People's Democracy

May Day Celebrated Across The World

HUNDREDS of thousands of people around the world rallied for May Day with militant protests.

In Germany, unions took aim at corporate greed. Across Germany, labor unions protested the effects of globalisation on Europe's largest economy, accusing firms of sacrificing jobs for quick profit and urging the government to introduce a minimum wage.

"We don't want American conditions," Michael Sommer, the head of Germany's main union federation, told a large gathering of people at a rally in Wolfsburg, home of car maker Volkswagen AG. "No more death in factories," they chanted. "It is really time to stop this madness. Those in government must show creativity instead of putting new thumbscrews on the long-term unemployed."

About 100,000 workers took to the streets across Indonesia, protesting a labor law that would cut severance packages and introduce more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security. "Don't change the law," thousands of laborers chanted in downtown Jakarta.

In Bangladesh, garment factory employees called for better working conditions. Thousands of garment factory workers rallied to demand the United States and Europe drop tariffs on their products, saying they could eventually cause the industry's collapse. Others wound through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, banging drums and singing as they called for better working conditions in dangerous factories.

And in Turkey, police fired pepper spray and tear gas to disperse demonstrators denouncing the International Monetary Fund and the United States.

More than seven million Cubans – close to two-thirds of the population – took to the streets to participate in May Day celebrations across the island. Huge demonstrations called by Cuba's Workers Confederation took place in all major towns and cities of the island to reaffirm workers support for socialism.

The people gathered at the Havana's historic Jose Marti  Revolution Square waving multi-colored flags and banners with patriotic slogans, as Cuban president Fidel Castro presided over the mass gathering.

Castro during a more than four-hour May Day speech slammed US with a terrorism charge. Speakers at the rally expressed their condemnation of terrorism and their support for the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a regional free trade initiative initiated by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez against the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement (FTAA).

"The Department of State has in a cynical and shameless fashion accused Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez of friendliness toward terrorism and Cuba of being a terrorist country," said Castro.

Washington accused Cuba of harboring and aiding terrorists from Spain and Colombia, as well as fugitive Black Panthers and Puerto Rican independence militants from the United States. Venezuela, Cuba's closest ally, was targeted for allowing Colombian guerrillas in its territory, being too friendly with Iran and Cuba, and not supporting the U.S. led war on terrorism.

Castro charged the United States had organised terrorist attacks on Cuba, from the 1976 bombing of Cuban commercial airliner to dozens of bombings and shootings over the years. "Will this report conclude the endless chain of gross lies by the  president of the United States about terrorism? No!" Castro told hundreds of  thousands gathered in Havana's Revolution Square on Monday. He accused the Bush administration of being behind Panama's 2004  pardon of former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles and three others found guilty of  planning to assassinate him during a 2000 Latin American Summit.

Some of the biggest mobilisations were in Russia. A total of 1.3 million people took part in rallies marking Labor Day in Russia on May 1, police said. Demonstrations were held in 833 cities and towns across the country, with 90,000 police officers and more than 7,000 Interior Ministry troops maintaining order.

In neighboring Belarus, about 2,000 people gathered in the capital, Minsk, in a show of defiance after the jailing of opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich by the authoritarian government. "You can't smother freedom, you can't kill it. These senseless repressions by the authorities only bring the day of freedom closer," Milinkevich's wife, Inna Kulei, told the crowd.

In US, tens of millions across the country take to the streets to demand immigrant rights. Millions flooded the streets of Los Angeles and essentially shut down the city. From Los Angeles to Chicago, Houston to Miami, the "Day Without Immigrants" attracted widespread participation "We are the backbone of what America is", said a protestor.

The boycott was organised by immigrant activists angered by federal legislation that would criminalise the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants Thousands of unionised workers in US dedicated Monday's marches to the cause, carrying banners that read "Total Support for Migrants."

In Mexico, a day-long protest dubbed "A Day Without Gringos" drew thousands into the streets and kept many away from US-owned supermarkets and fast-food restaurants to support rallies in the United States demanding immigration reform.

In Guatemala, May Day marchers chanted: "The gringos criticise us, but without immigrants they'd be nothing."

In Thailand, several thousand workers, representing various labour groups rallied at Sanam Luang and Government House to press their case for workers' rights.