Today, the first day of May is the workers' day. The day is fully assigned and promoted by International Labour Movement for workers to get together as co-workers. Some countries have declared this a holiday, making it possible for workers to come together to peruse the achievements they have gained and critically view their weak points.
How about our country? Can we claim to be fair by the workers? Do we really appreciate their labour?
Ours is a sad experience. We speak high of a day for workers, though with the passage of time it has turned into a battlefield of divergent political parties. These parties get on to roads to test and show their strength over the rest.
When will the day dawn when labour get together to celebrate themselves in the spirit of the brotherhood giving meaning to this much sacred Workers’ Day? It is sad that the politicians have manipulated this day to be the day of the political parties. The politicians and the political parties are using the day to test popularity.
The political parties which have lost their heads, and twisted the meaning of the Workers Day, show keenness in counting heads attending the rallies organised by the respective political party. This is not to talk about workers but to claim that one political party is more popular than the rest.
Spirit of brotherhood
Ironically it is the day of the workers. It's the workers who should rally round in the spirit of brotherhood. They, as workers, must celebrate the day, share their experience, exchange views and make reflections of the year gone-by and evaluate their achievements, their failures, their contribution to the progress of the country, to their personal lives and family lives, irrespective of all political, religious or ethnicity and class distinctions.
On the contrary, the workers have been put into cages, compartmentalized and given a political colour.
Work is more than a way to make a living. If dignity of labour is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected. What are they? They include the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organisation and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.
If the May Day is the Workers’ Day, as we claim, then politics and politicians, of all rank and file, should be out.
There was no politics or politicians involved when the workers in their large numbers went on parade demanding eight hour work day, in Chicago, close to a century and a half years ago. It was a just demand of the labour to treat them as human beings not as animals. They are not slaves but men with human dignity.
We do not read that E A Gunasinghe's movement in 1927 was politically motivated. Later on politicians saw it as the playing field, a ground to play dirty politics, and grab power. With politics getting involved, the May Day lost its meaning and turned out to be a game benefitting the power-crazy politicians.
Worse still, the labourers have failed to realize that dirty politics have trespassed their sacred field. What they do not realise is that politicians have no love and concern to the labour force or the working class. They are all set up simply to showcase the strength of political mileage.
The politics have spoiled, given a twist to this turn of events. Plus, the workers are partly to blame.
In a statement issued on February 14, the Workers’ World Party claimed that time is up for a global general strike to raise the concern over the oppression of workers, make demand that world respect rights of workers, speak on behalf of the workers earning low wages, and to demand for a minimum global wage.
Demand for just wage
They also want to draw attention to the issues such as racism, white supremacy, neofascism, Islamophobia, attacks on immigrants, attacks on women and LGBT people, and a drive toward imperialist war. What’s more, the May Day global strike must be against the whole system of capitalism, imperialism and socialism. Forging a united front among the most militant and revolutionary forces can help this happen.
What we see is that the area is getting larger and larger while maintaining the first demand for dignity of labour, treat them as human beings and demand for just wage.
Coming into our own soil, we see there is a drift from the original political play, divide and rule. It is a blessing to witness how the two major political parties lived this long. The country is run on the concept of Yahapalayana, which is enriched by the teachings of great religions, especially Buddhism.
This ‘Good Governance Government’ concept emerged as a result of the resolution adopted in 2006 by the General Assembly. It was introduced by the then Secretary General of the United Nations Organisation, Kofi Annan, with a view to help the developing nations, reduce corruption, bureaucracy and extreme poverty. The concept was also meant to encourage them to work for economic development. Yahapalayana Government is true to its commitment to the Good Governance Government concept.
This day was chosen to be celebrated as International Workers’ Day or Labour Day by Second International, a pan-national organisation of socialist and communist political parties to mark the Haymarket affair which had occurred in Chicago on May 4, 1886.
In 1904, the International Sociologist conference in Amsterdam, the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on “all Social Democratic Party Organizations and Trade Unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace”.
The Workers Day, or May Day as we prefer to refer, has its beginning at the National Convention held in Chicago in the 1884, organised by the Federation of Trades and Labour Unions, which was later referred to as “America Federation of Labour”.
The allegation was that America, one of the best industrialist countries in the world, the workers were forced to work 16 hours a day. They were treated as slaves not as human beings with dignity. The United as one Work Force, they decided to stage a protest, stop work demanding that eight-hour-day-work be adopted they went on strike on May 1, 1886.
On the day the world marked Centenary of the French Revolution, in 1889, the resolution was adopted to celebrate May 1 as Workers Day and the World began celebrating Workers on May 1, 1890.
Sri Lanka celebrated Workers Day for the first time in 1935. In 1956, the May Day was declared a holiday.
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