A Different May Day

This is another souvenir from Rome. This poster really drew my attention. It's in Italian but basically it is a poster to commemorate this year May Day. It tells about the huge number of working accidents resulted in injury or even deaths of labours in Italy.

Anyway, this is a very different May Day for me. In Switzerland actually May Day has not been an official national holiday, but few companies do let their employees to have a day off during May Day. Thank God that ICJ does, although the Secretary General and some of his staff still come to the office responding to their tremendous workload. But seems it feels kind of strange to have a holiday on May Day but you just staying at our tiny apartment, instead of marching out in the streets with thousands of labours like I did for the last three May Days I have in Jakarta (I missed those things so much!). Seems like I started to think like those corporation, thinking that May Day is not a holiday, its just that if a labour involve on a rally instead of working, he or she would not be considered as absent. But that's not the idea; labours are entitled to a holiday on May Day as an appreciation to their rights and their role in the society.

I found that no labour, demonstration, protest or rallies in the streets of Switzerland, or at least in Geneva. Is this means that all labours rights here are fulfilled so they have nothing to protest for? I don’t know.

As for Indonesia, I think labours still had a long way to go to pursue their rights. The exploitation of subcontract and outsourcing labours, the sexual and reproductive rights for female labour, the standard minimum wage that is way beyond the realistic minimum needs, the discrimination of employment, the compulsory extra long working hours, and a whole lot more.