UITBB Statement for Labour Day 2020

UITBB Statement on Labour Day 2020

UITBB, on the occasion of the 1st of May 2020, conveys its militant greetings to all the workers in the sectors of Building, Wood and Building Materials, who struggle for the improvement of their lives in very difficult conditions, in this extraordinary situation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The message of the 1st of May is even more relevant today, because the forces of the capital and the neoliberal governments around the world will try to take advantage of the pandemic and will attack more viciously the workers and especially all the vulnerable groups like women, young people, pensioners and migrant workers. We will see an attempt for generalized cuts in salaries and pensions, privatizations in social securities, the public health sector, education, an increase of unemployment and so on. Especially for the public health sector, we need to note that the policies of the forces of the capital, with the privatisations, the cuts in public health spending and so on, made the dealing of the situation much worse and caused more deaths. The workers should know who is to be blamed for this and it is clear that it is the capital and the reactionary forces which support it. This is unacceptable to us and we should fight with all our power against it, because it was clearly shown that the capitalist system cannot satisfy the needs of the people especially in a time of crisis. We call upon the working class to be ready to fight off these attacks in any way possible.
UITBB calls all its affiliates and friends in every corner of the world to honour the International Workers’ Day in any way possible, organize their common actions in all continents, for the emancipation of the working class and for the creation of a new society, without exploitation of humans by humans, because this is the future of humanity.

On behalf of UITBB Secretariat

Michalis Papanikolaou
General Secretary