<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - May 1st]]> 10 <![CDATA["Palma is hidden under franchises and we have to recover it"]]>

The historian Albert Herranz will guide next May 8th the route First of May: culture and workers' movement, organized by STEI. The walk will begin at 6 p.m. in the Plaça d'Espanya in Palma (statue of King Jaume I) and will review some of the key spaces in the history of the workers' movement in the city. Herranz defends the need to recover this memory in a context marked by precariousness and social fragmentation.

]]> <![CDATA[Working and not making ends meet: the failure we cannot normalize]]> They had promised us that if we studied, worked, and did things "right," we would get ahead. That we would live with a certain security. But this promise was broken a long time ago. And today, in the Balearic Islands, we are no longer just talking about precariousness: we are talking about generalized impoverishment.

]]> <![CDATA[The May 1st demonstration in Palma calls for housing and no to war]]>

Thousands of people participated this Friday in the May 1st demonstration in Palma, which started from Plaza de España after 11:30 a.m. and traversed the center of the Balearic capital under the slogan 'Rights, not trenches. Salary, housing, and democracy' and with the rejection of the war in the Middle East also present.

]]> <![CDATA[May 1st: The transformation of the economic model must not turn its back on the working class]]> The tourist season begins and with it comes May Day, a day of protest and struggle for the working class. A time when our islands begin to be full of tourists; there is a lot of work, but, even so, we must raise our voices to say that we have an economic model that suffocates us and expels us. There are many problems that we workers have, including precarious employment, temporality, workloads that make us sick, lack of economic resources, and our biggest problem, a housing market that is unaffordable for those of us who live on wages from work. All this, in an environment where year after year we break tourism records, have more spending per visitor, and business margins rise. We all know it, this model is over, it must be transformed to be sustainable. The question is: how? While our rulers tangle themselves by modifying their discourse according to the wind's direction in order to change nothing, at the union we have designed a roadmap to follow in order to move towards sustainable Balearic Islands. This is a proposal for action for a change in economic model that leads us towards Balearic Islands that are economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. This transition must be orderly and just, and for this reason, it is important to anticipate.Given this complexity, it is necessary that the proposal be defined by a few simple, high-impact actions that foster the start of change quickly. In parallel, the labor area must be worked on, placing special emphasis on training and qualification as the backbone of the new economic model. Thus, if we want to transition to a model with more added value, focused on value and not on volume, we must start by reducing the number of visitors. For this reason, we propose an increase and revision of the tourist tax. This should be dissuasive, flexible, and temporary. It is also important to focus on tourist places and postpone the granting of new ones in any form in order to eliminate obsolete supply, pending an objective analysis of the Islands' carrying capacity, which takes into account the floating population. Regarding environmental management, it is necessary to monitor the circularity plans of tourist establishments, increase the percentage of commitment to local product consumption, and extend this obligation to other non-food products. All of this must be accompanied by the promotion of public transport, with increased frequencies and free travel, and a plan for fleet renewal with zero emissions.But all these changes are impossible without the support of working people, with the improvement of the quality of employment and the promotion and recognition of training adequate to the new challenges of the world of work. The changes will happen and we cannot allow them to be made without the involvement of working people. We must demand participation, recognition, and shared decisions. Capital cannot make decisions outside of the working class. For this reason, and because together we are strong, we must take to the streets this May Day.

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