WORLD WORLDWIDE SPAIN News Journal Update - (en) Spain, CNT-AIT: May 1. Demonstration from Puente de Vallecas (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 We all know that May 1st is a holiday. "Labor Day," they tell us. We do not

agree, let's see what this day really means: ---- The thing comes from almost 140
years ago and has to do with the 8-hour workday, and with solidarity. ---- In the
19th and 20th centuries, women workers organized to improve their living
conditions, they did not limit themselves to asking that the law be complied
with, they asked for what they considered fair: to be able to enjoy a life that
was not misery and work . One of the most widespread demands demanded an 8-hour
work day, so on May 1, 1886, in the US, a strike was called that tried to force
governments and employers to establish definitively and for all the 8-hour work
day. .
Chicago was one of the places where the working conditions were worse and it was
where the confrontations were toughest, the days of protest were prolonged and
there were many deaths. Hundreds of workers were imprisoned and, in a more than
doubtful trial, the repression targeted 8 anarchist workers, of whom five were
executed more than a year later. But before, and as a result of the strike, many
employers were forced to accept the 8-hour day, the success was not total, but it
was a great advance, the news spread throughout the world and also the
indignation at the cruel repression; the fuse was lit and May 1st became the day
of workers' struggle.

So no, May 1st is not the labor or worker festival, it is the day of the workers'
struggle. It is the day we remember those who fought for a more just society, the
day we remember that all the improvements in the living conditions of workers
have been achieved by fighting and have cost many lives.

We cannot, nor do we want to, forget that even the most obvious demands, such as
ending child labor, had to be uprooted from capitalism through strikes and
mobilizations.

We cannot ignore the fact that many of these demands have still not been
achieved: many of us have to bypass 8 working hours to be able to live, girls
continue to be cruelly exploited in many parts of the world, trade unionists and
social and environmental activists continue to be murdered. .

We cannot help but feel ashamed seeing how we have lost our ability to fight and
remain almost impassive in the face of the more than obvious setbacks in our
living conditions: stagnant wages, increasingly pressured working hours, health
and pensions on the way to disappearing..., and us, meanwhile, watching series
and thinking that politicians or judges will fix it.

Infinite shame seeing how solidarity has disappeared from our societies, unmoved
by the death of thousands of people at the borders, or in wars driven by
capitalist predation. Impassive before the evident destruction of the environment
on which the existence of all depends.

Things are going bad and they are going to get worse. It is urgent to shake off
the dust of the great lie of the middle class. It is urgent to stop trusting
parliaments and laws that, in the best of cases, badly patch up the problems of
poor people, while using all the resources when it comes to those of rich people
and their companies; Banks are bailed out before people.

It's time to organize ourselves, return to the streets, to networks of solidarity
and trust, lose suspicion between the poor and less poor, and recover hatred of
the rich and their henchmen. In short, you have to remember and put into practice
that THE FIGHT IS THE ONLY WAY.

https://cntmadrid.org/1-de-mayo-manifestacion-desde-puente-de-vallecas/
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