May Day rallies focus on host of workplace concerns
BERLIN — Higher salaries, better working conditions, maternity leave, minimum wage and an end to discrimination against temporary or foreign workers: These were among the concerns as hundreds of thousands of union members and labor activists rallied around the world to mark May Day.
The tradition of May Day marches for workers’ rights began in the United States in the 1880s. It quickly spread to other countries at a time when industrialization pitted poorly paid employees who had few protections and little power against increasingly dominant factory employers and landowners.
Over the decades, the May Day protests have also become an opportunity to air general economic grievances or political demands but often result in violence.
In Italy, two protesters and a police officer were injured in Turin when police blocked a demonstration against the construction of a high-speed rail line between France and Italy, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
In France, police clashed with stone-throwing protesters who set fires and smashed up vehicles as thousands of people gathered for rallies under tight security. About 165 arrests were made.
Police repeatedly used tear gas to try to control the crowd gathering near Paris’ Montparnasse train station for the main protest. Some protesters were injured. Associated Press reporters saw groups of hooded, black-clad people shouting anti-police slogans, mixing with other protesters wearing yellow vests or waving union flags.
Authorities in Russia said about 100,000 people took part in a May Day rally in central Moscow organized by Kremlin-friendly trade unions on Red Square. Opposition activists said more than 100 people were detained in several cities, including for participating in unsanctioned political protests.
In Germany, the country’s biggest trade union urged voters to participate in this month’s European Parliament election and reject nationalism and right-wing populism.
Protesters wearing headbands and swinging their fists in South Korea’s capital of Seoul rallied near City Hall, marching under banners denouncing deteriorating working conditions and demanding equal treatment and pay for temporary workers.
In Bangladesh, hundreds of garment workers and members of labor organizations rallied in Dhaka, the capital, to demand better working conditions and higher wages.
In the Philippines, thousands of workers and labor activists marched near the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila to demand that President Rodrigo Duterte’s government address labor issues including a minimum wage increase and the lack of contracts for many workers.