Happy may day everyone….

A day to celebrate the workers of the world, the poorly paid, those in dangerous jobs, those who provide the pampered west with the trinkets that we consider so important, whose work is virtual slavery for international conglomerates that care only for the bottom line, not for conditions on the production line.  It’s a day to remember those in the caring professions who strive to keep our society civilised in spite of the best efforts of thoughtless bean counters who hamstring them with pointless box-ticking, targets and performance indicators.  Remember too those who have never had a union to fight their corner, who cope daily with dangerous working conditions, long hours and lousy health provision.  Remember that unions were a direct response to the fact that capitalism unrestrained cares not a jot for those whose sweat and labour creates the wealth, that only by standing shoulder to shoulder can the workers of the world combat the inherent inhumanity of the system.

Most of all, ignore capitalism’s cheer leaders, the jeremiah’s of the press who would have you believe that the only wealth creators are captains of industry, entrepreneurs and bankers.  Without the sweat of the toiling worker they would be nothing.  Without a billion examples a day of initiative, problem solving and going the extra mile from those they belittle as mere manual labour, they would be nothing.

Reclaim and celebrate May Day because it belongs to anyone who has worked hard just to keep body and soul together, to put food on the table and to clothe a family.  It belongs  those who have swung an axe, wielded a shovel, held the hand of a dying patient, taught a kid to read, built a car, stopped a crime, put out a fire, milked a cow, braised and welded and bolted together the parts that others have forged and pressed and moulded, swept the streets, cleaned a ward, mentored an ex-offender, picked broccoli in the freezing cold and a million other noble tasks beside.  Workers of the world, unite.