriginal Natives of the said Province to the actual occupation and enjoyment in their own Persons or in the Persons of their Descendants of any Lands therein now occupied or enjoyed by such Natives."
Although the patent guaranteed land rights under force of law for the indigenous inhabitants it was ignored by the South Australian Company authorities and squatters. Survey was required before settlement of the province, the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia appointed William Light as the leader of its'First Expedition', tasked with examining 1500 miles of the South Australian coastline and selecting the best site for the capital, with planning and surveying the site of the city into one-acre Town Sections and its surrounds into 134-acre Country Sections. Eager to commence the establishment of their whale and seal fisheries, the South Australian Company sought, obtained, the Commissioners' permission to send Company ships to South Australia, in advance of the surveys and ahead of the Commissioners' colonists; the Company's settlement of seven vessels and 636 people was temporarily made at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island, until
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor union. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president at its founding convention and reelected every year, except one, until his death in 1924; the A. F. of L was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations by unions which were expelled by the AFL in 1935 over its opposition to industrial unionism. The Federation was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout its first fifty years, after which many craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1940s. In 1955, the AFL merged with the CIO to create the AFL-CIO, which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day.
The American Federation of Labor was organized as an association of trade unions in 1886. The organization emerged from a dispute with the Knights of Labor organization, in which the leadership of that organization solicited locals of various craft unions to withdraw from their International organizations and to affiliate with the K of L directly, an action which would have taken funds from the various unions and enriched the K of L's coffers; the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions merged into what would become the American Federation of Labor. One of the organizations embroiled in this controversy was the Cigar Makers' International Union, a group subject to competition from a dual union, a rival "Progressive Cigarmakers' Union," organized by members suspended or expelled by the CMIU; the two cigar unions competed with one another in signing contracts with various cigar manufacturers, who were at this same time combining themselves into manufacturers' associations of their own in New York City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee.
In January 1886, the Cigar Manufacturers' Association of New York City attempted to flex its muscle by announcing a 20 percent wage cut in factories around the city. The Cigar Makers' International Union refused to accept the cut and 6,000 of its members in 19 factories were locked out by the owners. A strike lasting four weeks ensued. Just when it appeared that the strike might be won, the New York District Assembly of the Knights of Labor leaped into the breach, offering to settle with the 19 factories at a lower wage scale than that proposed by the CMIU, so long as only the Progressive Cigarmakers' Union was employed; the leadership of the CMIU was enraged and demanded that the New York District Assembly be investigated and punished by the national officials of the Knights of Labor. The committee of investigation was controlled by individuals friendly to the New York District Assembly and the latter was exonerated; the American Federation of Labor was thus formed as an alliance of craft unions outside the Knights of Labor as a means of defending themselves against this and similar incursions.
On April 25, 1886, a circular letter was issued by Adolph Strasser of the Cigar Makers and P. J. McGuire of the Carpenters, addressed to all national trade unions and calling for their attendance of a conference in Philadelphia on May 18; the call stated that an element of the Knights of Labor was doing "malicious work" and causing "incalculable mischief by arousing antagonisms and dissensions in the labor movement." The call was signed by Strasser and McGuire, along with representatives of the Granite Cutters, the Iron Molders, the secretary of the Federation of Trades of North America, a forerunner of the AFL founded in 1881. Forty-three invitations were mailed, which drew the attendance of 20 delegates and letters of approval from 12 other unions. At this preliminary gathering, held in Donaldson Hall on the corner of Broad and Filbert Streets, the K of L was charged with conspiring with anti-union bosses to provide labor at below going union rates and with making use of individuals who had crossed picket lines or defaulted on payment of union dues.
The body authored a "treaty" to be presented to the forthcoming May 24, 1886, convention of the Knights of Labor, which demanded that the K of L cease attempting to organize members of International Unions into its own assemblies without permission of the unions involved and that K of L organizers violating this provision should suffer immediate suspension. For its part, the Knights of Labor considered the demand for the parcelling of the labor movement into narrow craft-based fiefdoms to be anathema, a violation of the principle of solidarity of all workers across craft lines. Negotiations with the dissident craft unions were nipped in the bud by the governing General Assembly of the K of L, with the organization's Grand Master Workman, Terence V. Powderly refusing to enter into serious discussions on the matter; the actions of the New York District Assembly of the K of L were upheld. Convinced that no accommodation with the leadership of the Knights of Labor was possible, the heads of the five labor organizations which issued the call for the April 1886 conference issued a new call for a convention to be held December 8, 1886 in Columbus, Ohio in order to construct "an American federation of alliance of all national and international trade unions."
Forty-two delegates representing 13 national unions and various other local labor organizations responded to the call, agreeing to form themselves into an American Federation of Labor. Revenue for the new organization was to be raised on the basis of a "per-capita tax" of its member organizations, se
Labor Day (film)
Labor Day is a 2013 American drama film based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Joyce Maynard. Directed by Jason Reitman, the film stars Josh Brolin; the film was co-produced by Paramount Pictures and Indian Paintbrush, premiering at the Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 2013, was a Special Presentation at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was released in the United States on January 31, 2014. In 1987, Adele Wheeler is a depressed single mother who lives in a rural home with her 13-year-old son, Henry. While they are shopping, a bloody man approaches Henry and makes them take him home to look after him; the man is revealed to be Frank Chambers, an escaped convict wanted by police. Through flashbacks, it is revealed that Frank is a Vietnam veteran who married his pregnant girlfriend, Mandy. A year after the baby's birth and Mandy had a fight, in which he asked if he was the father, he pushed her against a radiator. Through imagery, it is implied that the baby drowned.
Frank was jailed for murder. Adele tells Frank, seen through flashbacks, that she had a number of miscarriages after Henry, culminating with the full-term stillbirth of a baby girl; this has left Adele with severe anxiety and depression, which Henry's father explains to Henry as the reasons their marriage failed. Henry has tried to be both a son and a husband but he realizes he cannot provide all of the things Adele needs. Adele is a passionate woman who teaches both Henry and Frank separately to dance. Frank teaches other things, he teaches Adele and Henry how to play baseball and how to bake a peach pie. Adele and Frank fall in love and plan to escape to Canada with Henry, packing the car and cleaning out the house. Meanwhile, Henry develops a friendship with a mature girl named Eleanor, goes to see her one more time before they leave, she manipulates him into thinking Adele and Frank are going to abandon him and he accidentally reveals Frank's past. Adele assures Henry; the morning they are going to leave, Henry takes a note to his father's house and leaves it in his mailbox.
While he is walking home, a policeman offers to drive him home, Henry accepts. The policeman is suspicious of the packed car and nearly-empty house, but leaves. Adele goes to the bank to get all the money out of her account, the bank staff, are suspicious. While Adele is gone, the neighbor speaks to Frank. She, too, is suspicious of. Henry's father finds the note that Henry left, calls the house. Before Adele and Henry can escape, they hear police sirens approaching. Frank ties Henry and Adele up before he goes out to surrender, so that they won't be charged with harboring a fugitive, it is not revealed. Adele wants to plead in Frank's case but is warned by the prosecutor himself that if she does, Henry might be taken away from her, she writes letters to Frank but to protect her he returns them all unopened. Years adult Henry has become the successful owner of a pie shop and is contacted by Frank, who has seen Henry and his shop in a magazine, he asks him whether or not he should see his mother again.
Henry lets Frank know that his mother lives in the same house. We see Frank appearing to her and they embrace. Adele and Frank in the autumn years of their lives walk in love and Henry takes solace in the fact that he does not need to worry about her being alone. Kate Winslet as Adele Wheeler Josh Brolin as Frank Chambers Tom Lipinski as younger Frank Chambers Gattlin Griffith as Henry Wheeler Tobey Maguire as Older Henry Wheeler/Narrator Dylan Minnette as 16-year-old Henry Wheeler Clark Gregg as Gerald Brooke Smith as Evelyn James Van Der Beek as Officer Treadwell J. K. Simmons as Mr. Jervis Maika Monroe as Mandy Alexie Gilmore as Marjorie Brighid Fleming as Eleanor Lucas Hedges as Richard Micah Fowler as Barry Elena Kampouris as Young Rachel McCann In September 2009, it was announced that Reitman was working on a screenplay, based on Joyce Maynard's novel. Talking about the story, Reitman said that "I read it, I saw the movie in my head, it challenged me in a way. It was different from everything else I’ve read."
He admitted that it was different from his previous work and said that " deals with a complex drama. And I may not nail it on this film, it may just be my first step." Reitman wanted to make the film right after his 2009 film Up in the Air, but due to Winslet's scheduling conflicts, he chose to direct Young Adult first. Reitman had Josh Brolin in mind for the lead roles. In June 2011, it was revealed that Brolin had joined the cast of the film. On casting the actors, he said, "I know. I'll be able to go to them easily" and that " makes those characters beautiful and sexual. I don't know another actor. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d said no."In April 2012, it was announced that James Van Der Beek has joined the cast of the film as a Police Officer and Gattlin Griffith as young Henry Wheeler. In June 2012, it was confirmed that Alexie Gilmore, Brighid Fleming, Lucas Hedges and Micah Fowler had joined the cast of the film. Tobey Maguire rounded out the cast and joined the film as adult Henry Wheeler.
Production began for the film on June 5, 2012. Reitman and the film's art director Steve Saklad searched a number of houses in Massachusetts as most of the film is set inside the Wheelers' home. According to Reitman, "We searched the entire state of Massachusetts for that house. My location manager has never looked at that many location
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was an American politician and lawyer, the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. He won the popular vote for three presidential elections—in 1884, 1888, 1892—and was one of two Democrats to be elected president during the era of Republican political domination dating from 1861 to 1933. Cleveland was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation and subsidies to business, farmers, or veterans, his crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era. Cleveland won praise for his honesty, self-reliance and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism, he fought political corruption and bossism. As a reformer, Cleveland had such prestige that the like-minded wing of the Republican Party, called "Mugwumps" bolted the GOP presidential ticket and swung to his support in the 1884 election.
As his second administration began, disaster hit the nation when the Panic of 1893 produced a severe national depression, which Cleveland was unable to reverse. It ruined his Democratic Party, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896; the result was a political realignment that ended the Third Party System and launched the Fourth Party System and the Progressive Era. Cleveland was a formidable policymaker, he drew corresponding criticism, his intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions nationwide in addition to the party in Illinois. Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. So, his reputation for probity and good character survived the troubles of his second term. Biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "n Grover Cleveland, the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities.
He had no endowments. He possessed honesty, firmness and common sense, but he possessed them to a degree other men do not." By the end of his second term, public perception showed him to be one of the most unpopular U. S. presidents, he was by rejected by most Democrats. Today, Cleveland is considered by most historians to have been a successful leader ranked among the upper-mid tier of American presidents. Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, to Ann and Richard Falley Cleveland. Cleveland's father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister, from Connecticut, his mother was the daughter of a bookseller. On his father's side, Cleveland was descended from English ancestors, the first of the family having emigrated to Massachusetts from Cleveland, England in 1635, his father's maternal grandfather, Richard Falley Jr. fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey. On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia.
Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, was named. Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time, he became known as Grover in his adult life. In 1841, the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, where Grover spent much of his childhood. Neighbors described him as "full of fun and inclined to play pranks," and fond of outdoor sports. In 1850, Cleveland's father moved to Clinton, New York, to work as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society. Despite his father's dedication to his missionary work, the income was insufficient for the large family. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school into a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville; the experience was valuable and brief, the living conditions quite austere. Grover returned to his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract.
In 1853, when missionary work began to take a toll on his health, Cleveland's father took an assignment in Holland Patent, New York and the family moved again. Shortly after, he died from a gastric ulcer, with Grover reputedly hearing of his father's death from a boy selling newspapers. Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy. After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family; that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher. He returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854, where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he would promise to become a minister. Cleveland declined, in 1855 he decided to move west, he stopped first in New York, where his uncle, Lewis F. Allen, gave him a clerical job. Allen was an important man in Buffalo, he introduced his nephew to influential men there, including the partners in the law firm of Rogers and Rogers.
Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, had worked for the partnership. Cleveland took a clerkship with the firm, began to read the law, was admitted to the New York bar in 1859. Cleveland
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's smallest mainland state and its second-most populous state overall, thus making it the most densely populated state overall. Most of its population lives concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Australia's second-largest city. Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south,New South Wales to the north, the Tasman Sea to the east, South Australia to the west; the area, now known as Victoria is the home of many Aboriginal people groups, including the Boon wurrung, the Bratauolung, the Djadjawurrung, the Gunai/Kurnai, the Gunditjmara, the Taungurong, the Wathaurong, the Wurundjeri, the Yorta Yorta. There were more than 30 Aboriginal languages spoken in the area prior to the European settlement of Australia; the Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations which makes up much of the central part of the state. With Great Britain having claimed the half of the Australian continent, east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria formed part of the wider colony of New South Wales.
The first European settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, much of what is now Victoria was included in 1836 in the Port Phillip District, an administrative division of New South Wales. Named in honour of Queen Victoria, who signed the division's separation from New South Wales, the colony was established in 1851 and achieved self government in 1855; the Victorian gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s increased both the population and wealth of the colony, by the time of the Federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne had become the largest city and leading financial centre in Australasia. Melbourne served as federal capital of Australia until the construction of Canberra in 1927, with the Federal Parliament meeting in Melbourne's Parliament House and all principal offices of the federal government being based in Melbourne. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate. At state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.
The Labor Party led Daniel Andrews as premier has governed Victoria since 2014. The personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria Linda Dessau. Victoria is divided into 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, which the state administers directly; the economy of Victoria is diversified, with service sectors including financial and property services, education, retail and manufacturing constitute the majority of employment. Victoria's total gross state product ranks second in Australia, although Victoria ranks fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne hosts a number of museums, art galleries, theatres, is described as the world's sporting capital; the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest stadium in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere, hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The ground is considered the "spiritual home" of Australian cricket and Australian rules football, hosts the grand final of the Australian Football League each year, drawing crowds of 100,000.
Nearby Melbourne Park has hosted the Australian Open, one of tennis' four Grand Slam events, annually since 1988. Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, dating from 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. After the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788, Australia was divided into an eastern half named New South Wales and a western half named New Holland, under the administration of the colonial government in Sydney; the first British settlement in the area known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. It consisted of 402 people, they had been sent from England in HMS Calcutta under the command of Captain Daniel Woodriff, principally out of fear that the French, exploring the area, might establish their own settlement and thereby challenge British rights to the continent.
In 1826, Colonel Stewart, Captain Samuel Wright, Lieutenant Burchell were sent in HMS Fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. The expedition landed at Settlement Point, on the eastern side of Western Port Bay, the headquarters until the abandonment of Western Port at the insistence of Governor Darling about 12 months afterwards. Victoria's next settlement was on the south west coast of what is now Victoria. Edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, John Pascoe Fawkner. From settlement, the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after, the site now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe, three weeks after Melbourne, and in 1838, Geelong was declared a town, despite earlier European settlements dating back to 1826
International Workers' Day
International Workers' Day known as Workers' Day, May Day or Labour Day in some countries and referred to as May Day, is a celebration of labourers and the working classes, promoted by the international labour movement which occurs every year on May Day, an ancient European spring festival. The date was chosen by a pan-national organization of socialist and communist political parties to commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4 May 1886; the 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, for universal peace."The first of May is a national public holiday in many countries worldwide, in most cases as "Labour Day", "International Workers' Day" or some similar name – although some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States, which celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday of September.
Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labour movements grew, a variety of days were chosen by trade unionists as a day to celebrate labour. In the United States and Canada, a September holiday, called Labor or Labour Day, was first proposed in the 1880s. In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed a Labor Day holiday on the first Monday of September while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York. Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor in May 1882, after witnessing the annual labour festival held in Toronto, Canada. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty US states celebrated Labor Day, thus by 1887 in North America, Labour Day was an established, official holiday but in September, not on 1 May. 1 May was chosen to be International Workers' Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.
In that year beginning on 1 May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday. On 4 May, the police acted to disperse a public assembly in support of the strike when an unidentified person threw a bomb; the police responded by firing on the workers. The event lead to the death of eight and injury of sixty police officers as well as an unknown number of civilian killed or wounded. Hundreds of labour leaders and sympathizers were rounded-up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial, seen as a miscarriage of justice; the following day on 5 May in Milwaukee Wisconsin, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers killing seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding chickens in his yard. In 1889, a meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne that called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second congress in 1891.
Subsequently, the May Day riots of 1894 occurred. The International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, for universal peace." The congress made it "mandatory upon the proletarian organisations of all countries to stop work on 1 May, wherever it is possible without injury to the workers." May Day has been a focal point for demonstrations by various socialist and anarchist groups since the Second International. May Day is one of the most important holidays in communist countries such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union countries. May Day celebrations in these countries feature elaborate workforce parades, including displays of military hardware and soldiers. In 1955, the Catholic Church dedicated 1 May to "Saint Joseph the Worker". Saint Joseph is the patron saint of craftsmen, among others.
During the Cold War, May Day became the occasion for large military parades in Red Square by the Soviet Union and attended by the top leaders of the Kremlin the Politburo, atop Lenin's Mausoleum. It became an enduring symbol of that period. Today, the majority of countries around the world celebrate a workers' day on 1 May. In Algeria, 1 May is a public holiday. 1 May is celebrated in Algeria as Labour Day and has been a paid bank holiday since 1962. 1 May is considered a paid holiday. The President of Egypt traditionally presides over the official May Day celebrations in Cairo. In Ethiopia, 1 May celebrated as the Worker's Day. 1 May is a holiday in Ghana. It is a day to celebrate all workers across the country, it is celebrated with a parade by trade unions and labour associations. The parades are addressed by the Secretary General of the trade union congress and by regional secretaries in the regions. Workers from different workplaces through banners and T-shirts identify their companies. In Kenya, 1 May celebrated as the Labour Day.
It is a big day addressed by the leaders of the workers' umbrella union body - Central Organisation of Trade Unions COTU. The Minister for Labour address the workers; each year, the government approves the minimum wage on Labour Day. International Workers' Day was declared a national public holiday by the National Transitional Council in 2012 the first year of the post-Qaddafi era. On 1 May 1978 Libyan leader Colonel Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi addressed the nation
Media related to Labour Day at Wikimedia Commons
