Happy 1st of May!
Today is our day, brothers and sisters.
A day to celebrate what working people have won through struggle and solidarity, and to look ahead with confidence to face the challenges before us.
This First of May, we stand together at a moment when the world is shaking as never before in recent history.
As always, it is working people who pay the highest price in a world turned upside down—marked by conflicts, death, and destruction from which they have nothing to gain.
The rise of the far right, authoritarianism, and reckless corporate greed are dictating the global agenda, threatening human rights, climate action, and democracy.
And Europe, instead of responding to these threats with confidence in its social model, is reacting to uncertainty with more uncertainty, spiraling into deregulation and weakening the rights and protections that have been built through decades of struggle.
But history teaches us that May Day is a day of determination. It reminds us that the labour movement can achieve remarkable victories through unity and solidarity. At a time when financialisation and concentration are increasing inequalities, short-term thinking, pressure on wages, and demands for flexibility, we know the answer:
Fighting for fairer food and hospitality systems strengthening union power and solidarity across borders, across sectors, and within transnational companies.
The #EUQualityJobs package lies ahead of us. It is the main road on which we make our policy demands heard. It is the road on which we continue to mobilise for fair working conditions across subcontracting chains and labour intermediation.
Now is the time to reaffirm the essential call for recognition and respect for domestic workers. Now is the time to demand decent working and housing conditions for seasonal workers and a Common Agriculture Policy that truly delivers for working people.
History teaches us: workers have rights because they raise their voices, united in solidarity. And today, we raise our voice to demand binding laws that protect those who labour in the heat, in the fields, in kitchens, in hotels, and in households, as another summer of heatwaves approaches.
To all EFFAT affiliates, to all workers across our sectors in Europe: this is our moment to make our demands heard. This is the moment to fight back. The agenda is clear. The determination is there.
Together, we will build the Europe of workers that we deserve.
Happy First of May!
Enrico Somaglia, EFFAT Secretary General
