The choice of the date was not random: May 1st was chosen because three years earlier, in 1886, a workers’ demonstration in Chicago had been bloodily repressed. In the mid-1800s, in fact, workers had no rights: they worked up to 16 hours a day, in terrible conditions, and often died on the job. On May 1, 1886, a general strike was called throughout the United States to reduce the working day to 8 hours. The protest lasted 3 days and culminated, on May 4, with the Haymarket massacre: a real battle in which 11 people died.
Workers who took to the streets to protest were also killed. But in the end the 8-hour working time was law. A very important conquest that marked a day of true celebration for those who had been exploited up to that point.
More than twenty years after Law 68/99, the living conditions of people with disabilities have not improved in terms of employment and exclusion from the world of work remains one of the main causes of disadvantage, inequalities and marginalization. According to Eurostat data, in fact, around 30% of citizens with disabilities are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared to 25% of those without disabilities.
This correlation is the result not only of very low levels of employment, but also of often non-inclusive working conditions. Work is a prerequisite of dignity for everyone. For people with disabilities it is also synonymous with social inclusion and real participation in the life of their communities. On the eve of May Day, however, we cannot ignore the profound exclusion experienced by people with disabilities themselves, who look for work in vain or desperately try to keep it or, again, who suffer less favorable treatment in their daily employment.
A cultural and step change is necessary that finally guarantees the full right to work of people with disabilities, with all that this entails in terms of autonomy, independence and self-determination, invoking a new culture based on human rights and equal opportunities, a vision that produces real effects and concrete impacts on the living conditions of thousands of people with disabilities.
May it therefore be a May 1st of celebration and civil protest that brings awareness in all of us that we cannot stop fighting because there are still many rights to be conquered and others to be protected.
Happy May 1st to everyone!
