Labour Day was celebrated in Mauritius for the first time on the 1st May in 1938, thanks largely to the efforts of Dr Maurice Curé and the Labour Party. This first Labour Day celebration in the then British colony took place at the Champ de Mars and was attended by 35,000 workers and some small planters. According to a local newspaper of the period, the last time that so many Mauritians had gathered in Port Louis, for such a large political rally, was in the days of Dr Eugène Laurent and his Action Libérale during the early twentieth century.

It was the first time, in the unique history of our country, that the Mauritian workers came together to celebrate Labour Day and to show the island?s colonial authority and ruling elite that the Mauritian working class formed part of a popular movement. Furthermore, for the first time, the Mauritian workers were also expressing their unwavering support and solidarity with the common struggle of the workers of the world.

In May 1939, at another public rally in Port Louis, Dr Maurice Curé, founder and president of the Labour Party, spoke in creole and in the name of the Mauritian working class, demanding that the colonial authorities decree the first of May a public holiday in the island. On that particular day, in Champ de Mars, over 15,000 Mauritian workers had gathered to celebrate Labour Day.

Unfortunately, Governor Bede Clifford refused to carry out the request of Dr Curé and of the Labour Party. As a result, the workers of Mauritius would have to wait an entire decade before such a public holiday was approved by the local British administration.

After all, it was only in April 1949, several months after the historic first general elections of August 1948, that Guy Rozemont, the leader of the Labour Party and an elected member of the Legislative Assembly, actively pushed for the 1st May to become a public holiday. Rozemont, with the consent of the other members of the Legislative Assembly such as Sookdeo Bissoondoyal and Governor Sir Hillary Blood, was able to pass a motion to that effect with no opposition.

On the 1st May 1950, Labour Day was celebrated for the first time as an official public holiday in the British colony of Mauritius. Therefore, both Dr Curé and Rozemont should be given the credit for introducing the celebration of Labour Day into our small island, thus they should be known as ?les pères de la fête du travail à Maurice?.

During the early 1950s, the first of May became ever more popular, after all, at the May Day celebrations of 1952, around 50,000 Mauritian workers gathered in Port Louis. It was one of the largest public gatherings in our island?s history. It was only fitting that two days earlier, Guy Rozemont eloquently wrote in Advance, the official newspaper of the Labour Party, that when it came to Labour Day in Mauritius: ?Ce congé qui représente un jour de paie sans avoir à travailler pour les travailleurs sans distinction de race ou de religion, a été obtenu après plusieurs années de lutte.?

Curé?s Labour Party

It became evident to many workers that after the long and arduous years of struggle during the 1930s and 1940s, the Mauritian working class was finally being given the proper recognition it deserved. During this crucial and turbulent period in the history of the Mauritian labour movement, one of the most determinant figures was Dr Jules Maurice Curé.

Between 1934 and 1935, Dr Curé served on the Council of Government and even in his first speech, he expressed a great deal of concern about the terrible plight of the Mauritian workers and affirmed that something urgent had to be done by the local British colonial government to redress their grievances. During this brief period, he always took up the cause of the Mauritian working class and was their unofficial representative.

Unfortunately, in January 1936, in the elections for the Council of Goverment, Curé was not re-elected while, on the other hand, eight candidates who represented mostly the Franco-Mauritian conservatives and two candidates who represented the urban middle class were elected. However, ironically enough, the Mauritian working class did not have a single representative.

During the weeks following the January 1936 elections, Dr Curé was the one of the key figures who promoted the creation of a labour party, when it became evident that there would be no one else to represent the interests of the working class on the Council of Government. On 20th February 1936, in an article in Le Mauricien, entitled ?Manifeste pour un parti travalliste?, Curé explained that there was an urgent need for Mauritian workers to form a labour party.

He eloquently explained: ?Seul un parti travailliste bien organisé, s?appuyant sur le nombre ayant des intérêts communs bien nets, peut s?opposer au parti capitaliste et obtenir de lui le respect de leurs droits.? In addition, he went on to mention that the Mauritian working class would have to militate to have Govenor Wilfred Jackson appoint a nominee to the Council of Government to represent their grievances and defend their interests.

Three days later, on 23rd February, the Mauritian working class answered Dr Curé?s call, as more than eight thousand workers, some small planters and members of the island?s petite bourgeoisie gathered at Champ de Mars. At this first mass gathering of the Mauritian working class in the annals of the island?s history, the Mauritian Labour Party was created. The 23rd of February 1936 is a landmark date in our country?s history because it marked the entry of the Mauritian working class in active Mauritian politics and thus symbolized the birth of the Mauritian labour movement.

On that historic day, Dr Maurice Curé was elected president of this new political party with the unanimous approval of the workers and for the first time in Mauritian history, ?through direct democracy?, a person was chosen as leader of a workers? party. Truly, this was a unique and special communion between a leader of the Mauritian working class movement and the workers he served. He was the first elected official to speak on behalf of the island?s working class before the Council of Government.

Honoring the workers

Curé served as the leader of the Labour Party between 1936 and 1941. During that period, he almost spent his entire fortune and even risked his health and reputation as a respected doctor in his struggle for the Mauritian workers to obtain better working and living conditions. Even after leaving the presidency of the Labour Party, he continued to help the labourers of our country. In fact, Mrs Domingue, the 85-year-old daughter of Dr Curé, explains that her father, throughout his long and eventful public life between the early 1920s and mid-1970s, always fought for the interests of the Mauritian workers.

In general, Labour Day is a special day which belongs to the workers of our country. We are all the descendants of those valiant labourers who fought for their social, political and economic rights during the 1930s and 1940s under the leadership of Dr Maurice Curé, Pandit Sahadeo, Emmanuel Anquetil, and Guy Rozemont.

Their names and their accomplishments must forever be engraved in our hearts and etched in our minds and in the process becoming an integral part of our national memory. Today, the Mauritian nation owes a great debt to those workers and their leaders thus, we have a ?devoir de mémoire? to honor them on the First of May.