May Day, International Labour Day or Workers’ Day is celebrated across the globe today with great enthusiasm. The day is celebrated to commemorate May 4, 1886, when the Haymarket Massacre in the Chicago happened. On this day, the local workers were on strike about their eight-hour workday and police was trying to disperse the general public from the crowd. Suddenly, a bomb was thrown at the crowd of workers by an unidentified person, resulting in panic and firing from the police on the workers. Four workers were killed in the firing.
In 1889, it was decided in Paris that the day should be celebrated on an annual basis as May Day. So, in the year 1891, May Day was officially recognized to be celebrated as an international annual event.
The theme for this year is: COVID-19, Social and Economic Crisis: Challenges for Decent Jobs, Social Protection and People’s Welfare. Unlike last year, this year’s celebration features match past and funfair at the Ekwueme Square, Awka by workers in Anambra state.
Workers’ Day differs in every essential from other holidays of the year. All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflict and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another; but Labor Day is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation.
Workers, no doubt, do a lot of hard work but they are not given value for their labour. For encouraging and celebrating these labours, people celebrate today as International Workers Day. This is a day on which workers are celebrated. However, the question remains whether the celebration makes these workers happy? Celebrating a single day in a whole year and then again treating workers in a wrong way for the rest of the year is not a good way of celebrating them.
People should first understand the meaning of this day and then celebrate it with joy for a day and treat workers equally for every moment in life. There should be a concern among people that these workers are not slaves. They also have needs and self-respect which should not be hurt by others. A worker is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them to produce goods and services. Indeed, it is the worker that puts the difference on everything in the society.
According to Franklin Roosevelt, “No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level–I mean the wages of decent living”. End of quote. This is because poorly paid worker is inefficient labour, the world over.
What does labour want? We want better working conditions and less crimes; better pays and less inflation; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. The discrimination of labours should be abolished in Nigeria. This day creates awareness among people across the world. It should promote hard work and better pay.
The coronavirus pandemic has severe health effects and serious implications for economic growth and social development of the worker. The impact of the pandemic on workforce and employment cannot the overemphasised.COVID-19 has imposed inequality and vulnerability on the workers, with growing poverty and extreme penury, weakening of social cohesion and social discontent. The attendant inflation has reduced the take home of the worker to a mere ‘pocket money’, which can no longer take him to the nearest bus stop.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on the working class, especially the frontline health care providers, who risk their lives in order to rescue the lives of others. In some cases, many of them contracted the disease in their line of duty and died in the process.
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of workers, societies and economies, calling for a rethink by employers of how economic and social activities are organized. The crisis therefore calls for strong responses based on solidarity, cooperation, equity and responsibility.
We wish to commend the efforts of the Anambra state government under the leadership of Chief Sir Willie Obiano towards containing and curbing the spread of this deadly virus in Anambra state. Akpokuedike, the alert governor, is equally extolled for sustaining the prompt payment of workers’ salary.
Fellow Comrades, may we be reminded that COVID-19 is still here with us. You are therefore requested to Stay safe. Happy Workers’ Day!
WRITTEN BY COMRADE JERRY NNUBIA
Comments are closed for this post.