Bangladesh along with the rest of the world will observe May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, today with demands for ensuring worker rights, including right to workplace safety and right to forming and joining trade unions.
This year the theme of the day in Bangladesh is ‘Sramik-Malik Eak Hoea Gorbo Desh Nutan Kora (Being united, workers and owners will build the country anew).
To observe the day, various labour bodies will hold today rallies, bring out processions and organise discussions to press home their demands, including the national minimum wage of Tk 30,000 and workplace safety.
The day is a public holiday.
May Day marks the 1886 uprising of workers at Hay Market in Chicago in the United States for their rights, including an eight-hour working day.
Several workers were killed in police firing in the incident, for which the day was initially marked as a black day.
Marking the day, chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus said that the talent and hard work of workers and owners were behind the progress of each sector in the country.
‘The talent and toil of workers and owners remain behind the progress of each sector, including garment, agriculture, industry, construction, transport and technology,’ he said in a message on the eve of ‘Great May Day-2025’ and ‘National Occupational Health and Safety Day’.
The labour and employment ministry will hold various programmes to mark the day.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s labour front Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal will hold a workers’ rally in front of its Naya Paltan central office in the capital Dhaka at 2:00pm today.
The Jatiya Party will hold a rally in front of its central office at Kakrail at 3:00pm.
The Communist Party of Bangladesh will hold a rally in front of its central office at Purana Paltan at 9:00am.
The Garments Sramik Oikya Forum will hold a rally at 4:00pm at Ulail Bus Stand at Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, where its president Mushrefa Mishu and others will speak.
The Bangladesh Garment Sramik Samhati will hold rallies in different industrial belts across the country.
The Bangladesh Trade Union Centre will hold a rally in front of Meherba Plaza in the city at 10:00am.
The Imarat Nirman Sramik Union will hold a rally in front of its central office on Topkhana Road at 10:00am.
The Socialist Labour Front will hold a rally in front of the National Press Club at 11:00am.
The Bangladesh Ganasangeet Samannay Parishad will hold a drama at 5:00pm at Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy to mark the day.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir in a statement said that many workers were deprived of their rights, especially unrestricted trade union rights.
He called on the interim government to ensure rights of the workers of the country and increase their wages.
May 1 was adopted as International Workers’ Day by socialist delegates in Paris in 1889. More than 400 delegates on the centenary of the French Revolution met in Paris at the Marxist International Socialist Congress, the founding meeting of the Second International.
The 1889 resolution called for a one-time demonstration, but it became an annual event in course of time.
May Day was celebrated in Russia, Brazil and Ireland first in 1891.