AKEL Declaration on International Workers Day
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 30th April 2015, Nicosia
We honor this year too Workers May Day, the International Day of the working people and their struggles over many years for a better world. We honor the vanguard workers of Chicago and with them, the vanguard workers of class struggles all over the world. We also honor at the same time the vanguard workers of the workers movement here in Cyprus, who through their struggles changed life for the better in our country.
On the occasion of Workers May Day, AKEL addresses a warm and militant greeting to the Cypriot working class and all working people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians, Latins and to all working people living and working in Cyprus. This year marks 90 years since the first time Workers Day was celebrated in Cyprus on the initiative of the then Communist Party of Cyprus and the Limassol Workers Centre.
For yet another year, working people commemorate Workers Day confronted with the global capitalist crisis. The crisis the global capitalist system is going through in fact is proving to be the biggest in its history. Today entire welfare infrastructures that were built to meet basic human needs are either being dismantled because they are no longer profitable or are being sold at cut-prices to large private interests because they are profitable. The gains of the second half of the 20th century won through working people’s fierce and often bloody struggles are being reversed today by the forces of neoliberal capitalism. At the same time economic inequalities are growing, while the 85 richest people in the world possess all that the poorest 3.5 billion, namely 50% of the world’s population, own.
For the third consecutive year the working people of Cyprus celebrate Workers Day under the yoke of the Memorandum. The policies of austerity, redistribution of wealth and impoverishment implemented in other countries under a “bail-out” programmer are also being imposed in our country as well, driving thousands of our compatriots into a terrible situation. In these conditions where society and working people are being attacked by the Memoranda and government policies, AKEL was and remains the main bastion of resistance and struggle. AKEL is in the frontline and fighting for a fair distribution of burdens and to protect society, working people, SME’s and our national wealth.
This year’s May Day is being celebrated on the eve of the resumption of the talks for the solution of the Cyprus problem. AKEL calls on the leaders of the two communities to come to the negotiating table with good will and with the interests of Cyprus and the Cypriot people as a whole at heart. However, to be able to pave the way for a solution to the Cyprus problem, Turkey will have to take the political decision and agree to a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, which should be based on the UN resolutions and International Law.
Working people of Cyprus,
This year May Day will be commemorated for the second consecutive year with a joint event of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers organized by the Pancyprian Federation of Labour PEO and the Turkish Cypriot trade unions affiliated members of the World Federation of Trade Unions WFTU. The progressive working people of Cyprus are showing once more the path of the common struggle for the salvation of our common homeland. AKEL calls on all working people for a mass participation in tomorrow’s joint event to send out the most powerful messages of determination and struggle for a solution and reunification, as well as for the liberation from the reactionary socio-economic policies.
