Celebrate International Workers Day at our May Day march, rally and social for Cuba

We are urging all delegates, union members, families and friends to join our May Day March and Rally on Saturday 2 May to celebrate International Workers Day.

Gather in Rubislaw Terrace from 11am to march along Union Street to Union Terrace Gardens for a rally with a range of political and community speakers.

The march will be a family friendly event led by a pipe band and branches and community activists are urged to bring along their placards, banners and flags.

100 years on from the General Strike of 1926 we gather to celebrate our achievements but also to learn lessons from the intervening years and to recommit to fight for workers' rights both here and across the world.

The Rally will be followed by a social, free to attend with raffle on the day and taking donations in aid of Cuba Vive (https://cubavive.org.uk/) Organised by ATUC and partners it will be held2-4pm Scottish Embassy on Trinity St (Opposite the train station) There will be live music from Callum Michael and the event is open  to all. Come and have a bit of fun after the serious politics.

Tommy Campbell, ATUC President said, "International Workers Day or May Day is a chance for the labour movement across the world to celebrate the core values that trade unionists stand for.

"Workers today continue to face threats on all fronts; the global pandemic, ongoing structural racism and the rise of the far right, ever growing inequality and the climate crisis.

"On May Day we remember we are part of a global movement and our collective power is our greatest strength. One hundred years on from the General Strike there are still huge injustices and inequalities to be eradicated. 

"Too many people stuck on poverty wages, too many women denied equal pay, too many people in our ethnic minority communities whose lives are blighted by discrimination and disadvantage, too many unemployed and millions of workers, especially young workers, suffering the curse of zero hours contracts."

Kate Ramsden, ATUC joint-secretary said: "A hundred years ago trade unions were rooted in the class struggle. Since then unions have faced unremitting political attacks by the state, including on our rights to organise collectively. We have lost membership and power.

"However unions are still the vehicle by which working people can exercise their rights to decent pay, terms and conditions and the latter years of the last Tory government saw unions again taking action and winning.

"We need to build from this and to return to the class politics that served unions so well in the past."