On Monday, we celebrate Workers’ Day. It used to be a celebration which was circumscribed to workers’ representatives and left-wing parties. It is no longer the case and, in fact, has not been the case for decades.

Many claim fatherhood of this date but historians seem to agree that the date was chosen by the American Federation of Labour to commemorate a general strike in the US, which had begun on May 1, 1886.

This was followed by initiatives of the Marxist International Socialist Congress to establish May 1 as International Workers’ Day. The Roman Catholic Church, in furtherance of its social teaching, also started to celebrate Workers’ Day.

A question worth asking is whether Workers’ Day is today passé. But when one notes the various forms of exploitation, and even modern slavery, that many people are subjected to, there is no doubt that Workers’ Day is still very relevant.

We can look beyond our shores and note the incidence of child labour, the various forms of human trafficking and the precarious conditions that workers are subjected to. We can also look within our shores and note the working conditions and pay of immigrant workers.

For a long period of time, several countries sought to improve the plight of workers, in response to trade union demands as well as to electorate expectations. Many of us may not know that demands for a universal eight-hour working day started 119 years ago, in 1904. Again, it was the International Socialist Congress that came out with this demand.

Prior to that, in 1869, the US president had issued a proclamation to guarantee eight-hour workdays for government employees. The idea of the 40-hour week was introduced in the 1920s.

In our country, we take these things for granted as we do a number of other working conditions like paid vacation leave and paid sick leave. We also have some add-ons like paid study leave, and legislation demands that employers are responsible for the health and safety of their employees at the workplace.

However, workers in other countries do not enjoy the working conditions we enjoy, and it is also true that some groups of employees in Malta do not have such benefits. The fact such employees are not Maltese does not mean that they are not entitled to them while they are working in this country.

One aspect that was sought to be addressed through the celebration of Workers’ Day was income inequalities. Workers were paid a pittance while business owners raked in the millions. The answer to this was an element of redistribution of income and the creation of a welfare system through taxation. The concept of the minimum wage was also introduced, even if we need to accept that within the EU, there are countries where there is no minimum wage.

Within the EU, there are countries where there is no minimum wage

Admittedly, income inequalities did decrease over the years but subsequent economic and financial crises reversed that trend, and the difference between higher incomes and lower incomes started to widen again. This happened in Malta as well, as the so-called Gini coefficient shows.

As such, there should be no doubt that the issues that had characterised Workers’ Day in the past are still with us today. I get the feeling that since its origins, we made giant steps forward but, in recent years, we have made some steps backwards.

Will Workers’ Day still be relevant tomorrow? That is indeed a very pertinent question to debate as it strikes at the heart of the ‘future of work’, the phrase coined by the International Labour Organisation some 10 years ago. Some describe the future of work as something very rosy, while others describe it in very negative terms. Either way, Workers’ Day will continue to remain very relevant.

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