Ecuador’s election wasn’t free — and its people will pay the price under President Noboa
All workers — and only workers — are ‘essential’
We need to recalibrate our economy and our society around the real ‘wealth creators,’ writes MICK WHELAN

I WOULD like to wish all working people and their families a very happy May Day. The day, whether we call it the workers’ day, or labour day, is when, right around the world, we show solidarity with the working men and women of every nation.
We have done this every year since the sixth international socialist congress, held in Amsterdam in 1904, called on “all social democratic parties and the trade unions of all countries” to demonstrate on May 1 for the establishment of “an eight hour day, the class demands of the proletariat and universal peace.”
It’s going to be a bit different this year. We will all miss the traditional marches under union banners in which so many of us take part up and down this country.
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Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN writes for the Morning Star on the eve of the TUC in Brighton, about the pay offer from the DfT, relations with the Labour government, and the union’s motion at Congress calling for the renationalisation of rail freight

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MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, writes for the Morning Star on the eve of his union’s annual conference in Manchester from Monday 20 to Friday May 24