May Day

All across the world today, people have come together to protest for worker's rights. In countries other than America, May Day is International Worker's Day or Labor Day.

In an age of ever more unemployment, I feel like May Day this year is particularly necessary. I took place in one of the demonstrations in my area and found that this May Day has come right in time for everyone across the nation to show solidarity with immigrant workers in Arizona. CIR or Comprehensive Immigration Reform (reform that urges law makers to handle the illegal immigration situation in American with a focus on Human Rights) floated around a lot today, and I think that with this new bill in Arizona, CIR is ever more important.

Not every protest today was peaceful, however. In Greece's protests turned violent because of the current and very serious economic crisis happening in the country. The protests were to fighting against wage decreases and pension reductions as Greek tries to deal with it $400 billion dollar debt. In addition, the protests were trying to keep Greece from accepting loans from the IMF and the EU. This article reports that protestors were yelling, "No to the IMF's junta!"

Other protests happened all over Europe and the New York Times has some neat pictures in their slide show including this one below.

More emphasis on worker's rights is always necessary throughout the world, and strong May Day demonstrations are one small, but important, step in that direction.