The Network would like to take this opportunity on May Day 2010 to renew our solidarity with fellow workers in Asia and everywhere in the world. We have come a long way from demanding an 8-hour workday, but even as we step into a world more globalized than any other time in history, workers everywhere continue to face other types of challenges.

As the market expands, so has market competition. Multinational corporations exert their presence in local market, forcing small medium national industries to be subjected to unprecedented and often, unfair competition. workers, especially in many parts of Asia, continue to face unhealthy work environments, unemployments and retrenchments. Workers today also have to uproot themselves from their homelands to foreign countries in search of employments. They are exposed to various formal and informal oppressions and continue to be ignored both by their home Governments and host Countries.

The unregulated global financial sector, a result of unfettered capitalism in the name of freedom, has brought about dire consequences to the world economy. Yet, Governments of the world continue to ignore the lessons learnt; more and more Asian countries are becoming parties to loop-sided free trade agreements, thus exposing workers and national industries to the negative impacts of powerful foreign multinationals entering into local economies. As the world is struggling to emerge out of its latest economic crisis, workers become the first victims and the last to be offered consolations.

Comrades, more than ever, our unity is crucial for our survival. Let us persist and march on to build a better world for ourselves and the human race.

Happy International Workers Day!

Steven Sim
Executive Secretary
01 MAY 2010

(Photo source: Malaysiakini)