Is Labour Day a public holiday across Spain? Here’s what you need to know about May 1st here, including a bit of history.
El Día del Trabajador or Labour Day in Spain is a public holiday in Spain’s 17 autonomous communities and is held on May 1st.
This year May 1st will fall on a Friday, right at the end of the week.
It will be a holiday in all regions across Spain, so no matter where you live you will most likely have this day off. Schools, most businesses and shops will also be closed on this day.
Because it falls on a Friday this year, it means most people can enjoy a three-day long weekend.
All workers in Madrid will also have a holiday on May 2nd, which commemorates the day in 1808 when the population rose up against Napoleon’s troops in the Peninsula War.
As this is a Saturday, however, it’s likely mainly to affect those in retail as offices and schools won’t be open anyway. The holiday will not move to Monday May 4th.
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The Día de la Cruz or Day of the Cross is also typically a public holiday in some places in the provinces of Granada, Córdoba and Almería, but as May 3rd is a Sunday this year, it won’t make much difference. May 3rd is also Mother’s Day in Spain, so expect lots of restaurants to be booked up and florists to be busy.
The only place that has a public holiday on Monday May 4th will be Santa Cruz and Puerto de la Cruz on the Canary Island of Tenerife for the Feast of the Holy Cross, commemorating the founding of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Each region in Spain has 12 public holidays to which each municipality must add two more non-working days for local celebrations. This means that in total, there are 14 public holidays a year in Spain that employees can benefit from.
Why is May 1st a public holiday?
May 1st is a bank holiday in over 80 countries around the world and is also known as International Workers’ Day.
It’s an iconic date in the United States, called Labour Day and commemorates a general strike for workers’ rights, known as the Haymarket Riot on May 1st 1889. It ended with the death of those who later became known as the ‘Chicago martyrs’.
At the time, workers were expected to work long hours for low salaries, which in many cases did not cover basic needs. Children worked from the age of six, and the women worked at night to make ends meet.
In Europe, May 1st was traditionally associated with rural pagan festivals celebrating the arrival of spring, but over the years it has become more about workers and is now recognised for its association with the labour movement.
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El Día del Trabajador began to be celebrated in Spain in 1889, but it only became a public holiday in 1931.
In 1938, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco replaced it with the Fiesta de la Exaltación del Trabajo (The Day of Elation for Work or Praise for Work), considering that the former was too closely linked to his communist enemies. That meant that for almost two decades, Spanish workers didn’t have a day off on May 1st but rather on July 18th.
It wasn’t until 1955 that the original Labour Day date returned to Spain as Pope Pío XII added it to the Catholic calendar to commemorate St. Joseph the Worker.
Only in 1978 with the return of democracy in Spain were work demonstrations allowed to take place on Labour Day.
