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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

MAY DAY MESSAGES : The Trade Union role ; by Michael Netto, Unite Chairman


This year May Day Rally is for the Trade Union movement an important one as we have once again restored the public holiday in its true historical date and in line with the majority of other countries. This is good news as we will be commemorating with workers worldwide our collective achievements, our past sacrifices and our present struggles for better working conditions across the world. May Day celebrations are a national holiday in more than 80 countries, and it is also celebrated in many others unofficially due to lack of freedoms.
We as a Union, welcome the new Government fulfilment of its pledge to honour the May Day Celebration in its true historical day, and the fact that we will in addition also have Workers Memorial Day in which we remember all those workers who have died in the past as a result of accidents at work due to poor Health and Safety practices. We will also like to see recognition of its error of judgement by the previous GSD Government of having moved the date, thereby eroding the transcendental significance of the day, as we believe that not everything in society should be commercialised or devalued in its significance.
The International Workers Day has its roots in the 1886 Haymarket massacre in Chicago, when a number of demonstrators died as a result of security forces firing at demonstrators calling for a shorter working week and better working conditions. Following this incident, the Second Socialist International in its meeting in 1889 in Paris agreed to formally recognise the event annually and to promote the ideals of the Chicago martyrs of fighting for better working conditions on a global basis.
The internal contradictions of the capitalist system are still considerable and it is also clearly evident that we have a serious crises in the way of thinking and developing new ideas in the labour movement. But ordinary working class people should not forget that they can still today influence events and produce change as they did with their rejection to the way that Civil service reforms was planned to be introduced last year.
Here in Gibraltar, working people need to be reminded that the standard of living we enjoy today, and the improvement in working condition is owed to the sacrifices that previous trade unionist in the past have made for the collective enjoyment of all. This ranges from the 1972 General Strike which was in order to fight for a living wage, to the much advancement in employment legal rights and benefits through the Social Insurance scheme. However, workers need to be alert to the ever changing circumstances that prevail around us as a result of the periodic financial crises affecting Europe. Due to this, employers turn to maintain their profit margins either by eroding hard gain working conditions, or by moving their businesses to cheaper countries with far worse conditions of employment.
To maintain our standard of living, we all need to make a contribution so that our collective efforts are channel in one direction through our union, as this will place us in a stronger position from those who may wish to have a weaken union in order to introduce anti-working class policies. There is also much work to do from a trade union perspective. We need to ensure that people working illegally are stopped as this weakens the achievement of the past and places those individual in unprotected working environments. We need to campaign against low Pay. We also need to ensure that our youngster get quality training for the jobs that Gibraltar needs for the future. We also need to ensure that Health and Safety standards are maintained throughout. We need to ensure that working people retiring do get pension schemes that provide an adequate living in retirement, and we need to do more to improve conditions in the private sector. To do this we need to be union members and we need to take an active part in the democratic life of the union. Let’s organise for the common good of everyone, and enjoy the May Day Rally.

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