May Day, then and now: Have fun!

I'm not going to take a time machine all the way to Chicago in 1886. There, someone threw a bomb at a protest of agricultural machinery factory strikers, it was never clarified who and why. There was a shooting, five workers were accused of being instigators, they were sentenced to death, one committed suicide in his cell, the other four were hanged. As a memory of that revolt of the exploited workers, most of humanity celebrates the combative Labor Day.

Serbia is satisfied with the decision not to work for three days, without explaining why. I talked to the saleswoman of the private shop where I bought the newspaper. She has to work on holidays too. It is important that employees in state-owned companies, banks and similar jobs, combining Easter and May Day holidays, were given a mini-vacation of up to 12 days. Due to neo-capitalism of the crudest kind, which was built by the ruling regime headed by Aleksandar Vučić, it is perhaps logical to keep silent about the reasons for celebrating May Day.

I would only talk about what I personally remember. I don't have many notebooks anymore, I'm not afraid that some people will resent me, say that I'm pretending to be important.

In 1950, as a secretary in the Union of Writers, I suggested to President Ivo Andrić, to whom I typed letters, that he should no longer sign the until then mandatory "Death to fascism - freedom to the people!". I said that fascism is dead, the people are free, that cry has been overcome. He accepted my proposal and signed "with friendly greetings". Little by little, it was widely accepted.

I was deflated thanks to that "victory". The following year, I was invited as an advanced youth to the City Committee of the Communist Party, to participate in the work of the committee for the organization of the May Day parade. I suggested that no parade be held, that the people be given time off for Uranka, and that if the army thinks it should hold a parade, it should be held on May 9, Victory Day.

Nobody shouted at me, they didn't kick me out of the party, they didn't fire me from the newsroom where I worked, they continued the discussion as if I wasn't there, as if I hadn't said anything; after that they simply didn't invite me to such meetings anymore. The parade was, of course, held, paraded in front of the ceremonial tribune where Tito stood, surrounded by the highest leaders of the party and the state, and greeted politely with exclamations in his honor.

Photo: Tanjug

The participants of that solemn parade of various professions from many companies lined up from early dawn, from five in the morning. Voluntarily? I didn't make a survey. I highly doubt it. Some are. My future wife, then a student of the ballet school, still beaming about it, talked about how proud she was to be driven with her colleagues in dance poses on the truck in front of so many spectators, for the first time in front of such a huge audience. I watched the procession comfortably from the fourth floor of the building across the street from St. Mark's Church. That Labor Day nonsense?

And today? The newspaper "Politika" publishes a photo of the Karl Marx monument in Berlin on its front page, in which it is twisted to such an extent that it looks like a dangerous monster from a bad horror movie. The title is: "Is there a place for workers' rights in capitalism". No question mark. We should read about that topic on page eight, but we won't find the answer, only our self-proclaimed analysts are quoted who say that the political parties in our country don't think about that topic.

However, the question is easy to answer when you check how it is in the countries of Western Europe and North America that we call capitalist. The answer is, “Yes, there is definitely a place for workers' rights.” Unions are powerful. Nothing important can happen without an agreement with them. Capital is a sensitive animal, it is afraid of strikes.

I liked how the May Day parade moves through the main streets of Vienna. When the Social Democratic Party had both the president of the republic and the prime minister, they not only did not stand on the stands, but marched at the head of the crowd with a red carnation in each hand. A union representative would give a speech in front of the parliament, and they listened.

I hope that in Belgrade the representatives of the Independent Trade Union will click as they promised: "Be cool!"

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