This May 1st, “International Workers’ Day”, constitutes for the Coordination of Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean (Coordinadora de Trabajadores de América Latina y el Caribe), affiliated with the World Organization of Workers-CLAC/WOW, the fraternal opportunity to meet again with all, colleagues, who share the same ideals and, at the same time, the opportunity to ratify our faith for life, hope and utopia.
It is also an opportune moment to remember, with feelings of solidarity, all the workers – men and women – who have given their lives, their freedom, their security, in these struggles in favour of social justice and the dignity that corresponds to every human being.
Overcoming critical poverty and all forms of social marginalization, which constitute structural violence, is, in the opinion of CLAC-WOW, an essential condition for democracy, for peace, for development and for the unity of the peoples of Latin America.
We are aware, and we are in that fight, that democracy cannot be a conservative regime of unjust order, of the chronic poverty of the majority of citizens, of social marginality. For this reason, we continue firmly and energetically in our Christian preaching for the eradication of misery, hunger and unemployment, as it constitutes the greatest challenge for the development of the Latin American peoples and the world, and an indispensable condition for their consolidation and improvement; and above all to constantly and increasingly have the only legitimacy on which any authentic process of liberation of the human being can rest, which means the moral, political, and active support of all peoples, especially workers, of the great social and popular majorities.
In the current circumstances and when there are many who refuse to listen to those who want to be heard and do not see those who clamour to be looked at, CLAC-WOW reiterates that justice goes beyond the benefit-consideration pairing, but rather to solidarity among human beings. It is a natural virtue that refers directly to the neighbour. Furthermore, work is not exclusively a means of subsistence. It responds in essence to the nature of the human being. Therefore, we must now repeat that the remuneration aspects are insufficient when considering the morality of working life. The man realizes himself in this daily work.
To the men and women who work, formally or informally, to those who hope for a better world, our fraternal greetings go on International Workers’ Day.
CLAC-WOW, May 1st 2023
