LAB will call for measures to ensure a "decent life" in housing, public services, pensions and wages

The LAB union will proclaim on May 1, in the 26 demonstrations it has convened in Euskal Herria, three concrete measures that it considers "essential to guarantee a decent life for the working class", such as the right to housing, quality public services and decent wages and pensions.

LAB General Coordinator Igor Arroyo and Communication Manager Maider Jauregi have presented in Donostia the details of the First May demonstrations that the union will hold under the slogan 'Langileok eragin' .

"When we look at the world, we see oppression eta war everywhere: Palestine, Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Lebanon, Iran, what will be next? "Arroyo lamented.

"Fascists and genocides like Trump and Netanyahu are targeting the peoples and workers of the world, and most European leaders have submitted. Capitalism has removed the mask: it is a violent, colonial and heteropatriarchal system, "he has denounced.

Arroyo has warned that employers, as with the financial crisis, the pandemic, or the war in Ukraine, will try "to get the working class to pay the bill for the war in the Middle East, raising prices and attacking employment and working conditions."

Faced with this, LAB wanted to send a message of "hope and optimism" and stressed the importance of "organization and collective struggle."

Arroyo has stressed that "the unstable economic context increases the need to implement policies in favour of workers." All workers and pensioners must be guaranteed a minimum income , i.e. a minimum wage and a decent minimum pension. "

Arroyo has criticized the employersfor"ignoring the general strike" and has denounced that they refuse to sit at the negotiating table  "because they know that our proposal is fair and viable." "As we said on strike day, with each refusal the employers discredit themselves and reinforce the position of the Basque unions," he said.

In the same vein, LAB has strongly criticised the fact that the Basque Government, together with Confebask, UGT and CCOO, has expressed its intention to "institutionalize social dialogue" a month after the general strike.

"Instead of forcing Confebask to negotiate on the minimum wage, Pradalesin has organized a tailor-made representation of the government. He has put UGT and CCOO at their service in exchange for more funding. This is reprehensible on three sides: it undermines the needs of Basque workers, it turns its back on the trade union majority and it is based on the scheme of trading in political accession, "he said.

In thewords of Arroyo, the change which Pradales has sought to replace has come to nothing: "He closed the health table against the opinion of all the unions; he refused to discuss two popular legislative initiatives; and now he is relying on the trade union minority to disdain the representativeness and demand of the majority. Pradales has become a copy of Urkullu. "