The demands of labor struggles and conquests a century ago for 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, 8 hours of leisure, remain tragically relevant, stressed Alexis Tsipras in greeting him at the concert organized by SYRIZA PS and SYRIZA Youth to celebrate Labor Day, at the Fertilizer Polychorus in Drapetsona.

He called on the workers “to unite their forces, their voice and their vote, not to bend to blackmail and terrorism that remind us of dark times”, to see these elections on May 21 “as an important opportunity so that with our vote we can give answer to everything that has happened in these 4 years in our lives, to give an answer to restore working normality”. “This year, we will celebrate Labor Day twice, on May 1st and May 21st,” he said characteristically, asking for the vote of all workers to “come first and with a margin”, asking for “a strong mandate to form a progressive government cooperation, to bring change, safety and dignity to work and everyday life”.

Criticizing the Mitsotakis government regarding labor matters, the president of SYRIZA PS said that “he is obsessed with extreme neoliberal ideas and considers inequality a natural phenomenon, he even went so far as to institutionally abolish the eight-hour day, an emblematic conquest for which rivers of blood have been shed all over the world and in Greece ». He commented that “on May Day we don’t go to flower exhibitions, we honor labor struggles and people of toil”, stressing that “May Day is not a flower exhibition, but a legacy of the struggles and sacrifices of the working class for justice and progress”. He said that SYRIZA chose to celebrate May Day today here in Drapetsona, because, “we cannot be comfortable with the idea that in Drapetsona and the popular areas we will no longer have life. In all the popular neighborhoods of our country we want to have life, not only in Ekali, Kifissia and Glyfada, for everyone to have life”. He emphasized that “we want workers to have a life”, “to have jobs, to have wages, to have dignity, to have justice”.