- Last Sunday, May 1st was held, and in the press the following day the headlines agreed that the protests have been limited by the pandemic and the trade union division. It is true that the pandemic is a new limit, although for the second consecutive year. But the trade union division is not new.
The streets of Euskal Herria have shown again on May 1 what is already tradition since the arrival of a supposed “democracy”. Every union with its flags, its schedule, its trajectory and its slogans. Far from this model are those First of May that were hidden in the time of Franco, where we appeared united.
This traditional post-Francoist union reality naturally limits the presence of demonstrators. There are thousands of people who are not unionized and are not interested in one block or another, one flag or another. Injustice, inequality, precariousness, deaths at work, lack of sovereignty… want to oppose all of that, because they are issues that affect all workers. They do not, however, because they do not want a block or a flag in the face of this situation.
Does that mean that on 1 May all trade unions and workers should appear together? In my opinion, until there are unified union policies in the face of the emergency situations experienced by workers in factories and workplaces, it would be a fraud and a hypocrisy to demonstrate that day together. The streets of Euskal Herria, for the umpteenth time, once again reflected a sad union reality, from which much prominence, dogmatism and bureaucracy would have to be eliminated.