Workers' protests

May Day protests draw thousands of workers across Europe and Asia

Bangladeshi workers demand safer conditions after building collapse, while thousands call for end to austerity in Europe

the Guardian,

1 May, 2013

Thousands of workers marched on May Day in central Dhaka to demand safer working conditions and the death penalty for the owner of a building housing garment factories that collapsed last week in the country's worst industrial disaster, killing at least 402 people and injuring some 2,500.

As authorities buried 18 unidentified workers killed in the collapse, Pope Francis criticised working conditions in Bangladesh's $20bn-a-year (£13bn) garment industry, which supplies many European and American retailers.

Francis said he was shocked that some of the workers in collapsed building were paid €38 (£32) a month.

"This was the payment of these people who have died ... this is called 'slave labour'," he said. Vatican Radio said the pope made the remarks during a private mass on Wednesday at the Vatican.

Elsewhere in Asia, tens of thousands of low-paid workers took to the streets on International Workers' Day calling for better wages and benefits and improved working conditions, while in Europe workers protested against low living standards and record levels of unemployment, hoping to persuade eurozone governments to ease austerity measures and boost growth:

• Thousands of protesters marched in Madrid, snaking up the Gran Via central shopping street, waving flags and carrying placards reading "austerity ruins and kills" and "reforms are robbery". The Spanish economy has shrunk for seven consecutive quarters, and unemployment is at a record 27%.

"The future of Spain looks terrible; we're going backwards with this government," said Alicia Candelas, 54, a former civil servant who has been out of work for two years.

• Trains and ferries were cancelled in Greece, and bank and hospital staff walked out after the main public and private-sector unions there called a 24-hour strike, the latest in a string of protests in a country in its sixth year of recession.

About 1,000 police officers were deployed in Athens but the protest passed off peacefully, with about 5,000 striking workers, pensioners and students marching to parliament with banners reading: "We won't become slaves – take to the streets!"

• Tens of thousands marched in Italian cities demanding government action to tackle unemployment – at 11.5% overall and 40% among the young – and an end to austerity and tax evasion. Most marches were peaceful but demonstrators in Turin threw hollowed eggs filled with black paint at police.

• Turkish riot police in Istanbul fired water cannons and teargas to disperse tens of thousands of union May Day protesters, some of whom threw stones at security forces as they tried to breach barricades to reach the city's main square. The city's governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said 22 police officers and three civilians were wounded in the clashes.

Roughly half of Istanbul's 40,000-strong police force was drafted in to the city centre to block access to Taksim Square, which was barred to the trade union march by authorities.

Avni said the clashes had been instigated by "radical" groups numbering a total of 3,500 people who threw stones, metal objects and Molotov cocktails at police lines. A total of 72 arrests were made during the day, he added.