May Day is first and foremost a day for workers. It is a moment to recognise what has been won through collective struggle, and to remember that every right we have today exists because workers organised for it.

Safer workplaces, living wages, social protection, freedom of association, collective bargaining, and equality at work- none of these came by concession. They were achieved because workers stood together in their unions and fought for change.

This is important to remember at a time when many of those gains are under attack.

Across the world, we are seeing the advance of regressive forces: the far-right, authoritarian politics, corporate greed, militarisation, and those who profit from division and permanent conflict. The same interests that have extracted wealth from workers and nature for decades are now emboldened to dismantle democratic space, weaken trade unions, and sacrifice rights and freedoms to protect their own power.

There should be no illusion about this. When economic privilege is threatened, many are prepared to abandon democratic principles altogether. Workers know this history well.

War, aggression, occupation, and economic coercion do not serve working people. Workers do not benefit from invasions, occupations, sanctions, or geopolitical competition. They pay the price through unemployment, displacement, repression, and insecurity, while others preserve strategic and economic control.

Our answer is collective action.

Our task as workers and trade unions is to strengthen solidarity and collective action to offset the imbalance of power, at the workplace and in society, so that rights can be defended, democracy protected, and a just social order free from exploitation can be achieved. This means resisting attempts to divide workers by nationality, race, migration status, religion, gender or employment status. It means defending the independence of peoples and the right of all societies to develop in peace, dignity, and justice.

It also means strengthening trade union unity and international solidarity. Rights are defended when workers act together across borders and sectors. Those who attack democracy and workers’ rights become weaker when workers stand together and act collectively.

Our Global Union, BWI, is built through international solidarity. It was created from the understanding that workers are stronger when they stand for one another across borders, industries, and political pressures. Our history and every victory we have achieved come from that principle. At a time when rights and freedoms are under renewed attack, that solidarity must be strengthened and defended.

May Day should be a celebration of victories, but also a reminder of responsibility.

No step back on rights.
No step back on democracy.
No step back on peace.

The balance of power will not change by itself. It depends on our capacity to organise, to act together, and to defend what generations before us fought to build.

United we stand. Divided we fall.

Happy May Day.