Labour Day

National Holiday in Spain.

The “Day of the Worker”, Labour Day in Spain

Labour Day was first declared an official holiday in 1931 with the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic.
General Franco abolished the holiday in April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, promising a new “Trabajo Nacional,” or National Labour Day, would later follow.
However, he changed it to “Fiesta de la Exaltacion del Trabajo,” or Labour Praising Party, with celebrations on July 18th, his birthday.
After the war, any attempts at reconvening a traditional May Day Labour Day were ignored by Franco, despite legitimate attempts to gain focus on living conditions and national poverty.
However, the Catholic Church intervened in 1955, designating May 1st as Fiesta de San José Artesano (St. Joseph the Worker). With protests now typically being held in churches, San José quickly became the patron saint of workers.
During the 50s and 60s, more events were organised around May 1, the unofficial Labour Day, such as days off, boycotts and moments of silence in factories. Franco imprisoned protagonists, but his influence eventually became more preventative when he started detaining seasoned protestors in the days running up to May 1st.
After Franco’s death in 1975 and the move from a dictatorship to a democracy, Labour Day returned, despite still not being an ‘official’ holiday. It was in 1978 that “Primero de Mayo” (1st of May) was once again a national holiday