May 1st: As long as capitalism exists, every generation of workers is condemned to wage the same struggles again and again – for dignity, wages, conditions, hours

Today, May 1, we struggle not to forget the sacrifices of generations of workers  to etch onto the world’s collective conscience the crucial principle that labour is not, and can never be, just another commodity. We struggle to remember past struggles so that the next struggles can be won in the name of humanism.

The 1st of May commemoration is not an exercise in remembrance alone: Today’s generation is struggling against the same monsters that crushed the workers in May 1886 in Chicago – and for the same reason: The struggle to limit working hours to 8 per day, to extract from employers a living wage, to secure decent conditions, to safeguard the workers’ dignity in an era where young people are forced to choose between Uberisation, endless internships, or a soul-destroying process of branding and re-branding themselves as ultra-flexible, all-hours wage slaves who live for the corporation and not for themselves.

The struggle continues. And this is, in itself, excellent news!