The Workers Party sends greetings and solidarity to our fellow workers at home and abroad. Each year on May 1, workers across the world celebrate and commemorate International Workers’ Day (May Day).

 May Day commemorates past labour struggles and a commitment to renew the struggle for workers’ rights and a better future. It recalls the gains and achievements of the international working class.

Bravery

This year, May Day assumes a special significance as we salute the bravery of all the health, care, transport, shop-workers and other key workers and the sacrifices they are making to provide vital services in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. We send our condolences and stand in solidarity with the families of those key workers who have already lost their lives to Covid-19.

We call to account those who could have done more to protect them, whether by proper enforcement of social distancing, caring for workers with underlying health conditions or the provision of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep them safe.

In many cases during this crisis, the health, safety and lives of workers have been sacrificed to the pursuit of profit, a condition endemic to the social system under which we live.

This current crisis has further exposed the glaring contradictions in the capitalist system. Despite the repeated false narrative of the capitalist class that “we are all in this together” it is workers, the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, students and older working class people who have faced the brunt of the pandemic and who have been disproportionately impacted.

Read the Party’s May Day 2020 statement in full here: