REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
May Day, celebrated on the first day of May every year, has long been a symbolic day for workers’ rights around the world.
But May Day 2018 turned out to be a day of violent clashes between police and protesters, as both left-wing and right-wing activists took to the streets with fire and fists, from Paris to Istanbul.
The idea of May 1 as a day for workers’ rights was born in the US city of Chicago, where on May 1, 1886 hundreds of thousands of people walked off the job to protest long hours and harsh working conditions.
Eight years later, then-president Grover Cleveland moved the original, US version of Labor Day to September, and Americans now celebrate their Monday off as more of a work vacation than a call to action.
But 66 other countries around the world still celebrate the May 1 rite of spring as International Workers’ Day, with strikes for workers’ rights. And in recent years, far-right groups and Neo-Nazis have also decided to use the opportunity to raise their voices.
Take a look at how people celebrated, protested, and picketed at May Day celebrations around the world this year:
Protesters in the Philippines burned a sculpture of President Rodrigo Duterte during a May Day rally outside the presidential palace in Manila.
REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco
Trade unions are angry that companies can still hand out short-term contracts that don’t provide stable benefits to workers. Duterte promised to do away with the practice on the campaign trail in 2016.
In Berlin, the crowd was largely pro-union and anti-capitalism.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
“We have more rich and even richer people than we ever had before,” protester Aimo Tuegel told the Associated Press. “On the other hand, work and working conditions for workers are continuing to get worse.”
In Paris, union marchers took to the streets to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s months-old economic reforms, which are aimed at making it easier for companies to hire and fire employees. But they weren’t alone.
REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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