Struggle for better working conditions continues

By María Josefina Arce

Every May 1st, workers in many nations take to the streets of the main cities to demand better working and living conditions. Today's date finds the world in a critical situation.

The current global economic slowdown has led many people to accept lower quality, poorly paid jobs that lack job security and social protection.

Unemployment has soared in all regions, following the global health emergency caused by COVID 19, which paralyzed the planet, aggravated by armed conflicts, high inflation and strict monetary measures to contain it.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), this year more than three million people will swell the ranks of the unemployed to 208 million.

Latin America, according to the ILO, will face a complex and uncertain labor market due to the various global crises.

This, together with the unwillingness of some governments to implement policies in favor of the most vulnerable or to adopt provisions that affect the population, have brought many citizens to the streets on this International Workers' Day.

This is the case in Ecuador, where the United Workers' Front and other trade union and social organizations called to defend employment and demanded urgent action against the wave of violence that is shaking the country.

Another demand is the removal from power of President Guillermo Lasso, due to his inefficient management and the impeachment trial for corruption taking place in the National Assembly.

In Uruguay the date is marked by the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the general strike in 1973, in repudiation of the coup d'état and the establishment of the military dictatorship, and by the rejection of the pension reform approved in Parliament, which increases the retirement age and means losses in the pensions to be collected.

In Brazil, the date acquires another dimension, celebrating the return of a government in favor of all Brazilians, after four years of a failed mandate of the ultra-right-wing Jair Bolsonaro, under which the nation returned to the map of hunger and inequalities worsened.

Since 1889, International Workers' Day has been celebrated on May 1, in remembrance of the Chicago Martyrs, a group of American trade unionists condemned to death for their participation in a strike three years earlier. One hundred and 34 years have passed since the establishment of this commemoration and the struggle for better working and living conditions continues.