Millions march in May Day rallies

WORKERS around the world held May Day rallies yesterday to press for better factory conditions and higher wages, while activists in the Philippines and Belarus used the holiday to show their opposition to their governments in tense protests watched by police.

About 100,000 workers took to the streets across Indonesia, protesting a labour law that would cut severance packages and introduce more flexible contracts that would chip away at worker security.

“Don’t change the law,” thousands of labourers chanted in downtown Jakarta. Fearing violence, about 13,000 police were deployed, some carrying riot shields and manning water cannons, said police chief Major General Firman Gani said. No incidents were reported.

In Baghdad, about 200 Shi’ites rallied outside the Green Zone to demand that US and Iraqi forces do more to stop insurgent attacks in the capital and help Iraqis who are fleeing their homes because of sectarian violence. Most of the protesters were women dressed in abayas, the full-length black robes worn by devout Muslim women.

More than a million people rallied in May Day protests across Europe, with German unions taking aim at corporate greed, the French far-right marching from a statue of Joan of Arc and Russian communists honouring Lenin and Marx.

In Istanbul, a protest by demonstrators denouncing the International Monetary Fund and the US turned violent, with police firing pepper spray and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

In Zurich, police fired tear gas and rubber pellets at hundreds of rock-throwing demonstrators.

In Belarus, about 2,000 opposition supporters marched in Minsk in a show of defiance, days after the authoritarian government of President Alexander Lukashenko tried to stop a series of demonstrations by throwing protest leaders in jail.

In the Philippines, government troops and police with batons and shields turned away hundreds who tried to approach the presidential palace to demand a wage increase and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s ouster.