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The labour movements sprouting all around the globe is an example of the overwhelming desire of the people for an alternative structure.
The pagan holiday which turned into the worker’s day to commemorate the Haymarket affair should be the starting point of a new movement which now the world desperately needs. The virus which tormented the global economy has caused the proletariat of the world to remember that the class struggle is still an unfinished business. Unsurprisingly, the people who have suffered the most during the pandemic were the workers. The misery and agony of the working class transcended the national boundaries. The visuals of the struggle of the labour class in the US, who are incapable of getting proper treatment and basic necessities have shook the world. In India also, it is the labour class who got strangled on the streets and languished under the bridge without proper food and water supply. The picture of the laborers in other parts of the world is also grim.
Irrespective of colour, culture and country, the workers are chained to the lower rungs of the society. The cardinal demand of 8 hours a day for work and the rest for rest and entertainment since the Marxian period is still a pipe dream for the working class. The avarice of capitalism are using the euphemisms such as gig economy, unskilled labour and much more jargons to keep the wage beyond bargain. Hence the workers who are involved in physical labour are obliged to perform multiple jobs for more than twelve hours a day to keep their heads above water.
Even before this pandemic hit the shores of the globe, the workers all around the world were distressed. The vexation of the proletariat has frequently spilled over to the streets during the past couple of years. The number of striking workers ballooned to nearly 500,000 in 2018, up from about 25,000 in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gilets jaunes and UAW strikes have obviously made the capitalist forces whistle in the dark. The call for strikes and shutdowns were crisscrossing the globe before the virus breakdown. The congenial companions of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) were blowing the stock market calculations.
The asset bubbles and the incomparable wealth differences have pushed the world and society out of its symmetry. No sane theory or logic could buttress the concept of 1% cornering the lion’s share of the wealth in its coffers. Laughably, even when that bubble bursts, it is still the bottom rung which suffers. Notably, after the great recession 1.2 million lost their households and pushed to streets, even a new nomenclature ‘couch surfing’ became a part of American colloquialism. Whereas, the key figures of the Lehman Brothers, the bankers who gambled with the life of millions are still millionaires.
The minority on the top need to realise that the pressure is mounting up at the bottom. The labour movements sprouting all around the globe is an example of the overwhelming desire of the people for an alternative structure. One more May day has arrived. Albeit, the people are unable to throng with red banners and black flags on the streets, the movement is still coming. Because when exploitation becomes a right for the rich, only a revolution is left for the poor.
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