Workers, activists mark May Day with defiant rallies
Workers and activists marked May Day on Tuesday with rallies to demand their government address labour issues.
International Workers’ Day is a public holiday in many countries, though activities are restricted in some places, sometimes leading to confrontations.
A look at some of the events around the world:
Russia
More than 100,000 people came out on the streets on Moscow to march in the traditional May Day parade.
Moscow’s Federation of Trade Unions said about 120,000 people marched from the Red Square on the main streets of the Russian capital to mark May Day.
Over recent years, the parade became a highly orchestrated show of power by Russian authorities and the ruling United Russia party, with the demonstrators refraining from criticizing the government.
In St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, however, Russians unhappy with the Kremlin’s attempts to curtail internet freedom joined the official May Day demonstration.
Several hundred people braved the rainy weather and joined the column marching across St. Petersburg to protest the government’s ban of popular messaging app Telegram.
Turkey
Police detained dozens of demonstrators during May Day events around Istanbul, most of them protesters who tried to march toward the city’s symbolic main square in defiance of a ban.
Turkey declared Taksim Square off-limits to May Day demonstrations citing security concerns. Police blocked roads leading to the square but allowed small groups of labour union representatives to lay wreaths and flowers at monuments there.
Still, small groups of demonstrators, chanting “Long live May 1” and “Taksim cannot be off limits on May 1” tried to push their way into the square throughout the day, leading to scuffles with police. At least 45 demonstrators were detained.
Major trade unions gathered at a government-designated area in Istanbul for a large rally. At least six people were detained follow-
ing scuffles with police at a security checkpoint leading to the rally ground.
France
Scattered vandalism marked May Day in France as hundreds of demonstrators marched across Paris to oppose economic policies pursued by President Emmanuel Macron.
Some participants smashed the windows of a Mcdonald’s restaurant and set furniture inside on fire as the demonstration in the French capital heated up. Protesters also wore masks and threw firecrackers.
Television cameras captured vandals overturning a car on Tuesday afternoon and setting it on fire. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb posted a tweet condemning the “violence and vandalism.”
During the march, workers and students waved anti- capitalist flags and brandished banners with phrases such as “Risks to Disrupting the Peace,” ”Let’s Derail the Government“and ”Macron Gives Us a Dark Hatred.“
Greece
Thousands of Greeks marched through central Athens in at least three separate May Day demonstrations.
Museums were also shut while ferries remain were tied up in port and public transport operated on a reduced schedule in strikes marking labour day.
Police said at least 7,000 people were at the first demonstration in Athens, which was organized by a communist party-led union.
The protesters marched by parliament and headed up a major avenue to the United States Embassy.
Trains, the suburban railway, urban trolleys and ferries to and from the islands suspended operations for the day, while buses and the Athens metro system were operating on reduced schedules.
Germany and Austria
Tens of thousands of workers marched across Germany and Austria rallying for their rights in the face of globalization.
In Vienna, some 12,000 people gathered in front of city hall, some carrying banners with slogans against planned welfare cuts by the new government.
Meanwhile, around 4,000 union supporters marched on different routes through Berlin, before assembling at the German capital’s landmark Brandenburg Gate.
In Nuremberg, where the German Confederation of Trade Unions, or DGB, held its main event this year, some 6,500 protesters cheered as the group’s leader, Reiner Hoffmann, said the unions “managed to civilize industrial capitalism some 100 years ago” and would also be able to tackle contemporary challenges like digitalization.
The DGB said that altogether some 340,000 people participated in almost 500 May Day events across Germany.
Scandinavia
Danish labour union officials and left- leaning lawmakers started the day with traditional addresses to employees at work places throughout the Scandinavian country. Later in the day, thousands gathered in large parks around the country, despite rain, chilly temperatures and winds, to listen to May Day speeches that often criticized the centre-right government.
While May Day was mainly a left-leaning event in Denmark, the right and the left flanks held speeches in Sweden and Norway.
Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Lofven suggested retired people should get more as he toured elderly homes while the centre-right opposition rejected the idea. Parliamentary elections in Sweden are scheduled Sept. 9
In Norway, Sylvi Listhaug, a former justice minister until she resigned in March for writing a Facebook post claiming the opposition Labor Party was more interested in protecting the rights of terrorists than the Norwegian people, lashed out at its leader Jonas Gahr Store who heads Norway’s largest party, for not being folksy, and warned against a weak immigration line.
Spain
More than 70 cities across Spain have held May Day marches calling for gender equality, higher salaries and pensions now that the country’s economy is back on track.
The demonstration in Madrid was among the biggest, with thousands rallying behind the slogan “Time to win.”
CCOO union official Unai Sordo says that “a social majority is emerging from the psychosis of the (global financial) crisis” in 2008 that hit Spain hard.
Spain’s economy, the fourthlargest in the 19-country eurozone, has in recent years posted some of the fastest economic growth in Europe.
Macedonia
Hundreds of trade union members gathered outside the Macedonian government building in the capital on May Day to protest poor labour conditions and to call for the protection of workers’ rights.
The National Federation of Trade Unions led Tuesday’s protest march from downtown Skopje to the government building, seeking legal changes that would protect workers and improve collective wage agreements in the private and public sectors.