 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes. Today we want to wish you a happy International Workers Day. Every year, on May 1st, Communist parties, trade unions, and all sections of the working class across the world come together to celebrate International Workers Day. The day honors the struggles of generations of workers and pays homage to comrades who have sacrificed their lives for a better world. The story of May Day begins in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the peak of the Industrial Revolution, factories were booming and capitalists were flourishing. But for the millions of workers who produced all this wealth, it seemed the choice was between stark poverty or death. Across the world, workers refused to accept this choice. Throughout the 19th century, their movements grew in strength. In 1848, Karl Marx gave the iconic call. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all countries unite. In the following decades, workers' organizations became a powerful force worldwide. In 1884, a countrywide movement was called for by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. The slogan was eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will. The struggle was to begin May 1st, 1886, in Chicago. Mass protests were carried out on May 1st and 2nd. But on May 3rd, the police attacked and killed picketing workers at the McCormick Reaper Plant. On May 4th, a bomb exploded at the protest gathering to condemn the police brutality. Using this pretext, police opened fire again, killing four workers. August spies, Adolf Fischer, George Engel, and Albert Parsons were hanged on charges of involvement in the bomb explosion. The cause of the eight-hour workday continued to inspire workers. The 2nd International called for global mobilization on May 1st, 1890, for the eight-hour workday. This was the first May Day celebration. In the following years and to this day, May Day mobilizations see working-class movements lead the struggle for peace, equality, democracy, and labor rights. Today, workers' struggle is of utmost importance. The past several years have seen a deepening of the capitalist crisis with an onslaught of neoliberal policies. Across the world, governments have made massive public sector cuts, significantly rolled back on progressive labor legislation, and there has been a rapid growth of the informal economy where workers have no guaranteed rights. This situation of precarity and flexibilization has only gotten worse over the last year with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some governments have even taken advantage of the pandemic to further attack workers and their rights. However, as workers have been doing for hundreds of years, delivery drivers, fast food workers, care workers, sanitation workers, healthcare workers, and the unemployed workers have not remained quiet. The intensification of inequality, worsening of conditions, and clear unsustainability of the capitalist system have driven millions globally to organize and demand that their rights be respected. Today, we bring you two highlights of such protests from the last year. In Indonesia, tens of thousands took to the streets of Jakarta, Bandung, and other major cities in October 2020 to protest the omnibus law passed by the government on October 5th. The protests were organized by a coalition of trade unions, student groups, and environmental activists to oppose the omnibus law, which would bring sweeping changes to over 79 existing laws concerning labor, environment, private investments, and other areas. In terms of labor legislation, the law took out major protections for minimum wages, paid leaves, and severance pay. The law completely does away with sectoral minimum wages in favor of localized minimum wage standards set by provincial and regional governors. The law also takes out significant environmental regulations and limits on polluting industries and brings down the number of sectors barred from private investments from 300 to a mere six. The government responded with brutal repression to the mass protests, attempting to silence the dissent. In the first week of the protests in October, over 6,000 people were detained, of whom several hundred were slapped with criminal charges. Hundreds were injured in the crackdown, and several cases of attacks against journalists were also registered. While the protests did not result in the repeal of the omnibus law, it marked the resurgence of social movements in revolutionary trade union organizing in the country that suffered the almost complete annihilation of leftist organizations in 1965. In the United States, workers across the country organized national mobilizations to demand a raise in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Most of these workers are employed in fast food chains like McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King, who pay anywhere between $7 to $9 per hour. The campaign Fight for 15 has been organizing low income workers since its inception in 2012 in a struggle to hike minimum wage levels in the United States. The last time that the federal minimum wage was hiked was in 2009 and has remained unchanged at $7.25 per hour. The Economic Policy Institute released a report in January 2021 which estimated that passing the $15 minimum wage would mean a wage hike for nearly 32 million workers representing 21% of the U.S. workforce. It also estimated that 59% of the workers with family incomes below the poverty line would also receive a significant raise in their incomes. Workers had organized a national strike just before U.S. Congress was set to vote on the pandemic relief plan. The $15 minimum wage hike had been a campaign promise of Joe Biden and was part of the pandemic relief plan. However, on February 25th, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the provision and administration stimulus plan to raise the minimum wage had to be removed from the bill. Despite this setback, workers have continued to organize and mobilize to achieve this necessary demand. While the pandemic will prevent many from taking to the streets and avenues in traditional fashion on this International Workers' Day, it is clear that it has far from defeated the will of the working class to fight for their dignity and for their rights. That's all we have time for and keep watching People's Dispatch.