SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Workers and activists around the world celebrated May Day Monday with marches to demand higher wages, shorter hours and other improvements in their working conditions.
In France, unions were planning to hold massive protests against President Emmanuel Macron’s recent initiative to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Organizers see the pension reform as a threat to France’s hard-fought workers’ rights and social protections.
The pension law sparked the biggest protests in France in years, with the May Day marches expected to be the biggest yet.
May Day is celebrated as Workers’ Day in many countries, with demonstrations and other commemorative events. This year’s events were more attended than in the past, after COVID-19 restrictions were drastically eased and opposition groups focused on how governments’ economic plans will affect workers.
As in previous years, police in Turkey prevented a group of protesters from reaching Istanbul’s main square, Taksim, and detained a dozen protesters, according to independent Sozcu television. Journalists attempting to record protesters being forced into police vans were also repelled or detained.
The square is of symbolic importance to Turkish trade unions after unknown gunmen shot at people celebrating May Day in Taksim in 1977, resulting in a stampede. Dozens of people died.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has banned demonstrations there, leading to frequent clashes between police and protesters trying to reach the square.
Meanwhile, small groups were able to enter Taksim to lay wreaths at a monument.
In South Korea, tens of thousands of people turned out for several rallies, marking the busiest May Day since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Organizers expected the two main demonstrations in the capital, Seoul, to bring together about 30,000 people each.
“The price of everything has increased except for our salaries. Raise our minimum wages!” an activist exclaimed on stage at a Seoul march. “Reduce our working hours!”
Crowds filled the Gwanghwamun neighborhood in central Seoul with anti-government banners, songs and speeches by union leaders. Then they moved through the streets. Seoul police mobilized thousands of officers to maintain order.
Protesters in South Korea accused the conservative government of President Yoon Suk Yeol of persecuting some unions under the guise of reforming alleged wrongdoing. The Yoon government has called for a labor reform with more transparent accounting of unions and an end to alleged illegal practices by some union members and construction workers, such as extortion or pressure companies to hire trade unionists or pay bribes.
In Tokyo, thousands of trade unionists, opposition legislators and academics rallied in Yoyogi Park and demanded wage increases to offset the impact of rising costs while they had yet to recover from the impact of the pandemic on their lives.
In Indonesia, protesters demanded that the government repeal a law to boost employment, which they claimed would benefit companies at the expense of workers and the environment.
For their part, activists in Germany began the day with a march the day before called “Let’s take back the night” organized by feminist and LGBT groups to protest against violence directed against women and members of the LGBT community. Thousands of people turned out for the march, which was mostly peaceful despite occasional skirmishes between participants and police. On Monday there were numerous marches called in the country by unions and left-wing groups.
In North Korea, the country’s main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, published a lengthy editorial urging workers to give more support to leader Kim Jong Un, cover their production quota and improve living conditions for the public.
Kim has called for more public support for his family’s government and calls for creating a stronger, more self-sufficient economy to offset the hardships associated with the pandemic and long-running security tensions with the United States over its nuclear program.
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Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo; Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia; Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Suzan Fraser in Istanbul contributed to this report.
