Our radical new May Day charter will help us lead the fightback

Derry Trades Union Council (DTUC) encourages every worker to join a trade union, become active within the trade union movement, shape the direction of your union. Trade unions are the backbone of the working class.

Society needs a worker-led revolution - power, influence and control are in the hands of the worker, working class people - we need to begin the fightback now, mobilising and organising, with a better world for everyone, our solemn and rightful purpose.

DTUC launch our Working Class Charter on May Day, we do so in solidarity with the people of Derry, Ireland and in a quest for a world where every child has a chance, every worker has power and that working class people return to their rightful place, a place of real influence and equality.

The charter calls for investment in workers’ wages, an end to the concentration of private wealth, the abolition of privatisation and a better world for all citizens.

Raise the Red Flag on International Workers Day, a flag which has no owner, no vested interests - the flag of socialism and working class unity.

DTUC believes that:

• All essential frontline line workers should immediately receive a tax free payment of £1500 as a starting point towards betterment of terms and conditions of service.

• An additional four bank holidays for all workers would also be widely accepted as a step in the right direction.

Government appreciation through well crafted speeches is not enough. Normality was the problem. The difference between the classes is their relationship with societies’ institutions. The working class do what the system sets out for them: keep your head down and your mouth shut and you won’t get into trouble.

Those in the owning class, the upper class, do not have to work to stay alive, while members of the working class have to sell their labour to survive.

The class structure is a power political structure, one which shapes society and ensures the ultimate protection of the establishment, determining who does well in life and who creates the wealth for others to do well.

The current political system through which we are governed has private wealth of £9.1 trillion. Globally one per cent of the population holds almost half of the world’s household wealth. Divide and conquer has not gone away.

Inequality, unfairness and insecurity continue to rise as the ruling classes and their corporate business interests continue to lavish, dictate and control. A new system will only come through working class people lifting their collective heads and beginning to shout as one.

The current emergency has shone a beacon on the value of the working class, that our class is important and that working class people keep the lights on. The COVID-19 pandemic has also begun an awakening of the people. People are beginning to analyse and question their lives, today’s world.

The reality is, without the working class, nothing works, nothing moves, nothing is possible.

Politics has taken the power away from the people, moving power towards the corporations, this is the reality all over the world, our world. An unscrupulous and glossy takeover of democracy.

Of course, this takeover also comes with the decline in working class wages, trade union membership and lost bargaining leverage to get a share of any economic gain. Where is the challenge, the fightback?

The establishment deemed the stockpiling of PPE as not really important, not necessary - the same establishment had no such dilemmas when it came to the stockpiling of private wealth nor the removal of profits by corporations - profits created by working class toil and sweat.

Priorities of government and who they truly represent can be clearly exposed through the decimation of public services, such as the NHS, social housing, education, mental health services, community based social care, all of which, if properly resourced would improve peoples lives. Instead obscene amounts of money are being spent on departments which benefit the select few, departments such as defence, the military.

Military budgets and the arms trade are causing untold misery, a government of the people for the people would invest in such areas as, Green Industry, creating global solidarity - jobs that protect humanity, saving our planet and not endless destruction.

Working Class Charter:

- The right to organise and join a trade union.

- Investment in workers’ terms and conditions.

- A real living wage.

- Universal Basic Income

- An end to austerity.

- Rent controls.

- Free childcare.

- An end to the concentration of global private wealth.

- An expansion of public services.

- An investment in green industry.

-An end to the arms trade.