By Matt Trinder
Working-Class people in Britain and across the world demanded an end to the misery and instability of capitalism on May 1 as the labour movement marked International Workers’ Day 2023.
May Day marches and rallies were held in Sheffield, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, India, Pakistan, Nigeria and elsewhere as workers remembered the struggles of the past and urged a fightback against corporate profiteering, neocolonialism and a resurgent far right.
In Chesterfield, Derbyshire, GMB president Barbara Plant praised the workers at Amazon in Coventry who are striking for recognition and better pay from the transnational online retail giant. “Our members are forcing Amazon to recognise us. We are not going away and we are going to win,” she said, calling for an “all-out political fight” against the government in the coming year.
Ms Plant also called for international solidarity, saying she had recently visited Colombia, where she met trade unions and the families of trade unionists killed there. “We must never forget those who struggled for a better future,” she said.
Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union general secretary Sarah Woolley pledged her union’s solidarity with all striking workers, “who are inspiring millions of others.”
She said that even before the cost-of-living crisis, members were having to use foodbanks, and that now “for some, their homes are like a prison: no food in the fridge, no heating on, mould on the walls, keeping warm with blankets. “We have got members going without food so that their children can eat,” she said. “But whatever they try to do to us it will not work: our trade unions are our members, and when they come together they are powerful.”
National Education Union president Louise Atkinson said that over 98 per cent of the union’s members had voted to reject the government’s below-inflation pay increase.
She condemned education regulator Ofsted as a punitive and ineffective system of regulation, naming head teacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life in January after her school was given a negative report by Ofsted. She was cheered as she said: “Ofsted needs to go.”
Ms Atkinson called on workers to support striking teachers on Tuesday, saying: “Join us on our picket lines and we will join you on yours.”
In London, hundreds of Unite members, RMT and TSSA transport workers, PCS civil servants, CWU posties and many more trade unionists and campaigners gathered in Trafalgar Square to hear speeches from key figures in the labour movement.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “It’s great to see such a diverse range of people coming together to celebrate our day.”
Referring to Saturday’s coronation of Charles Windsor, he said: “There’s a lot of talk about a big day coming up, but this is about our history and our culture: the working people of the world, the people that generate all of the wealth so that these rich people can live on the cream of the world. “That’s got to change: that’s what our movement is about.”
Mr Lynch called for unity to make the working class an “unstoppable force.” Helen O’Connor from general union GMB welcomed striking NHS staff from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and urged solidarity for all those downing tools across the country, with Britain in the grip of its biggest strike wave since the 1980s. She said: “40 years of cuts and privatisation has caused a race to the bottom that has made this country the weakest link in the major capitalist nations.”
The labour movement must build a “genuine socialist alternative to the misery and instability of capitalism,” Ms O’Connor demanded, to cheers and applause. The rally followed a march to central London from Clerkenwell Green’s Marx Memorial Library, which was packed with visitors as it offered free tours to mark its 90th anniversary this year.
Addressing a large crowd outside the historic building, where workers have gathered on May Day for decades, RMT president Alex Gorton said working people must “re-pledge themselves to the causes that their forefathers and foremothers fought for.”
The rally, which was attended by international visitors from Iran, Turkey, Ecuador, Sir Lanka, Palestine and Kurdistan, also heard from incoming NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede. He slammed Tory ministers for “peddling the narrative that is it migrants and refugees that are draining our communities and resources,” adding: “We must absolutely reject that. “Our schools are in trouble, not because of migrants and refugees, but because of the austerity cuts of this government.”
And in a dig at right-wing Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s ban on his front bench visiting striking workers, ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “This is where Labour MPs should be: on the picket lines every time there’s a dispute.” (IPA Service)
Courtesy: Morning Star
