May Day rallies are being held around the world by labour groups and activists who are demanding greater pay, less hours worked, and better working conditions.
May Day, also known as International Labour Day, is celebrated worldwide on May 1 as a day to honour workers’ rights.
The COVID-19 limits were significantly relaxed this year, and activists in several nations advocated that governments should do more to better the lives of workers. As a result, this year’s events saw higher attendance than in years past.
The largest May Day events since the pandemic started in early 2020 took place in South Korea, where tens of thousands of people participated in numerous protests. The organizers predicted that each of the two major protests in the capital, Seoul, would draw roughly 30,000 people.
“The price of everything has increased except for our wages. Increase our minimum wages!” an activist at a Seoul rally shouted at the podium. “Reduce our working hours!”
Participants in the rally accused President Yoon Suk-yeol’s conservative administration of cracking down on particular unions in the pretext of rectifying purported irregularities.
As their lives are still getting back to normal after the pandemic hit, thousands of labour union members, opposition lawmakers, and academics gathered in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park to call for wage increases to offset the impact of rising costs.
Participants in a rally in Indonesia requested that the government overturn a law on job creation that they claimed would only benefit corporations at the expense of employees and the environment.
“Job Creation Law must be repealed for the sake of the improvement of working conditions,” said protester Sri Ajeng at one rally. “It’s only oriented to benefit employers, not workers.”
Prior to the 2024 presidential election, thousands of workers in Taiwan demonstrated against what they perceived as the inadequate labour laws on the self-governing island. This pressured the ruling party.
Thousands of members of the Communist Party, trade unions, and migrant domestic workers marched through the streets of Beirut, Lebanon.
Three-quarters of the population currently lives in poverty as a result of the nation’s devastating economic crisis and skyrocketing inflation.
Unions in France staged large protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s recent decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 on Monday. The pension change is viewed by activists as a danger to France’s social safety nett and hard-won worker rights.
The biggest demonstrations in France in years were sparked by the pension plan, and the May 1 protests are anticipated to be among the biggest yet.
Rallies were prohibited in various Pakistani cities due to security reasons. Labour unions and organisations organised indoor protests in Peshawar, Pakistan’s north-west, to call for improved worker rights.
Later on Monday, similar rallies were also scheduled for and taking place in a number of Indian towns.
