Labour Day protests, strikes take over France, Italy, Netherlands | Labour Rights News

Workers and labour unions protest against government policies in France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Labour Day protests and strikes have taken over France, Italy and the Netherlands, with workers and labour unions demanding better government policies to safeguard their rights and meet their wage demands.

French President Emmanuel Macron faced nationwide protests in the country, with demonstrators denouncing his unpopular pension reform, which saw the retirement age increasing from 62 to 64 in the country. The legislation also requires people to work 43 years to receive a full pension, among other changes to the system.

Macron, who says the reform is necessary for the future of France, has been met by boos, pot banging and heckles as he confronts citizens on walkabouts.

Unions say that while they will respect the Constitutional Council’s decision on passing the pension reform as a law, they will continue protests to get Macron to withdraw the measure.

They hope more than one million people will continue marching through towns and cities across the country on May 1.

Meanwhile, in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also faced demonstrations from labour unions who called on her government to increase wages and reform the country’s tax policy.

Meloni’s government is set to unveil a labour package on Monday amid the protests.

According to Reuters news agency, the package will make it easier for firms to offer job contracts lasting one to two years and will scale back a “citizen wage” poverty relief scheme introduced in 2019 by the end of the year.

Meloni, who is set to hold a meeting on the labour reform on Monday, said to encourage able-bodied people to work, the new package would slim down “citizen wage”.

This means that subsidies for poor people aged 18 to 59 will be cut to 350 euros ($385) a month from the current average of about 550 euros ($606) per family.

Poor households with minors, pensioners or disabled people will be eligible for slightly more generous payments of more than 500 euros ($550) a month, for a maximum of 30 months.

Rome has also set aside about 3 billion euros ($3.30bn) for a temporary reduction in tax wedges and to address the country’s low birth rate has signed a decree to waive taxes on fringe benefits for employees with children, up to a maximum of 3,000 euros ($3,305) per worker.

Labour Day protests also took over the Netherlands, which saw unions demanding higher wages.

Due to inflation, employees of the largest labour union in the Netherlands, FNV, had offered its employees a wage increase of 3 to 7 percent this year, followed by a 5 percent increase next year and automatic price compensation with a maximum of 5 percent from 2025 on.

FNV warned that strikes would continue on Tuesday if their demands were not met.