Labor activists celebrated May 1 around the world on Friday with rallies and street protests. The protesters focused on higher wages and better working conditions.
International Workers’ Day or Labor Day is celebrated on 1 May, and is counted as a public holiday in many countries, including Germany.
On this day, labor unions traditionally lead rallies to defend their support for higher wages, pensions, and to highlight inequality and other political issues.
Protesters gathered in several major cities in Asia and Latin America, as well as several European capitals. Many protests also took place in cities across the US that do not celebrate May Day, but have their own Labor Day federal holiday, usually observed in the month of September.
This year’s Labor Day comes as the Iran war has caused energy costs to rise and shopping for the world’s most vulnerable populations and working classes to decline.
Turkey cracked down on protests
Turkish police clashed with protesters attempting to march towards Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, leading to more than 500 arrests.
May Day rallies in Taksim, a symbolic site of the Turkish labor movement and the site of the 2013 Gezi Park protests, have been banned in effect since 2012.
Riot police reportedly used tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters, who blocked roads leading to Taksim in the central Mecidiyeköy and Besiktas districts. cumhuriyet Wrote daily.
Local unions, including the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD), said several protesters reported injuries while being detained.
Authorities also closed some metro stations and major roads in parts of the city ahead of planned Labor Day rallies, allocating two sites for celebrations in the Asian part of Istanbul.
Germany: Protesters rally against benefit cuts
In Germany, workers took to the streets in Berlin and other cities across the country with unions against the governments’ planned cuts to health care and social security benefits.
Germany’s trade unions held several hundred May Day rallies across the country with the slogan “Our jobs first, your profits second”.
Unions are encouraging the protection of an eight-hour workday and secure pensions, as well as higher taxes on the rich.
“You must be prepared for a fight in the coming weeks and months,” Yasmin Fahmy, president of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), said at the main May Day rally in Nuremberg.
“Anyone who attacks the level of pension provision is provoking a major social conflict,” Fahimi said. “We are able to unite against this pension theft and we will fight it,” he said.
Argentina protests Miley’s labor law changes
In Argentina, workers gathered on Thursday to celebrate May Day, where activists expressed their feelings about recent changes to labor protections made by President Javier Meili.
The General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Argentina’s largest union group, marched to the city’s government headquarters to “defend decent employment” against Miley’s changes to the labor code, which had guaranteed generous protections and rights for Argentine workers since 1974 but also raised business costs, scaring off foreign investors.
“We want to say to this government, enough,” CGT leader Octavio Arguello told a crowd of activists banging drums, waving banners and chanting slogans against Miley. “We have exhausted our patience, Mr. President.”
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko