THIS May Day gives the opportunity to re-emphasise the demand that needs to be raised in all the current political debates – the protection of and extension of workers’ rights. The same forces that started the attack on workers’ rights in earnest in 1979 and maintained that attack until today are still looking to keep their foot on the throat of the working class. Those same forces are seeking the same policies across the world in every continent.

May Day gives us the chance to show our solidarity with workers around the world facing the same enemy of multinationals and financial institutions. We give particular attention to those facing the most intense attacks in countries like Colombia. Workers are also the main victims of wars being carried out in places like Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Workers and their families suffer under the myriad repressive regimes that suppress human rights and equality struggles and attack different communities within their borders as we have seen in Burma, Turkey/Kurdistan, and so many other countries.

May Day is a celebration of those who do the work in any country, the work that ensures the society operates, creates the wealth and maintains all the public services. In most places in Europe and across the world it is celebrated as a public holiday and that is a battle we have still to win in Britain. This year the London May Day Committee is calling for a renewal of the demand to make May 1 a public holiday in Britain.

That call needs to be made through trade unions, the Labour Party and community organisations. Make May Day the day to celebrate workers’ achievements and join across the world with other workers. The achievements of workers should be recognised but also all those who cannot get jobs or jobs only offering poor contracts and conditions. There is plenty that needs doing in our society and all should have the opportunity to make their contribution and be able to live a full and secure life.

We also pay tribute on May Day to those who have given so much to the workers’ cause – it was five years ago that May Day remembered Bob Crow and Tony Benn, a year later Linda Kietz GLATUC president and last year Mehmet Aksoy a Kurdish comrade killed by Isis in Syria whilst filming. May Day is a day to resist the constant attempts to try to divide us – including the most destructive who do so on racist grounds.

But we also counter those who raise false issue like “inter-generational inequality” and ask for a redistribution of resources on that basis. If we are going to have a redistribution let it be from the super-rich and corporations (who exploit the rest of us) to the majority. From the few to the many. There is plenty of money in our society, which should mean no need for austerity if it was distributed in the interest of the whole society.

In one of the richest countries of the world we face a housing shortage whilst luxury blocks are erected for speculators to buy up. We face people dependent on food banks whilst billions are grabbed by the rich (largely untaxed). We see the examples like Grenfell that expose the cynical disregard of our present political rulers. The same disregard that treats the disabled and most vulnerable in our society so shamefully.

It is the same vested corporate interests that threaten the very future of our planet with their constant pressure for more and more profit, more and more uncontrolled growth. And the rich ensure they will walk away from the catastrophes they create, whilst ignoring workers caught up in the system their corporations have created. As the old music hall song said – it’s the rich that get the pleasure and the poor that get the blame.

Celebrate and enjoy this May Day and renew the fight against exploitation and the destructive financial system that dominates the world.