For the first time since 1945, there won’t be a red flag in sight on the streets and squares of Europe on May 1st. But the labour movement has more reason to be on the march now than any other point in peacetime. 

Every day more doctors, nurses, bus drivers, carers, shops assistants and delivery workers lose their lives working on the frontline of this crisis, in many cases because they weren’t properly protected.

Spain has recorded 24,000 infected care workers and Italy 16,950, of whom 151 have died. Around a sixth of all confirmed infections in Poland and Hungary are among healthcare workers.

In the UK over 100 healthcare workers have already lost their lives, including porters, cleaners, and a receptionist as well as nurses and doctors, while 8,000 healthcare workers have tested positive in the Netherlands. 

Meanwhile, over 40 million more workers have lost their jobs permanently or temporarily since February. Workers are both the principle heroes and victims of coronavirus.

Many workers are getting the long overdue respect they deserve, although they remain underpaid and over exposed to risk. The shift in public attitude towards previously undervalued jobs is visible and audible as people come out of their homes to clap.

Awareness about the importance of healthcare systems and the impact of cuts on them is increasing but there is still the risk of returning to business as usual when the emergency ends. 

This crisis has restored solidarity, the founding principle of our trade union movement, to the top of the political agenda. It has proven definitively that there is such a thing as society. 

The situation would be much worse for workers both on the frontline and in confinement without trade unions, who have fought for and won proper protective equipment and income guarantees.

Every country in Europe should soon have a scheme under which workers continue to receive adequate replacement of their wages with the help of subsidies on the condition that permanent redundancies are avoided.

Governments didn’t put billions in the pockets of working-class people out of some innate goodness, but because trade unions made the case for this support and negotiated it with ministers and employers. 

This crisis has demonstrated to a new generation the value of trade unionism and firmly re-established our role in society as the number one force for fairness.

We must now ensure the clapping doesn’t quietly fade away without real reward for the people who have risked – and too often tragically lost – their lives. There must be a safe return to work for everyone, with better wages and conditions.

On a European level that means four things: an unprecedented recovery package for a more sustainable economic model and massive quality job creation, support for collective bargaining as the best way to achieve fair wages, long-promised equal pay legislation, and higher health and safety standards. 

The European Union has shown signs that it has learned the lessons of the financial crisis by putting in place emergency measures worth €540 billion to support workers, companies and health care systems with conditions like privatisations or further austerity. With workers struggling to get by now, the money allocated must be made available without delay. 

When it comes to the exit strategy and the recovery plan, the EU and national governments should ignore calls from vested interests for a premature lifting of safety measures and work with trade unions through social dialogue to ensure a safe return to work.  

Trade unions will be at the forefront of the debate in order to shape these policies in a way that promotes health and safety at work, delivers pay rises and gender pay transparency, strengthens collective bargaining, and afford proper protection for all workers. We won’t stop campaigning for a Green New Deal, fair taxation and a just digital transition.

We must work to reinforce this new narrative, and to avoid a return to the neoliberalism of the past. It would be a total betrayal of the people, of the heroes and victims, if we return to things as they were. Our system has created two huge global crises within just over a decade.

Austerity left Europe’s public services and welfare system appallingly unprepared for this emergency. Between 2007 and 2011, public spending on health per person fell by as much as 28.9%.

The result: 15% fewer hospital beds in France since 2000, with 22,000 healthcare jobs lost 2015-2017. Belgium saw a cut of 4,000 beds in 2010-2019, while bed numbers in the UK have more than halved over the last 30 years. 

Meanwhile, most EU member states slashed sick pay by up to 7% in the five years following the financial crisis, which damaged public health by forcing the low-paid to work while they were ill.

In Hungary, the number of people benefiting from sick pay between 2005 and 2013 was halved, which led to the number of sick days taken being reduced by 17 million over that period.

This must be the moment for a fundamental change in the economic, political and social direction of Europe in favour of working people and the planet we share. 

The only logical response to the crisis must be the most ambitious recovery plan since the end of the Second World War to tackle unemployment and poverty, raise wages and improve working conditions, especially for precarious workers, and rebuild strong public services and welfare systems.

As well as winning fair wages, conditions, and social protection for all workers, we must restore Europe’s industrial production and create millions of high-skilled and quality jobs through a Green New Deal.

That’s a real solution to regaining sovereignty from the failings of global capitalism, unlike the opportunistic scapegoating of migrants offered by right-wing populists. National borders, no matter how high or militarised, have proved no barrier to the virus, and migrant and mobile workers have been hit the hardest.

The pandemic has proven the central message of International Workers’ Day: working people of all backgrounds share the same challenges. Solidarity is the answer.