AKEL International Worker’s Day declaration
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 30 April 2018, Nicosia
We again honour Worker’s May Day, the international day of working people and the struggles for a better world over many years. We pay tribute to the pioneering workers of Chicago and with them, the vanguard fighters of class labour struggles being waged all over the world. On the occasion of 1st May, AKEL addresses a warm and militant greeting to the Cypriot working class and all working people, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians, Latins and all those workers who live and work in Cyprus.
Today, we honor the pioneers of the workers’ movement in Cyprus, whose struggles have changed life in our country for the better. All that has been won through fierce struggles in recent years are constantly being challenged and undermined. Today we are sending out a message of determination and struggle for the defence of these gains.
Worker’s 1st May events are being organized this year too at a time of an ongoing global capitalist crisis; a crisis that is proving to be the longest in capitalism’s history Entire welfare infrastructures that were established to meet elementary human needs are today either being abolished because they are no longer considered profitable or are being sold off for next to nothing to big private interests because they are profitable. The gains that were won during the second half of the 20th century, which were the result of fierce and often bloody struggles waged by working people, are being reversed. At the same time, economic inequalities are growing across the world, while imperialist interventions aiming at the control of rich natural and other resources in the Middle East and throughout the world are intensifying.
In Cyprus, the Anastasiades-DISY government is dogmatically fixed on the neo-liberal idea that the burdens of the economic crisis should be shifted exclusively on to working people’s backs. All those forces and circles who, whether directly or indirectly, supported and back the government’s policies also bear responsibility for this situation. As a result of the government’s neo-liberal policies, Cyprus is the country that is registering the most dramatic widening of social inequalities in recent years across the EU, while a decline is recorded in the purchasing power of wages to 2002 levels. One out of four young people is unemployed and the number of long-term unemployment is well above the European average, while spending on health and social protection is among the lowest throughout the EU.
In these conditions, AKEL was and remains the main bastion of resistance against the neo-liberal anti-social policies, for the defence of popular gains. AKEL is at the forefront and struggling for a fairer distribution of burdens and for the protection of society, working people, small and medium-sized businesses, but also of our national wealth.
Worker’s May Day will this year to be honoured, with joint events of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers organized by PEO together with Turkish Cypriot unions. The working people of Cyprus will once again show the way of common struggle for the salvation of our common homeland. AKEL calls on all working people to participate in mass numbers in the May Day events organized by PEO. The mass character of the events will convey the strong militant message for the solution of the Cyprus problem, for reunification and for ridding ourselves from the anti-social socio-economic policies being implemented.
