WFDY May Day Statement

WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS
Class oriented - uniting - democratic - modern – independent – internationalist!

MAY DAY 2013

WE WILL NOT BECOME THE SLAVES OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The World Federation of Trade Unions appeals to all the trade union organizations in the world to organize on the occasion of May Day 2013 rallies and activities in all countries, in all continents, honoring the International Workers’ Day and the martyrs of the working class. The WFTU proposes, based on its resolution at its Presidential Council Meeting on March 7-8,2013 in Lima Peru, the slogan: "CHICAGO SHOWED US THE WAY" to be used next to the respective slogans of each union organization.



The international trade union movement bears great responsibility to protect and defend the International Workers Day from the efforts of capitalist governments, employers, various institutions and non governmental organizations to vanquish this day or completely alter its meaning.

The May Day is for the international working class a SYMBOL of the irreplaceable role that the workers hold in the society and the production, of the important and the victorious achievements of the class struggles historically, of the fact that all the rights are the fruit of bloody struggles. Nothing was handed over to the working people.

The May Day is a DAY OF MEMORY AND TRIBUTE to the martyrs of the working class who sacrificed themselves in the crucial and decisive strikes of the American workers in Chicago (1886) demanding 8 hours of work, 8 hours of recreation, 8 hours of rest, as well as the struggles for the working hours in many countries all over the world before and after the Chicago strikes, throughout the history of the class struggle until today. We pay tribute to the martyrs of the working class who were killed, tortured, imprisoned and were forcibly disappeared by the anti-popular and anti-labor governments of the capital in all continents.

The May Day is a LESSON FOR THE NEW GENERATIONS that includes the principles of the working class such as the proletarian internationalism, the class unity, the irreplaceable value of the decisive struggles with class-orientation.

Most of all, the May Day is a DAY OF STRUGGLE where the International Working Class meets in the streets of the fight for the contemporary labour and social rights. For the right to less working hours with dignified salaries which was realistic in the 1880’s and cannot be unrealistic in the technological progress of the 21st century!



Nowadays, while capitalism being in its deep crisis exposes in all the spectrum its barbaric, brutal and ruthless face confiscating any ounce of right from the working class and the popular strata; Nowadays that the competition of the monopolies creates more battlefields and new imperialist interventions; Nowadays that the state violence, repression of social and labour struggles and the violation of the trade union freedom escalate internationally let’s move:

 Chicago showed the way – NO to the contemporary capitalist slavery

 We fight for a world without exploitation of men by men

 On May Day, the WFTU expresses its internationalist solidarity with the people of Cuba, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Mali, Colombia, Venezuela etc.



THE SECRETARIAT 
Athens, Greece – April 16th 2013