The Vice President Industrial Global Union Comrade Issa Aremu has enjoined all workers of the world on the occasion of this years May Day to hold the event indoors and virtually.
The Vice President who represents Africa on the Executive Committee of Industriall Global Union founded in Copenhagen, Denmark on 19 June 2012 says it’s the first time a virtual celebration will hold in 8 years.
In his statement sent to Control TV, Comrade Aremu
Said May Day which will normally hold on the streets through solidarity matches and protests will not meet the traditional displays because of the coronavirus.
According to him “In 130 years of May Day celebration, this year’s is the most precarious, in a global lock down! In 1980, PRP state governments in Kaduna and Kano under Governors Balarabe Musa and late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi respectively progressively declared May Day a public holiday. In 1981 following the agitation of NLC led by its pioneer President, Hassan Sunmonu, President Shehu Shagari declared first of May, public holiday to celebrate dignity of labour. In the past 40 years (and during my 35 years of trade unionism), this is the first May Day without open manifestations by workers world wide. No thanks to COVID: 19 pandemic!
Global Outlook:
Globally, 3,147,626 Coronavirus Cases had been reported, with 218,187 deaths. In America alone, coronavirus cases passed the 1 million mark and deaths almost doubled Africa’s at 58,220, (more than lives lost in the Vietnam War!) according to Johns Hopkins University. In Africa, there have been 34,924 Confirmed coronavirus cases, Confirmed 1,529 coronavirus deaths and 11,336 recoveries. In Nigeria, as at Wednesday, there were 1532 confirmed cases, 255 recoveries and 44 deaths.
Kano, an industrial city raises a specter of pandemic within a pandemic. This is NOT the time for blame game. Needed is solidarity to safe lives and livelihoods. All Nigerians must rise in solidarity with Kano people and government to stop the scourge of mass deaths. We commend the interventions of the Federal government in Kano.
The dead and recoveries are not just numbers but fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers , health and medical, media workers, factory and service workers, statesmen, government officials, sportsmen and women, musicians with shortened aspirations. Collapse of livelihoods stares the living through closures of factories, loss of jobs and incomes deepening poverty.
Is virtual May Day a passing fad or a new normal? Physical distancing affects mass rallies as much as it affects any mass gatherings of workforce. The world of work can hardly be the same again. Smart work or hardworking? Home working or industrial work? Formal or informal work? We live to work or work to live? . ILO centenary last year agonized about all the above questions but it takes an ubiquitous Virus to compel urgent answers today.
I salute all comrades and affiliates in all sectors of our continent in the struggle and resistance against this ubiquitous deadly opportunistic disease negatively impacting lives, jobs and well being. Happily our global union gives the tools of the struggle against endemic exploitation in the world of work no less than a deadly COVID :19, (even though nobody imagined the scale of this Virus menace). Immediate task is defense of workers’ rights. First thing first: the right to life! Before the vaccine is obtained, it’s time for personal and industrial hygiene. Physical distancing without stigmatization! Obedience of advice by public health authorities. Then mass education of workers that COVID :19 is real not a joke but life and death as President Muhammadu Buhari had repeated in his broadcasts.
(C) Control TV 2020.
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