26 April 2018
We, the working people of Cyprus, honor Worker’s May Day this year too as the international day of struggle and solidarity of the working people.
We honor the pioneering heroes of the 1886 uprising in Chicago, who through their sacrifices became a shining example and a guiding beacon of the struggles of the international working class.
We pay homage to the pioneering and vanguard workers of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot worker's movement, who through the waging of common fierce class struggles won fundamental gains for the working class of Cyprus, such as social insurance, an 8 working day and the right to organize workers into trade unions.
This year’s May Day finds workers across the world facing imperialist interventions and wars, the exacerbation of social inequalities, the vicious consequences of the capitalist crisis and attacks on worker’s rights.
We denounce in the strongest possible terms the brutal interventions of the imperialist forces that are continuing and intensifying in the region of the Middle East, and which are seeking to gain control of the rich resources, spreading death, destruction and the uprooting of thousands of people into refugees.
We express our international solidarity with the working people of Syria, Palestine and all the peoples struggling for peace, justice and labour rights.
In our homeland, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are suffering from the consequences of neo-liberal policies, a fact which highlights even more the common class interests of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers and the need to intensify the struggles and solidarity between them.
In these harsh socio-economic conditions the solution of the Cyprus problem remains a priority and an urgent need.
For the workers of Cyprus international Worker’s May Day is also a day to reaffirm our commitment to the struggle for the solution of the Cyprus problem and for the reunification of our country and people.
We remain firmly committed to a bicommunal, bizonal federal solution for a united state with a single sovereignty, a single citizenship, a single international personality with the political equality of the two communities, as described in relevant UN decisions.
Bi-communal talks are the only way to reach an agreement between the two communities and for a solution that will reunify Cyprus and make it a free, independent and demilitarized common homeland of all Cypriots.
The suspension of the talks and the stalemate which the Cyprus problem finds itself today is not only unproductive, but also extremely dangerous. This stagnation is to the detriment of the Cypriot people as a whole.
We urge the two leaders to rise to the occasion and by adopting a creative approach to proceed as soon as possible to the resumption of the negotiation procedure with the safeguarding of the convergences achieved to date within the framework outlined by the UN Secretary-General Mr. Guterres at Crans Montana.
At the same time, we call on Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to rally around the class-based trade union movement of our country and united to fight together against austerity and labour deregulation policies, against privatizations and the dismantling of the welfare state.
We call on them to promote common class struggles to defend the labour and social gains handed down to us by the vanguard Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot trade unionists.
The organizers PEO, DEV-IS, KTAMS, KTOS, KTOEOS, BES and KOOP-SEN, DAU-SEN, all affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) are organizing yet another year under the slogan "We insist: Solution, Reunification, Social Justice" the International Worker’s Day Celebration on 1 May at 7.30 p.m. in the Buffer Zone opposite Ledra Palace. The mass meeting will be preceded by pre-gatherings and marches to the venue where the joint event will take place. In the south, the pre-meeting will take place at 6.00 p.m. outside the Finance Ministry and in the north at Kyrenia Gate.
Through the joint celebration of May 1st we are sending from one end of Cyprus to the other, the powerful message of unity and determination
to continue waging together the struggles and for the ideals for which the Chicago pioneering martyrs sacrificed their lives.
Program of International Workers Day in Nicosia:
• Musical group "United Cyprus Teacher’s Platform”
• Common text to be read by the General Secretary of PEO and the President of DEV-IS.
• Bicomunal music band “Cyprus Songs Association”.
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