 Hello and welcome to the May Day special episode of the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you stories of news developments from across the world, our headlines. On May Day, working class movements across the world resolved to continue struggling. Amazon and other delivery sector workers in the US on strike on May Day. The International Labour Organization warns of worldwide job losses, calls on governments to protect workers and Cuban embassy in the US attacked by unknown gunmen. Now first story, today is May 1st on International Workers Day, when the workers of the world celebrate the victories and struggles of the past and renew their commitment to fight for a better and more just world. This May Day takes place in unprecedented circumstances, where the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their ability to organize on the streets, even as governments and employers attack their rights. However, the workers of the world are determined to fight back and protect their rights. In our May Day special episode, we bring you voices from trade unions across the world of organizations and activists, resisting capitalism and anti-worker policies. First from India, we have Dr. K. Hemlata, the President of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions. She talks about the way protests are still being held despite the lockdown and what are the key demands of workers. From what we can all estimate, from what it seems that the condition is not going to get better anytime soon and it is the working class which is going to keep suffering the more. So in this situation, what protest actions have been organized by C2? What are they planning to do in the future? And what are the demands that are being put forward? Actually, we have already started. On 21st April, we had an all India protest team. The demand is one. At that time, this demand has come up. The government is thinking of increasing the working hours. That was one of the major demands. But in addition to that, this is a cash transfer of 7,500. No retrenchment, payment of wages, and then protective equipment, gloves, masks, etc. to the frontline health workers and all the needy. Taking care of the migrant workers, providing them shelter, providing them food, etc. All these were the major demands. The slogan was Bhashan Nahi Reshen Singh. For the peasants, it is time for the harvest. They don't have money for the harvesting. They don't have money for the transfer of their products to the cities, transport, etc. So with these demands, we organized a protest demonstration all over the country like maintaining physical distance and maintaining all the guidelines under lockdown. People stand with the placards showing these demands and the flags in their hands. And at 10.30 in their own houses along with their family members or wherever possible, the union offices or the SCITU offices like that. We have asked them to stand and raise their voice. Because still now they have been hearing a lot of Bhashan, a lot of advices. They have practiced that. Now it is time that their voices need to be heard and for 10 minutes they have given slogan. And the response was beyond our expectation in all the 22 states in the country except of course where we have our present CITU. In Tripura, the government did not allow the threatened of vindictive actions, etc. But everywhere including Jammu and Kashmir to all the states around 55,000 centers this was held and in more than 400 districts. Out of the 718 districts in the country, this program was held in 408 districts in the country more than 55,000 places and approximately 5 lakh people have participated. This was means beyond totally our expectation within a short notice. Through social media, through telephone they have communicated and they have responded. And again on May day we said that with this no wage cuts, no retransmen, no 12-hour works tax the rich, tax the super rich and save the poor. Today the super rich even the wealth tax was removed in 2016-17 union budget by the BJP government. So even if you restore the wealth tax, if you tax the 953 people who are billionaires whose minimum wealth is more than 5000 crores even you tax these people the government can definitely allot around 10% of the GDP for the meeting this situation. It is not impossible. Instead of doing that the government is cutting on the DA of the central government employees they are withholding the dearness elements increase the dearness elements up to 2021 July. They are asking the government employees to pay including the retirees, pensioners also. So the government is pushing the entire burden on the common people not the super rich and the IRS officers who have suggested that they should tax the rich, the super rich and action has been taken against them three of their senior leaders of the IRS association they have been charged, treated including their general secretary. So this is the attitude of the government. So on May day also we have decided with these slogans we will similarly organize in a wider scale and in the coming days also we have to think about we can't go on keeping silent when the government goes on attacking the workers and their rights. So despite the lockdown we have evolved measures and how to express our people's anxieties and voice their demands and in the coming days definitely we have to unite. In the 21st program we have appealed to the Kisan suburb to the Agricultural Workers Union women and so many other sections students youth etc and everybody responded. So this time also the call has been given along with the other trade unions not only CITU, AITUC, INTUC, HMS and the other trade unions also have joined together in giving this form of protest on May day. Their own flags, they will carry their own flags and these demands, common demands and in their offices and houses maintaining the physical distancing not the social distancing. We want social unity and not the social distance. So maintaining physical distance, unitedly voicing our demands we have decided to raise our protest. Thank you for joining us today and that's all the time we have keep watching news click and people's response. The world's largest lockdown is in place in India even as the government and key capitalists have been suggesting steps to increase working hours. We next speak to Patrick Correa of the CGT Metal Workers Union in France on organizing in the time of the pandemic. The CGT was in the forefront of the historic protests in France over President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms. Correa talks about the kind of solidarity that is emerging nationally and internationally at this time. Could you talk a bit about the sort of solidarity actions that workers unions, workers organizations have been conducting in France to basically help their fellow comrades at this time of need? Well, solidarity is really important at the moment if that's true but I think the main concerns about the fact that the solidarity is to provide at the moment all the basic needs that our members have to get when they go to work like masks, gel, gloves, and so our project is to give them what they should have and also our support during this crisis. So there's a solidarity also between our workers among themselves actually during this crisis and what's shown this crisis is that actually even if we are locked down and we are separated from all of our comrades we have never been talking so much actually. We talk, we use the new ways of communication like we are using today to communicate a lot and exchange a lot. So we have never been such a good communication and exchange of information between our workers actually and this is even between workers that have never talked to each other from different companies from different sectors but that's the kind of solidarity we act in actually we have a solidarity we show is also about the protect the migrants that come to France. We are trying to get measures to protect them because they are locked in this situation. We are trying to protect the person that actually in the streets we are confronting the COVID-19. We are trying to provide food in some areas where they don't get food where they have no money or no access to the supermarket we are trying to do everything we can at the local level to help them at the national level to organize what should be the role of states to fulfill the basic needs of all the citizens and population of this country. And finally it's a larger question so one of the key challenges both right now and in the coming months for trade unions will be on organizing itself. How do you organize at a time when people are maybe a bit more scared to come out in rallies or big processions and marches? How do you do meetings? So what are the kind of ideas that you in the CGT have been thinking about regarding how to engage workers both right now and in the immediate months? Well actually we are talking about May Day. May Day is an important day for all the working class around the world especially in France. It's a really important day for us as a union. We do the first time ever but we are not able to rally in the streets of Paris. We are in the street that's the first time ever. So you see this is just crazy so we have to find new ways of protecting, acting and we have been very, very active in the very communication networks. We are using Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp all these different systems to communicate and now tomorrow I say all our members are encouraged to put leaflets in front of their class, home to protest and about the actual situation. Our health is more important than their money. So that's the main message we want to address to be our politics and the employers and capital at the moment. So yes, what I told you is that this crisis shows that we have the capacity to even be more efficient. We have tools but we have not been using them properly and now we are using them and we can see we can be even more efficient than capital itself when you're using them correctly. So I'm looking after the international issues in Metalworkers Federation. I've never been so in contact with all my comrades around the world and especially in Europe. We are exchanges every day by Skype on the situation, different companies and the situation of the countries, what are their problems, how can we help them. So we have never been talking so much. I think that's the way to deal about internationalism. It's about a way to build an international struggle against the capital by communicating and we are not being communicating enough. And you're talking about organizing. That's a key problem at the moment. When workers are not working, this is difficult. So we have been trying to organize many meetings as we can. We are providing many information as we can because the workers that are actually teleworking they have no information from their companies. We are trying to send them any information. They can get all the advice we can deliver them. We're trying to do so. And in the companies, well, even when the companies where they are working, our delegates are there. They are there with the worker. They are just close to the workers every day. So many of our delegates are actually in hospitals because they have been working with our members. We don't care because we have to do so. That's our duty to be close to them and help them every day. That's the way of organizing, too. And the capital that we are trying to do is to use these health measures from the government to lock down, to forbidden the access to the companies. We have been to a court and the court said the TGT has been banned from many companies because they said we cannot go into the company because of health issues. The court recognized the fact that our delegates, our members, have the right to go inside the company. So what we are trying to do and we have a duty when we are in the company is to condemn, to go to court to tell them you don't respect health and safety measures. Thank you so much, Patrick, for talking to us. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Take care. And here is a message from the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa which has been in the forefront of some of the most militant labor struggles of recent times against the neoliberal policies of the Cyril Ramaphosa government. NUMSA Press Statement dated 1st May 2020, NUMSA May Day Statement. For the first time in decades, the bulk of the working class in South Africa is forced to celebrate workers' day behind closed doors at home and are unable to fully commemorate this day the way we are used to because of the coronavirus pandemic. This deadly virus has swept through the globe, infecting millions of people. So far, over three million people have been infected and over 200,000 have perished. Our members are experiencing extreme hardship at this time. Brutal employers have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to downvary conditions and restructure. Some workers have been forced to endure the lockdown with no money as no work, no pay policies are implemented. Others have forcibly had their leave days deducted whilst some might have to prepare for mass retrenchments after the lockdown. At the same time, employers are cutting corners on health and safety, demanding that workers return to work when they've done very little to prepare the workplace to prevent further COVID-19 infections. The working class is enduring a relentless and violent attack from the bosses. As numsa, in the short term, what we must do is we must be uncompromising in our demands for a safe, sanitised workspace and at the same time, we must continue to make demands for a living wage. The coronavirus pandemic has shown us that it is the lowest paid workers, the essential workers who are actually driving the battle against this virus. And going forward, a united working class is the only weapon capable of destroying this corrupt and brutal capitalist system which is responsible for the suffering of the masses and which continues to breed inequality, poverty and unemployment. It's time for the working class to stop surrendering its power to butchers and for it to lead and drive an agenda for genuine transformation in its own interests and for the benefit of society at large. The time will come when the masses will take power for themselves and in so doing, it will finally be able to undo the great injustice of the apartheid system and capitalism and create a just society where the wealth of the nation is used to benefit all and not just the elite. The statement was issued on behalf of Comrade Ovenchim, the NUMSA General Secretary, for more information, please contact Pagami Lechibi Majola, NUMSA National Sportsperson. In our next story, we go to the United States where delivery and warehouse workers have walked out of work as part of a countrywide campaign today for better workplace safety and increased pay. Employees of major companies such as Amazon, FedEx and Walmart among others will call in sick at their workplaces as part of the protest. Warehousing and delivery workers in the US are considered part of essential services that are required to remain open. Workers have been complaining of unsafe conditions during the outbreak and the lack of measures to protect their wages and jobs. In a report by The Intercept, Daniel Steinbroek, an employee at one of Amazon's subsidiaries, Whole Foods, sets that the workers at Amazon and its subsidiary, along with workers from other major companies like Instagart and Target, are striking in a show of workers' solidarity. They also pointed out that the fight is for all essential workers, better protection and benefits during the time of the pandemic. Amazon in particular has been criticized by workers for not following necessary safety measures that need to be taken up during the pandemic and for the lack of transparent policy over the spread of the disease among workers. We talked to Chris Smalls, who was fired from Amazon last month shortly after he raised the issue of the lack of safety measures at the company's center in Staten Island in New York. Smalls is one of the key organizers of today's protest. Chris, thank you so much for talking to us. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Could you first talk about what was the origin of this walkout protest? Because this has become quite a big protest. Major companies across the world, their employees are involved in this. Could you tell us a bit about the organizing that went around it and what are the key demands? Absolutely. Thank you for having me. For the last couple of weeks, we've seen a number of different protests and strikes all across the country regarding health and safety concerns. After my termination, my first walkout a month ago, there's been other buildings and other people, other employees from other companies that's been willing to speak up on this matter. So what I decided to do was form an alliance between all these companies, all these entities because we all have one common goal. We put aside who we work for because we all have one common goal to protect our health and our safety. So I've been orchestrating these conference calls every week, formulating a plan that led to May 1st, which is tomorrow's walkout. And that's what we've been doing. We're just mobilizing to our voices I heard and our demands are met. Our demands are simple. We just want to be retro-paid for all the unpaid time that we were forced to use the entire month of March. We want every building that has a case to be shut down and professionally sanitized. We want the companies to be honest and transparent at all times, how many cases are in these buildings. And most importantly, we want to have our PPE provided at all times and sanitation items provided at all times by the company and for the company to make sure that they follow through with this. That's pretty much that. And Chris, let's talk a bit about Amazon itself. You were working with Amazon from 2015 and you were actually supervising quite a few employees as well. Could you take us through what happened when you raised some of these concerns and what was the response of the management? Yeah, when I started to raise concerns, it was pretty much no response. It was business as usual. At the time when I first started, there was no confirmed cases in the building where I worked. So they were really nonchalant about it. That forced me to send out emails to the health department, to the CDC department, to the state government of New York department. When I didn't receive responses, that's when I started to mobilize a walkout. But what led up to that is the fact that I sat in a building for an entire week starting on March 24th off the clock on my own free will, raising my concerns to the general manager's office every single day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, March 28th, that's Saturday, the day they quarantine me. I sat in the cafeteria for eight hours a day with a number of associates every single day voicing my concerns because we were working or exposed to somebody who tested positive. When we didn't get any answers and they kept giving us a bunch of excuses, that's when I started to take further action. In the interim period, there have been many more cases of people resigning as well of Amazon taking further action. And I think the latest numbers collected by independent sources show that there are over 600 cases in various Amazon facilities. You have put out a tweet today regarding that. So could you talk a bit about at the national level what has been the company's response also? Because we do know that Amazon executive discussed your case and they prepared points to assassinate your character to talk ill about you and said that we'll go for a standard response. Right. Yeah, that's the thing. If I wasn't telling the truth, that meeting that they were talking about me would have never existed. But we all know what type of people they are now. They've been exposed and it's not good. It looks bad on the end and it's a shame. They don't care about employees' health and safety. They rather worry about me, Christian Smalls. But it's never going to be Amazon versus Christian Smalls. It's going to be Amazon versus the people. That's why more people are starting to speak up. That's why there's been more strikes and walkouts over the past couple of weeks. In response to companies being retaliating against everybody that speak up and they've been terminating them. But that's not the right response. And that's why we continue to mobilize and we're going to do that again tomorrow or May 1st. In the meanwhile, the International Labour Organization has published its report, COVID-19 and the World of Work on the eve of May Day. The report's third edition asks the governments world over to take proactive social security and relief measures to protect the most vulnerable sections of their working class as they see a massive rise in unemployment and job loss. According to the UN body, 1.6 billion workers employed mostly in the informal economy are facing the risk of loss of employment in the short and medium term. This is almost half of the total estimated workforce in the world. Such job losses are a direct impact of the economic disruption caused by the containment measures imposed by different governments. According to the report, 68% of workers across the globe are living in countries where these lockdowns have been mandated, making most of them vulnerable to losing wages or jobs and other fiscal shocks. In our final story in the early hours of Thursday, a terrorist attack was perpetrated against a Cuban embassy in the U.S. in Washington. According to a statement by the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez, an unknown man shot several times at the embassy's building using an assault rifle. At the time of the attack, 10 Cuban officials and diplomats were inside the building. None of the diplomatic officials or any other staff members were injured. The attacker was arrested by local authorities at the scene and is currently in their custody. Cuban Foreign Minister condemned the attack and urged the U.S. government to fulfill the responsibilities attributed to it in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and ensured the safety and security of Cuban diplomatic staff in its mission. The minister called for greater cooperation from the U.S. authorities in clarifying the facts and guaranteeing that such incidents would not be repeated or go unpunished. He said that the Cuban government awaited the investigation by the U.S. government authorities on the identity and motivations of the perpetrator as well as under circumstances surrounding the act. That's all we have in this episode of National Daily Roundup. To know more about these stories visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thanks for watching.