May Day marked with defiant rallies for workers’ rights

 Turkish police used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protesters seeking to defy a ban and march to Istanbul’s Taksim Square to celebrate May Day, an AFP journalist reported.
Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities.
The protesters — made up of left-wing groups — unfurled anti-government banners against the result of the April 16 referendum, which handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expanded powers.
Turkish authorities imposed a ban on any demonstration at the square, with police sealing off the avenue with barricades and halting traffic.
CAMBODIA: Riot police watched carefully as more than 1,000 garment workers defied a government ban on marching to deliver a petition to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, demanding a higher minimum wage and more freedom of assembly.
The marchers, holding a forest of banners, filled a street a short distance from the parliament complex and advanced noisily until they were stopped by a barricade and lines of police, holding batons, shields and guns capable of firing gas canisters. A standoff of several hours was resolved when a representative from the Assembly came out and accepted the petition.
The workers were from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union. Among their demands was increasing the minimum wage from $153 to $208 per month. The clothing and footwear industry is Cambodia’s biggest export earner.
The major Cambodian labor unions traditionally have been loosely allied with opposition parties, posing a potential political threat to longtime authoritarian leader Hun Sen.
GREECE: Several thousand protesters gathered outside Greece’s parliament, and unions braced for more austerity measures imposed by bailout lenders.
Two large union-organized rallies are planned in Athens on the holiday, with employees at many public services nominally on strike.
As the marches began, government officials prepared for more talks at a central Athens hotel with representatives of bailout creditors as the two sides were near an agreement to maintain draconian spending controls beyond the current rescue program.
The talks had been expected to end Sunday. Future spending cuts will include additional pension cuts and tax increases for Greeks, already hit by seven years of harsh cuts.
Greece’s largest labor union, the GSEE, has called a general strike for May 17 to protest the latest austerity package.
PHILIPPINES: A few thousand left-wing activists and laborers marched and held noisy rallies to press for higher wages and an end to temporary contractual jobs that deprive workers of many benefits.
In the sweltering summer heat, the crowds in Manila also protested alleged extrajudicial killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug crackdown.
The activists carried murals of Duterte and President Donald Trump, asking the Philippine leader to stay away from the US president, who has invited Duterte for a US visit.
Protest leader Venzer Crisostomo fears an “America First” policy would be disadvantageous to poorer countries like the Philippines.
“We would not want Duterte to be in cahoots with Donald Trump in oppressing the country and in implementing policies.”

Source: Arab News