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Monday, May 04, 2026

Two foreign activists seized from Gaza aid flotilla appear before Israeli court

Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek and Brazilian Thiago Avila were brought before an Israeli court Sunday after Israeli troops seized them from a flotilla attempting to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. Avila told his lawyers that he had been beaten so badly in Israeli custody that he passed out twice.

Issued on: 03/05/2026 -
By: FRANCE 24

People gather in front of the European Commission office in Barcelona in support of activists Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, members of the Global Summud Flotilla seized by Israel, in Barcelona, Spain, May 2, 2026. © Bruna Casas, Reuters

An Israeli court Sunday extended by two days the detention of two foreign activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla who were brought to Israel for interrogation, a rights group representing them said.

The flotilla of more than 50 vessels had set sail from France, Spain and Italy with the aim of breaking an Israeli blockade of Gaza and bringing humanitarian supplies to the devastated Palestinian territory.

They were intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off Greece early on Thursday, with Israel saying it had removed some 175 activists – two of whom were taken to Israel for questioning.

Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek and Brazilian Thiago Avila appeared before a court in the southern city of Ashkelon on Sunday.

AFP footage showed the two being escorted into the courtroom, with Avila's hands cuffed behind his back and Abu Keshek's feet shackled.

"The court extended their detention by two days," Miriam Azem, international advocacy coordinator at the rights group Adalah, told AFP.

Adalah said the state attorney had presented a list of suspected offences committed by the pair, including "assisting the enemy during wartime" and "membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation".

But Adalah's lawyers challenged the state's jurisdiction, arguing against the "unlawful abduction" of the two activists in international waters.

Its lawyers told the court Avila and Abu Keshek had testified to "severe physical abuse amounting to torture, including being beaten and held in isolation and blindfolded for days at sea".

Screenshot of a post by the Adalah Center for Human Rights on X on May 2, 2026. © Screenshot, X

No formal charges were filed against the two, it said.

"We argued that ... they were part of a humanitarian mission that aimed to provide humanitarian aid to the civilians in Gaza, and not to any other organisation, whether terrorist or not," lawyer Hadeel Abu Salih told journalists after the hearing.

"We deny all the accusations that were presented ... and demand these two men be released immediately," she said.

Spain's government called for Abu Keshek's "immediate release", the foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP, indicating the Spanish consul had accompanied Abu Keshek to the hearing.

Adalah's lawyers had met the two men at Ashkelon's Shikma Prison on Saturday.

They said Avila recounted being "subjected to extreme brutality" by Israeli forces when the vessels were seized, saying he was "dragged face-down across the floor and beaten so severely that he passed out twice".

Abu Keshek was also "hand-tied and blindfolded ... and forced to lie face-down on the floor from the moment of his seizure" until reaching Israel, it said.

Rebuilding Gaza Strip: Labour Day is the last thing on Palestinians' minds

Israel's foreign ministry said the pair were affiliated with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA) – a group accused by Washington of "clandestinely acting on behalf of" Palestinian militant group Hamas.

It said Abu Keshek was a leading PCPA member, and that Avila was also linked to the group and "suspected of illegal activity".

The Global Sumud Flotilla's first Mediterranean voyage to Gaza last year drew worldwide attention, before being intercepted by Israeli forces off the coasts of Egypt and Gaza.

Avila was one of the organisers of that flotilla, which was also intercepted by Israeli forces, with crew members – including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg – arrested and expelled.

Israel controls all entry points into Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

Throughout the Gaza war, there have been shortages of critical supplies in the Palestinian territory, with Israel at times cutting off aid entirely.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Israeli Forces Intercept Boats from Activist Flotilla Seeking to Reach Gaza

people on boat with lifejackets and hands up — Scene from video aboard the boats stopped by Israelo forces (Global Sumud Flotilla)

For the second time, Israeli forces have acted to stop a flotilla of small boats loaded with activists that were attempting to reach Gaza and creating an international spectacle. Last October, Israeli forces intercepted the boats close to the Israeli shore, but this time Israeli forces sought to stop the flotilla while it was in international waters near Greece.

The group, calling itself the Global Sumud Flotilla, had initially set out from Barcelona on April 12. Last week, they had attempted to circle an MSC containership in the central Mediterranean that they accused of transporting materials to Israel.

The group gathered in Italy and set off on Sunday, reporting that it consisted of 56 small boats. They were calling themselves the “largest coordinated civilian maritime mobilization,” saying their goal was to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza and advance the opening of a permanent humanitarian corridor. They reported that Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise vessel and the rescue ship Open Arms had accompanied them as they set off from Italy. They said the boats were registered in Poland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, and France.

Late on Wednesday, April 29, they reported Israeli forces intercepted the boats in the vicinity of Crete. A Greek government spokesperson confirmed that 55 vessels were 50 nautical miles off the Peloponnese and were being watched by Israeli warships and the Hellenic Coast Guard.

An Israeli naval officer can be heard in one of the group’s videos urging them to change course and not to proceed. They were told to direct their aid through established and recognized channels. They were also told they could sail to Ashdod, Israel, to offload supplies, which would be transferred to humanitarian groups and delivered to Gaza.

The group contends the Israelis launched drones and employed communications jamming technology before boarding their boats. The group’s online tracker claims 22 boats were intercepted west of Crete and that 45 boats are still sailing south of Crete. Other reports are saying 36 boats were still heading toward Gaza.

The group issued a statement calling the intervention “piracy.” They claimed some of their boats were disabled and demanded that Greece, Malta, Italy, and Cyprus launch a SAR operation. They were also calling on commercial and private boats in the area to divert and provide aid.

The “Board of Peace,” organized by world leaders including Donald Trump, issued a statement saying, “The ‘flotilla’ heading to Gaza is the performative love-boat activism of people who know nothing of and care even less for the condition of Gazans.” They also called for directing aid through established humanitarian channels while reporting their success in stopping Hamas from stealing aid supplies.

Israel’s UN envoy, Danny Dannon, said Israel was stopping the flotilla before it reached “our area.” He called the activists in the group “delusional attention-seeking agitators.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, said they were coordinating with the Greek government and would transfer those intercepted to Greece. The group was claiming that as many as 175 to 180 people had been taken into custody.

The first attempt at the flotilla stopped when there was an explosion on a boat off Malta in May 2025. The group asserted that they had been attacked by Israeli drones. About 40 boats and as many as 450 people approached Israel in October and were stopped by Israeli forces. The group claimed they were treated harshly, while Israel said they were given food and water and quickly placed on airplanes to be deported back to Europe.

Child labour, exploitation and deforestation: Is this the true taste of chocolate?

Douglas Lamont, CEO of Tony's Chocolonely joined Hannah Brown on The Big Question. Euronews

Copyright Euronews

By Hannah Brown

Published on 04/05/2026 -

“Let's compete at shelf but let's collaborate in the supply chain,” the CEO of Tony’s Chocolonely told Euronews.

“Do I want to double the size of the company? Of course I do,” the CEO of Tony’s Chocolonely, Douglas Lamont, told Euronews.

But unlike many business leaders, Douglas is not driven just by a desire to increase profits and growth. He wants to change the entire chocolate industry…and he has got a tough challenge ahead.

“More volume equals more beans, equals more impact on the ground for farmers [...] That's doubling the number of beans we're sourcing in an ethical way, paying a living income price to West African farmers.”

In this episode of The Big Question, Douglas sat down with Hannah Brown to discuss the real cost of chocolate and the challenges of fighting exploitation.

Exploitation in the chocolate industry

In case you are not already familiar with Tony’s Chocolonely, it is a chocolate manufacturer founded in 2005 by Dutch documentary producer Teun van de Keuken. Teun was horrified to learn about the scale of exploitation in the chocolate industry’s supply chain, and after his documentary exposing it failed to enact any change, he decided to try to make things better from inside the industry.

Fast-forward 21 years, and the company has already come a long way.

The vast majority of the chocolate we eat in Europe comes from cocoa beans grown in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana. Across the industry, it is estimated that around 40% of households engaged in cocoa growing face instances of child labour.

Tony’s says it has reduced this figure within its own supply chain to around 4%

The key has been establishing a living wage for farmers, which they pay regardless of the current market price of cocoa.

“We give them long-term contracts, asymmetric contracts, so we will always buy from them at the living income price. They don't have to sell to us, if they get a higher price from somewhere else. It puts the power in their hands,” Douglas told The Big Question.

“Right now we're paying a 45% premium to the farmgate price in West Africa, so that combination of things means the farmer has a little bit more money in his pocket, can invest in his farm and can afford to send his children to school.”

Douglas stressed that traceability in the industry is an important first step to building relationships with cocoa farmers and that EU deforestation regulation will be fundamental in mandating this more widely.

“What it does in cocoa is put traceability into the mix so that every single company then needs to know which farms their cocoa comes from,” he added.

“Once you know your farmer, you then have a much more direct relationship and it's about the economic argument of then paying them a living income…in the past, the big companies said it was too hard for them to understand where it came from.”

What does chocolate really cost?

As one of the fastest-growing chocolate brands in the world, Tony’s Chocolonely is doing something right. Or maybe two things.

“We're not naive and know that if you've only got the ethics and it's really high-priced and it's a poor product, people won't buy it and won't repeat buy it.”

“I think we're showing that that is possible, and I think you just need a damn tasty product too, because that is the combination effect,” Douglas said.

In 2025, the brand grew in value by 20%, taking the business to over €240 million in turnover. By volume, their sales increased by 4% and the US overtook the Netherlands as their number one market.

While Tony’s Chocolonely is often perceived as a fairly expensive bar of chocolate, Douglas insisted that the company does not see itself as a super-premium brand.

“Our bar is really big and chunky compared to most bars on the shelf,” he explained.

“On a per kilogram basis, our chocolate is typically at a 20-25% premium to other bars on the shelf, which I think is a price worth paying.”

Will climate change wipe out chocolate?

Extreme weather in recent years has had a significant effect on cocoa harvests, sending the price of beans skyrocketing.

A rise in bean prices contributed to consumer chocolate prices increasing by around 17.9% across the EU in 2025, higher than any other food or even non-alcoholic drink. In 2026, this trend has partially reversed, with bean prices falling due to lower demand and improved harvests.

“We're not celebrating those low prices in the market. What we want is a consistent, strong living income price for the farmer [...] That's how we create a more stable industry. That's how we get children out of child labour. That's how we change the industry,” Douglas continued.

And while climate change is likely to continue to affect the price of cocoa in the future, Douglas said he is confident that chocolate is not going anywhere

“I think, like all commodities, if you invest in productivity, if you invest in the farmer and enable them to earn a living income so that it's an attractive industry for people on the ground in West Africa to go into, you'll have a more stable and consistent crop and yield.”

“And yes, you will then have climate variability year to year, but the change in yield will be much less if you have a much more invested industry.”

“But there's also then a moral benefit that we reduce child labour, we drive some of the systemic issues like deforestation out of the industry as well. So that's what we see as the path forward.”

“I think there's just a really clear economic and moral case for that change,” Douglas concluded.

The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today’s agenda.

Watch the video above to see the full discussion with Tony’s Chocolonely.

‘Fenian’: Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap return with much more than provocation

By David Mouriquand

Published on 01/05/2026 - EURONEWS

Dismiss Kneecap as merely headline-grabbing agitators at your foolishness. WARNING: This article contains language that some people may find offensive.

In Euronews Culture’s review of the film Kneecap, the award-winning biopic about the rise to fame of the Belfast rap trio, we called the comedy “fun, raucous and heartfelt”.

The same could be said about their new album, ‘Fenian’ – but we’d add ‘scathing’, 'layered', and ‘very foul-mouthed'.

Indeed, if Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street tops the non-documentary feature film list for the most uses of the word ‘fuck’, then ‘Fenian’ may well be the main contender for the album with the most ‘cunt’s.

Before we get into all that, a quick recap.

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Kneecap are two MCs, Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara, and one MC, DJ Próvái. The combine Gaelic Irish with English, balaclava-wearing satire with socially conscious lyrics, and plenty of drug and sex references.

The band became an underground hit and made a name for themselves as one of the most controversial acts since the Sex Pistols. Many have accused them of flirting with violent imagery and IRA slogans. Naomi Long, the minister of justice for Northern Ireland, even accused them of fueling sectarian tensions at one point.

Their dominance on the worldwide cultural scene shifted into gear with the release of their second album, 2024’s funny, unruly and engaged ‘Fine Art’. That same year, Rich Peppiatt’s biopic shot them further to international fame.

Frustratingly, what really grabbed headlines were Kneecap's legal woes.

Charges against Mo Chara (real name Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh), predicated on claims that he waved a Hezbollah flag onstage, dominated international headlines. The charges were dismissed by a judge last year, and the UK government lost its appeal.

“This entire process was never about me, never about any threat to the public and never about terrorism... it was always about Palestine,” the rapper declared.

It’s hardly surprising that their recent political mishaps are present on ‘Fenian’, the anti-imperialist trio’s first album since the highly publicised battle over terrorism charges. The band continue to proudly show their support of Palestine, call out Keir Starmer’s government and the genocide in Gaza, and denounce the complicity of those who “history will remember”.

Most exciting of all, though? They prove once more that they’re so more than just controversy magnets. Musically speaking, and regardless of a listener’s political views, ‘Fenian’ is one of the most adventurous and finest albums of 2026, as it manages to tick every box.

Merging raw political outrage with engrossing beats. Check.

Matching righteous anger with incredibly catchy hooks. Check.

Exploring the space where old-school hip-hop flows, woozy trip-hop élans, bursts of acid house and entertaining punchlines join forces. Check.

Not only is it a step up from ‘Fine Art’; it’s a statement of intent. Dismiss Kneecap as merely agitators at your foolishness.

Kneecap - Fenian album cover Heavenly

From the surprisingly trippy and synthy opener 'Éire go Deo', the more lively 'Smugglers & Scholars', to the 90s rave sounds of 'Big Bad Mo' and the Prodigy-echoing 'Headcase', 'Fenian' is a blast to listen to and boasts some powerful penmanship. (For those who pick up a physical copy of the LP, the lyrics are handily translated into English when needs be.)

Standouts include the biting 'Liars Tale' (“Fuck Keir Starmer / Netanyahu’s bitch and genocide armer / Better off as compost for farmers ... You’re just a Tory, dressed in Labour clothing / Never seen a cunt so boring / With a resting face of loathing”); ‘Palestine’, featuring Ramallah-based rapper Fawzi, which deals with the solidarity of the Irish for those on the West Bank; and the captivating ‘Carnival’, which chronicles Mo Chara’s trial and exposes their contempt for the current UK justice system (“I’m not the first Irishman in this room / Who was on trial on trumped up lies and charges / This started at Coachella / Don’t speak about Palestine, fella...”).

The track ‘An Ra’ is also a triumph – a denunciation of British rule in Ireland which playfully lists the “good shit” they have given “us savages”, from “BBC paedo rings”, “UKIP”, “Lord Mountbatten Prince Ársa Andrew” all the way to “Jimmy Savile” and “Britain’s Got Talent”.

“And I’d be lost without Britain’s Got Talent.”

One bum note here – the rap sheet includes “HP Sauce”.

Now, there’s every reason to be annoyed, but can we keep the brown sauce out of it? Granted, it was named after London’s Houses of Parliament and it is another British icon to demolish. However - and the staunchly Eurosceptic UKIP won’t like this - the gloriously versatile accompaniment to sausages and bacon sandwiches is now made by Heinz in the Netherlands... So much for Rule Britania. And maybe that’s the point.

'Fenian' closes on an emotional note, a track that’s the closest thing Kneecap have come to a tear-jerking ballad. ‘Irish Goodbye’, featuring Kae Tempest, is nothing short of breathtaking. It's a delicate ode to Móglaí Bap’s mother, Irish language activist and musician Aoife Ní Riain, who died by suicide in 2020.

“Life can give ya lemons / And sometimes it is bitter / I don’t let it get the better / Cause I’m much better off since I met her / And this one’s for you / This is my love letter.”

The song beautifully includes a line which plays on the term “Irish goodbye” - akin to what the British refer to as the “French leave” or “French exit”, while the French consider it to be “filer à l’anglaise” (literally: “sneaking off English style”). Instead of leaning into the playfulness, the term is given emotional weight.

“It didn’t matter what was going on / I understand well that you had enough / I wanted to say goodbye / Not an Irish goodbye.”

It’s a melancholic note to end on, one which shows how versatile Kneecap truly are.

Yes, they rap about “international law they were abusing”. Yes, they’ve provoked tabloid outrage. And yes, they’ve released ‘Fenian’, a masterful album which proves they know exactly what they’re doing, and that they have the range to match their verve.

'Fenian' by Kneecap is out now.

Sunday, May 03, 2026

Nations move fossil fuel debate from pledges to strategies in Colombia

The world’s first conference on phasing out fossil fuels has ended in Colombia with delegates from 56 countries declaring that the global debate has shifted from whether to stop using oil, gas and coal to how to do it. Debt and financing remain major obstacles.

Issued on: 30/04/2026 -

An oil refinery in El Dorado, Kansas. Fossil fuels remained at the centre of global climate talks in Colombia as countries debated how to move away from oil, gas and coal.

© AP - Charlie Riedel

Participants gathered for several days in Santa Marta, a coal port on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, for talks focused directly on winding down fossil fuel production rather than only cutting emissions.

While the meeting produced no binding commitments by the time it wrapped up on Wednesday, it launched working groups on financing and labour transitions, plans for continued cooperation and momentum toward future negotiations.

"Cops are more formal, negotiators have their lines and they will not cross them – it’s so different here," said former Irish president Mary Robinson, now a climate justice advocate, referring to UN climate conferences.

Participants "have felt more human together", she said.

Debt and limited resources were among the biggest barriers for developing countries.

"Many of them are in bad need of debt relief to even begin a transition," Robinson told the conference. Those countries are "trapped in debt".

Colombia conference aims for 'more honest conversation' to speed fossil fuel exit

Who pays?

Financing emerged as the biggest immediate challenge, with developing countries facing high borrowing costs and limited access to money.

"The financing is key, this is an investment issue," said Nick Robins, senior director for finance and private sector at the World Resources Institute.

Debt pressure is also pushing some countries deeper into fossil fuel expansion.

"What we’re hearing is that they would like to stop expanding fossil fuel production, but they’re being forced into new oil and gas and coal projects just to feed their debt," said Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

"This conference is actually the first time in 30 years of climate negotiations where countries are gathering to talk about how to ensure a fossil fuel phase-out."

The financing challenge was also central to talks ahead of last year's Cop30 in Brazil, where fiscal pressures were repeatedly raised as a major obstacle.

"We need for finance ministers to help us on finding solutions on how to deal with the fiscal challenges of transition," Ana Toni, Cop30 chief executive, told the conference.

Roadmaps and bans

France drew attention on the conference’s opening day by publishing what it called a roadmap to eliminate fossil fuel use for energy by 2050, though some participants noted it largely repackaged existing pledges.

A new Scientific Panel for the Global Energy Transition was also launched to help governments, cities and regions design pathways away from fossil fuels.

"It will provide all the solutions – to implement them, and to finance them," Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre told the French news agency AFP.

Colombia banned fossil fuel and mineral extraction in its Amazon region last year "to stop the expansion of the extractive frontier", said Colombia’s Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres.

Tuvalu, one of the countries most threatened by rising sea levels, will host the next conference in 2027 with Ireland as co-host.

"If we are to address the climate change issue, we have to address the root cause, and the root cause is the fossil fuel industry," Tuvalu Climate Minister Maina Talia told the Associated Press.

"We don’t want just a free and flexible outcome. We want something concrete. We want steps, solutions on the table."

(with newswires)

The Minilateralist Incentive: A Climate Change Conference in Colombia

By Binoy Kampmark

April 28, 2026

Source: Counterpunch

Image: Logo for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels – Fair Use

Not much good comes from war. Qualifying exceptions, however, can be found. The United Nations, tarnished, libelled and mocked for being simultaneously ineffectual and intrusive, was the mediating entity for international relations that grew from the calamities of the Second World War. Without that somewhat frail body, it is hard to imagine how the patchwork of human rights, however uneven, could have been stitched. The Iran War, and the consequential choking of the Strait of Hormuz by Tehran and Washington respectively have also had an unintended, meliorating effect. If the pressing dangers of climate change cannot push fossil fuel exporters and consumers to wean themselves off their diet of extraction and carbon emission, the panic caused by economic shock may well do the trick.

Despite the pageantry that circles around the now familiar Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), progress on limiting the rise of global temperature remains tardy and constipated. The annual COP talks have become ceremonies of fatigue and inanition, often influenced by petrostates and avid fossil fuel lobbyists. The COP30 talks held in Brazil last November typified the mood. The final COP 30 agreement, entitled “Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change”, failed to even mention the role of fossil fuels. (The same can be said of the 2015 Paris Agreement.) Fossil fuels – that devil in the detail – only debuts in the 2023 COP28 conference, with the call to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.

The insipid outcome of COP30 was enough to spur Colombia and the Netherlands to announce their co-hosting of the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, a step as part of the Belém Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. “This will be,” explained Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, “a broad intergovernmental, multisectoral platform complementary to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] designed to identify legal, economic, and social pathways that are necessary to make the phasing out of fossil fuels.”

The talks that began on April 24 at the coastal town of Santa Marta, Colombia, are the genesis of that promise. While the list of attendees has conspicuous omissions – the United States, China and India are not among their number – a number of prominent fossil fuel states are. Such absentees as the US did not trouble Torres. “We knew they weren’t going to be here. We weren’t expecting them to be here because their energy policy and their economic policy is to ‘drill, baby, drill.’” Not only would the conference not be for them, Torres could express her relief that no one would be “boycotting” the endeavour.

Among the 60 states, we find Australia, Canada and Nigeria. Likewise Brazil, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Countries heavily dependent on such commodities – Pakistan and the Philippines, for instance – are also on the list of participants.

The format of the conference purposely departs from the clumsy, ungainly model of the COP talks. The gathering is smaller and winnowed of any potential saboteurs and fossil fuel touters. It comprises an academic conference, a people’s summit and two days of more formal engagements between government officials. Individuals from the private sector have also been invited, but only those sympathetic to the conference’s principles and aims.

The eventual report produced by the co-hosts will take into account discussions and deliberations premised on three pillars. The first deals with economic dependence on fossil fuels, a particularly critical matter for poorer states unable or challenged in achieving an energy transition. The second focuses on how best to deal with the supply and demand of fossil fuels, a problem aggravated by the current energy crisis. The third pillar is built around “international cooperation and climate diplomacy” which can cover such matters as the problematic investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system. ISDS has offered much security and succour to fossil fuel companies keen to protect their investments against the perceived predations of climate change policies.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate commissioner, explained the importance of the gathering to Politico: “It is hugely important that the Colombians and the Dutch and others have set this up, because we all see how wrecked the COP process is, how vulnerable it is to naysayers and those who want to derail it.” The unifying theme here was “the need to find an alternative. And if anything, world events of the last six weeks have proven them right.”

The scientists are sticking, understandably, to the message of environmental danger. “Breaking through 1.5°C means we enter a far more dangerous world – with more frequent and intense droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves – and we are already approaching critical tipping points in major Earth systems,” says the consistently gloomy Johan Rockströmm, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change. But the energy supply crisis produced by the Iran War may well reinvigorate what seemed to be an expiring patient.

This article was originally published by Counterpunch; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Binoy Kampmark

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.

May Day: An Answer to Rampant Individualism

Countless influencers and quack positive-thinking gurus tell us that success is all a matter of individual effort. International Workers’ Day reminds us that individuals are happiest when we have others standing alongside us.

By Esther Lynch

May 3, 2026

Source: Jacobin

May Day Parade, NYC / Glass Negative Photograph / Public Domain image via US Library of Congress

In its failed attempts to undermine and abolish the May 1 bank holiday, the French government has sought to depict International Workers’ Day as an anachronism. But when we look at the problems facing society today — and the ways in which people are trying to deal with them — it strikes me that a day dedicated to the collective power of working people is needed as much now as ever before.

Everywhere we turn now, we are confronted with the negative impact on people of the politics of isolationism. A world in which every problem you face is your fault and can only be resolved by you alone. It’s not a new phenomenon. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told us in the 1980s that “there is no such thing as society.” But it certainly has been exacerbated by the social conditions of our time.

In his new documentary on the “manosphere,” Louis Theroux shines a light on the online community that tells young men they are struggling financially because they are simply not “alpha” enough. Many are convinced to send what little money they have to influencers who share the supposed path to success. That usually consists of treating women appallingly, abusing drugs to acquire a certain physique, and putting themselves in further financial difficulties to obtain status symbols.

Equally, women can’t look at their phones without being tormented by videos of “tradwives.” Women struggling to juggle work and care responsibilities are told that their stresses will disappear by donning an apron and turning the clock back to simpler time, when women were, allegedly, taken care of economically by their breadwinning husband, on the condition that they provided labor in the domestic sphere. Keep scrolling, and you’ll find someone else sitting crossed-legged on the floor telling you all your problems can be resolved by breathing slowly and thinking positively. That may well have a role to play, but as a new book by sociologist Damien Karbovnik points out, that kind of “positive psychology puts the responsibility on individuals, as if the social or economic context has no influence.” Worse still, any form of collective resistance, dare we say rage, has no place or legitimacy, as that would run counter to a “positive mindset.”

In fact, anyone looking to improve their personal wellbeing would do well to start by accepting that we exist as individuals as part of a society. That we cannot solve every problem we face alone. Sometimes we face common challenges that require common solutions.

The isolated young men on which the likes of Andrew Tate prey are experiencing the same problems as millions of their peers. Problems caused by political and economic decisions taken after the financial crisis to dismantle security and promote precarity. The women targeted by “tradwives” have had their lives made harder by cuts to welfare and public services that have exacerbated already unequal caring responsibilities. The same women are likely to be exposed to a wave of hatred and misogyny, online and offline, of which new shocking variations seem to appear every single day, while support networks are targeted by funding cuts or criminalized. We all, women and men, old and young, are worse off — materially and mentally — because of the decisions taken by neoliberal politicians who then tried to convince us it was all our own fault. That is called gaslighting.

In this context, a day dedicated to the power of collective action could not be more relevant. On May Day, we celebrate the victories we have already achieved by coming together in trade unions, and we demand a better future still. Not only is coming together a practical solution to our problems, but it’s empowering for individuals and liberating to know we have others on our side. May Day demonstrations will be taking place in towns and cities across Europe today, each with different demands to meet their circumstances. What we in the European Trade Union Confederation are trying to do is to create the conditions for workers to come together and win wherever they are.

The key is rebuilding collective bargaining. More than three million workers have lost the benefits of collective bargaining since the turn of the century because of austerity and union busting. The results have been lower living standards and an explosion in insecurity. Not everyone lost out though. CEOs and shareholders have taken a greater share in profits at our expense. This increased economic inequality and weakened social cohesion, leaving people vulnerable to the snake oil salesmen on social media.

Through the European Union’s Minimum Wage Directive, we won a requirement for all member states to take action to restore the share of workers covered by collective bargaining to at least 80 percent. Now we are fighting to ensure that public contracts — worth €2 trillion every year — go to companies that respect workers’ right to collective bargaining. That would give working people not only the power to negotiate better wages but also create a requirement for companies to create apprenticeships for young people and deliver equal pay for women who are paid hundreds of euros less than men for doing work requiring the same levels of skills, education, and physical effort. Through the EU’s new Pay Transparency Directive, “which aims to force companies to reveal and act upon gender disparities,” the collective fight for equal pay will be supported, as every woman worker can count on their trade union reps to face employers that are paying their workers unfairly.

Trade unions have every reason to be proud of what we have achieved together: decent wages, safer workplaces, and stronger rights that benefit all workers, not just our members. Those gains didn’t come easily; they were won through collective strength, solidarity, and a willingness to stand firm when it mattered most. And that hasn’t changed. When workers are threatened, intimidated, or treated unfairly, trade unions don’t back down. To anyone who thinks they can bully workers: we see you, and we will stand up to you.

As the saying goes, united we bargain, divided we beg. That’s as true today as it was 140 years ago when European workers came out to demonstrate on May 1 for an eight-hour working day. We face different challenges now, but the answer to most of them still lies in coming together. May Day reminds us of that essential truth.

This article was originally published by Jacobin; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Esther Lynch

Esther Lynch is general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation.

May 1: Day of Work or Workers’ Day?

In France, May Day has long been a day for all workers to stop working. A recent proposal for some businesses to remain open forced unions to defend the idea that French workers keep May Day as a day to themselves.

By Jean Vigreux
May 2, 2026
Source: Jacobin

For several weeks, the idea of the first of May as a nonworking public holiday for all workers has been contested in France. After well over a century at the center of the international workers’ movement calendar, it took an effort by trade unions to defeat a draft law allowing bakeries, pastry shops, and independent florists to open during the holiday.

Marylise Léon, head of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (CFDT), objected to the idea “that people should always have to work more, even on the very day that symbolizes the rights won by the working world.” And Sophie Binet, the head of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), pointed out that if the law were passed, it “would make it possible to have at least 1.4 million more workers working on May 1.” The mobilization proved effective, and Sébastien Lecornu’s government did not end up introducing the bill. But the fact that it was even such a live debate in France tells us something important about the political winds in the country.

May 1 carries several meanings in social and political history. First and foremost, it is a nonworking day — an occasion to go on strike and participate in the labor movement’s marches and demonstrations — a sometimes-insurrectionary dimension of the day that has led to numerous repressions. In this sense, it serves as a commemoration of Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre in 1886, or five years later in France when multiple labor movement demonstrators were injured or killed in a similar episode.

An engraving of the aftermath of the Fourmies massacre, published on the front page Le Petit Parisien, May 17, 1891. (E. Glair-Guyot, adapted from a photograph by M. Perron / Musée de l’Histoire vivant)

In the small industrial town of Fourmies in the Nord, a worker protest was met with fierce opposition from local employers, who had announced the day before, via public notice, that “work will proceed on May Day as on any other day; any contrary movement will be severely repressed.” These explicit threats did not deter mobilization. Armed troops, equipped with Lebel rifles, opened fire on the demonstrators. Nine people were killed, including two children, and thirty-five were wounded.

Across the capitalist world, newly formed parties of the Second International promoted resolutions to mark May Day as the day of working-class resistance to capital. “The May 1st resolution was the finest our congress has produced. It proves our strength across the world,” wrote Friedrich Engels in April 1890.

A few days later, on April 29, French revolutionary Louise Michel declared:

The earth provides enough for all. Do not beg, on May 1st, for what you have the right to demand. Walk with your heads held high. Remember that you are the force. The May 1st demonstration must take on a revolutionary character, herald the coming of the social Revolution. Our comrades in Chicago died for an idea, for the revolutionary idea. That is the fate I wish upon myself.

The very next day, she was arrested in Paris, at the Gare de Lyon station.

By 1906, France was under a reform-minded government, but one that still attempted to quell mobilization around the eight-hour workday. Paris was placed under a state of siege: more than 36,000 troops were deployed, and working-class militants are hemmed in, charged, and arrested. Over two thousand workers, deemed guilty of leaving their posts on May 1, were dismissed by employers. It is in this context of the fight for reduced working time that May 1 crystallized the organized struggle to gain new rights.

A postcard showing a banner hung by militant typographers at the Labor Exchange Building: “Starting on May 1st, 1906 we won’t work more than 8 hours per day.”

(Musée de l’Histoire vivant)

Beyond the moments of remembrance for the martyrs of the workers’ movement, May 1 came to symbolize the powerful mobilizations of emerging labor organizations. In the aftermath of World War I, the day became institutionalized, laying bare the divisions within the workers’ movement. On May 1, 1920, in Soviet Russia, it was recast as the day of the great subbotnik (the “Communist Saturday”), a celebration of “liberated and joyful labor” staged on the square of the Winter Palace.

In 1933, May 1 was hijacked by Adolf Hitler and recast as an official celebration of the Nazi regime: first as the festival of “national labor,” then, from 1934 onward, of the “German people.” Inscribed into the official calendar of the Third Reich, May 1 became a central instrument for disciplining the working class. Under the direction of the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Engagement, it was deployed to win over German workers to Nazism, remolding them into militants of the so-called “people’s community.”

In contrast to the Nazi’s hollowed-out May 1, the day took on a new, openly anti-fascist form elsewhere — especially in France, from 1934 onward. On May 1, 1936, the CGT, recently reunified at its Toulouse congress, celebrated not only its restored unity but forcefully advanced its demands: the forty-hour workweek, collective agreements, and peace. The day unfolded as a surge of mobilization between the two rounds of the legislative elections that brought the Popular Front to power.

The social and political dimensions came together in an anti-fascist response born of popular unity, even if workers still had to strike to demonstrate for what was not yet a guaranteed day off. Placards proclaimed: “Railway workers, builders of the Popular Front, for Bread, Peace, and Freedom.” Yet repression persisted. Many trade unionists were fired, and tensions spilled over into the great strikes of spring 1936, first erupting on May 11 in Le Havre, then on May 13 in Toulouse, before spreading to the Paris region, where factory occupations took hold.

During World War II, under the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime headed by Philippe Pétain, May 1 became a site of revenge against the Popular Front and the workers’ movement. Renamed the “Day of Work,” it erased the subjects of organized social struggle: unionized workers. What remained was a stripped-down celebration of one pillar of the regime’s “National Revolution” trinity: work, family, fatherland. The holiday’s collective character was lost, superseded by the cult of the head of state typical of fascist regimes, in which Pétain became “Saint Philippe.”

In the aftermath of the war, May 1 reclaimed its meaning. On April 26, 1946, the tripartite government of the new Republic granted May 1 the status of a nonworking day, securing what the Popular Front had been unable to achieve. This commitment was deepened and made permanent by a law passed on April 29, 1948, which established May 1 as an official public holiday. The day thus became a consecration of workers’ dignity and sovereignty. Celebrated with family, comrades, and friends, it also took on the character of working-class sociability.

By the 1950s in France, May 1 had settled into an unmistakably working-class celebration, marked by the sale of lilies of the valley, which replaced the red wild rose of the 1930s. Yet marches in Paris were frequently banned by the police prefecture; it was not until 1968 that a demonstration was authorized for the first time since 1954, drawing around one hundred thousand participants.

By the late 1960s, workers’ demands and student mobilization were converging in the Paris region and beyond, spilling over into the upheavals of May–June 1968. In the wake of the brutal repression of the Night of the Barricades, the CGT brought together other trade union organizations and called for a general, cross-sector strike on May 13, 1968 — ten years to the day after the beginning of General Charles de Gaulle’s return to power. The strike was a resounding success, particularly in the north of the country, including the Paris region. Most importantly, it opened the door for workers in many workplaces, already mobilized around specific demands, to launch strike movements of their own after May 13.

Across the country, roughly 450 demonstrations brought workers, youth, students, high schoolers, and onlookers to the same marches, giving rise to a collective exchange that became one of the defining features of the May–June 1968 movement. Throughout the upheaval, contact between students and trade unions were maintained, even if relations between the CGT and the National Union of Students (UNEF), suspected of leftist radicalism, remained marked by deep mistrust.

Following the events of 1968, May 1 once again became a day of working-class celebration, featuring demonstrations that were sometimes unified, sometimes not, but consistently aligned with the expectations of workers and their trade union organizations.

However, in 1988, Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, attempted to wrest control of May 1 away from worker and trade union organizations. He decided to mix it with the celebration of Joan of Arc. These demonstrations drew Pétain nostalgists and other currents of the far right. During one such march in 1995, a young Brahim Bouarram was thrown into the Seine and murdered by three skinheads.

From that point on, May Day, long an expression of workers’ internationalism, became increasingly contested. Annie Ernaux recalls this forcefully and lucidly in a Le Monde column pointedly titled, “May 1st: Beware of the Impostors!” She denounces the maneuvers of the Right, urging, “Let us not allow the Right to appropriate this day of memory and struggle.”

In 2023, amid the mobilization against pension reform, May 1 took on a renewed character. A joint march brought together the eight main French trade unions, giving the day a more combative and united tone once again.

May Day remains, however, a festive moment — a holiday that celebrates workers. The mobilizations of 2026, for instance, will highlight the ninetieth anniversary of the Popular Front, paid leave, collective bargaining agreements, and the election of union delegates within firms. But they will do more than commemorate past victories; they will point toward new horizons, a broader emancipation grounded in equal rights, and an internationalist vision that stands firmly against all forms of imperialism and fascism.

The Past is Present: History is Organizing With Us Now

By Laura Flanders
May 2, 2026
Source: Laura Flanders' Substack

Image by Stanley Flanders Arlidge

The workers who built Britain’s warplanes in 1976 had a problem. Their factory was about to close. Instead of conceding to a “downsizing”, they did something radical: they drew up a plan. Not a grievance or a strike notice, a plan; 150 products their hands and minds could make instead of fighter jets: solar panels, kidney dialysis machines, vehicles for people with disabilities, electric buses. “Socially useful work”, they called it. It became known as the Lucas Plan.

Nobody in power listened — with one significant exception. Tony Benn, then Energy Secretary in the Labour government, didn’t just listen. He was the one who issued the challenge: if closure is coming, what’s your alternative? He gave the workers the prompt that produced the plan and then watched as the Treasury, the corporate interests threaded through a nominally Labour cabinet, and the institutional gravity of government itself, overrode him. The plan was shelved. Many of the workers were eventually let go. Benn spent the rest of his long political life (one of the longest-serving figures in British history), radicalized in part by exactly that experience: being in the room, having power on paper, and losing anyway.

And yet, fifty years later, people are still talking about the Lucas Plan. They’re still teaching it, still asking: what if?

This weekend offers a striking convergence. The Lucas Plan turns 50. The British General Strike of 1926 turns 100. And yesterday — May Day, 2026 — I stood in the sun, amidst Palestinian flags, and yes, even a hammer-and-sickle flag, and watched New York City’s Democratic Socialist mayor, take the stage in Washington Square Park and lead the crowd in a chant of “labor strong”. Behind him, clear to see and understand, the words “No War. No ICE. No Billionaires.” Mamdani is the city’s first sitting mayor to address a May Day rally since Fiorello LaGuardia, a man he, again, tipped his rhetorical hat to.

Let that land for a moment. LaGuardia. The 1930s. Nearly a century.

As it happens, also in Washington Square, standing smiling at Mamdani yesterday, was historian Peter Linebaugh, the author of, among other classics, “The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day.”

Later, over dinner, he posed a question to the assembled potluck crew: what does it mean that we are here again? Sitting and crowding around, listening in, were some of the people he was alluding to — media makers, labor organizers, criminal justice reformers, artists, and educators. People organizing across sectors that the old playbooks said were unorganizable; people who those same playbooks told us rarely share a room, let alone a meal together.

Why does it matter that they, that we, (that I) keep looking back? Because, as Linebaugh teaches, the past keeps showing up, whether or not we invite it.

Capital’s memory is long. The playbook used to crush the 1926 General Strike — divide workers by sector, by race, and gender, and nation, to de-legitimize solidarity; to use media to frame strikers as threats to the public — is recognizable. It has only ever been updated, not retired. Union-busting consultants charge hundreds of dollars an hour to deploy strategies with century-old roots. The names change. The logic doesn’t.

So workers with long memories aren’t being nostalgic. They’re being strategic.

The Lucas workers didn’t just want to keep their jobs. They wanted to ask a question that cuts to the heart of every labor struggle: Who decides what work is for? Not who does the work. Who decides whom that work serves?

That question didn’t get answered in 1976. Nor did it get answered in 1926, when half a million British workers walked off the job in solidarity with miners being told to accept wage cuts and longer hours. That strike held for nine days before the national leadership folded. The miners held on for months more. They lost. At least, that’s how the history books write it.

But something was learned: about solidarity and betrayal and the difference between a movement and an institution that claims to lead one. About what it means to have an ally inside the system — and the system that ally is up against.

Those lessons traveled. They show up in how organizers talk today about the difference between mobilizing and building power. They show up in debates about what unions are for.

Mamdani’s appearance in Washington Square Park was a symbol. Symbols matter — not because they change material conditions on their own, but because they tell us something about what’s become possible to say out loud.

What’s possible to say out loud in 2026 is considerably more than it was twenty, or even ten years ago. That shift didn’t come from nowhere. It came from people who organized when it wasn’t popular, who lost campaigns but didn’t dissolve their committees, who studied what happened in Birmingham and Detroit and Port Elizabeth and yes, Lucas Aerospace, and who kept asking: what would it look like to actually win?

History isn’t a comfort blanket. It’s a human-made map, imperfect, incomplete, sometimes misleading. The terrain changes, but the questions the Lucas workers asked, and the General Strike raised about solidarity and power and class, aren’t historical curiosities.

They’re the questions on the table right now, in break rooms and union halls and school halls, and group chats, wherever people are trying to figure out whether this moment is different, and how they are connected to each other if it is.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: the Lucas workers were told their plan was impractical. Utopian. Beside the point.

They wrote it down anyway. They made 150 prototypes. They showed it was possible.

What are we making?

Stay kind, stay curious.

This article was originally published by Laura Flanders' Substack; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.

Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders is the host of "RadioNation" heard on Air America Radio and syndicated to non-commercial affiliates nationwide.

She is the author most recently, of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians (The Penguin Press, 2007) and also BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004), an investigation into the women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Publisher's Weekly called Flanders' New York Times best-seller, "fierce, funny and intelligent."

The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Age of Bush, an essay collection compiled by Flanders, appeared in June, 2004 from the Feminist Press.

Before joining Air America when it launched in March 2004, Laura hosted the award-winning " Your Call," Monday-Friday, on public radio, KALW, 91.7 fm in San Francisco.

Flanders' TV appearances include "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and "Paula Zahn Now" as well as "The O'Reilly Factor," and "Hannity and Colmes," "Washington Journal," "Donahue," "Good Morning America" and the CBC news discussion program, "CounterSpin."

Her writing appears in The Nation, Alternet, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere and her op-ed pieces have appeared in papers including The San Francisco Chronicle.

Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group, FAIR and for more than ten years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's nationally-syndicated radio program.

Shie is also the author of Real Majority, Media Minority; the Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Common Courage Press, 1997) about which Susan Faludi wrote, "If only there were a hundred of her." Katha Pollitt called it "Funny, angry, factfilled and brilliant."

Labour Day sees clashes as French unions demand pay rise and bakery row continues

Labour Day marches across France on Friday focused on wages, workers’ rights and the future of the 1 May public holiday, as unions pushed for higher pay, bakers and florists opened despite legal uncertainty and clashes broke out in Lyon and Nantes.

Issued on: 01/05/2026 - RFI

A man carries a mock petrol pump during the traditional Labour Day union march in Paris on 1 May 2026, as protesters called for higher wages and action on rising living costs. REUTERS - Benoit Tessier

In Lyon, police fired tear gas after black bloc groups launched fireworks, mortars and other projectiles, while clashes in Nantes left a police officer with injuries to the face.

Around 320 demonstrations were planned across the country, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said. In Paris, union leaders led the main march, while large rallies were also held in Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lille.

“This is not the theft of May Day that must be put on parliament’s agenda. It is a major plan to increase wages,” Sophie Binet, leader of the hard-left CGT union, said, marching beside Marylise Léon of the reformist CFDT union in Paris.

Binet called for a 5 percent rise in the minimum wage and for salaries to be linked to prices in a letter to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu.

Léon also called for a minimum wage increase because of inflation, along with “negotiations in the different professional sectors”.

French unions rally on Labour Day to defend paid holiday rights

People pressure

In Lyon, the prefecture counted 6,500 demonstrators, while unions said 12,000 people joined the march. Four arrests were reported. In Nantes, 4,000 people marched.

In Toulouse, between 5,500 people, according to the prefecture, and 12,000, according to the CGT, marched behind a banner calling for action “for our wages, for our pensions, against the far right and for peace”.

The same banner also declared: “Day of struggle since 1889, public holiday since 1947, May Day – you will not touch it.”

In Marseille, 3,400 people marched without incident.

Bakers and florists

Amid a national dispute over bakers and florists opening, many did so with government backing – despite 1 May’s special legal status as a paid holiday for almost all workers.

Lecornu visited a bakery in Haute-Loire, while former prime minister Gabriel Attal briefly stepped behind the counter at another in Vanves, near Paris.

“This is a provocation punishable by two fines,” labour inspector and CGT official Céline Clamme told French news agency AFP.

One fine would be for working on Labour Day, while the other concerned labour rules, since unpaid voluntary work is not permitted in a commercial business, Clamme said.

Checks took place across several parts of France, including in eastern and western regions as well as the Paris area and Marseille, Clamme said, as labour inspectors monitored whether businesses were breaking France’s work restrictions.

“We treated it like a normal Labour Day. There is no grey area – the law has not changed.”

The bakery visits by senior politicians also drew criticism from union leaders, who said the focus should be on working conditions rather than political messaging.

“The political leaders who go into a bakery, I think that is part of a politics of spectacle that we do not need,” Léon said. “What we need to show is the reality of a bakery worker.”

Gabriel Attal, leader of France’s centrist Renaissance party, visits a bakery in Vanves near Paris on Labour Day, as France debates whether bakers and florists should be allowed to open on the public holiday. AFP - JULIE SEBADELHA

Protests, picnics and politics as France marks fraught May Day

Some bakers defended opening their shops. In Lille, Marianne Chevalier said it “doesn’t bother anyone”.

“Everyone is happy to work, 10 hours or five hours, knowing that we are paid double,” she said.

At a bakery in Mérignac, near Bordeaux, a manager who gave only her first name, Morgane, said there was “no logic” in allowing fast food restaurants to open while bakeries could not.

(with newswires)

Labor Day 2026 in Germany

By Thomas Klikauer

May 2, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Screenshot from Vertex, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIu-CPs1E40

One of the rituals repeated annually is the criticism of Germany’s government by workers and trade unions during the Labour Day rallies held on 1 May. This year, Germany’s trade unions, union apparatchiks and, at times, even union members celebrated big wins wherever trade unions concluded collective agreements.

This year, German trade unions had reasons to celebrate the day of work, albeit in the context of the – as usual – crisis of capitalism, made worse by Donald Trump’s attack on Iran and the subsequent closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

This year’s calls, such as “our jobs”, appeared amid substantial job losses caused by artificial intelligence, the transition to a sustainable economy, and Trump’s war. For union officials, there was a very clear motto: corporate coffers are full. Workers will retain a “kind of existence” under capitalism – an exchangeable commodity.

Despite all the doom and gloom of Germany’s corporate press, there is still economic growth. Germany’s capital, Berlin, was even celebrated as a boomtown by the press. But it is not the workforce that is booming.

In many industries, thousands of jobs were lost, particularly in sectors under pressure. The majority of East Germany’s provinces act as an extended workbench – low-cost manufacturing with few benefits for workers.

East Germany is home to none of Germany’s major corporations. Corporate Germany maintains only “branches” – and these are presented in quotation marks, i.e. ready to be closed down. When it comes to shutting factories, East German branches, rather than West German factories, are the ones that close.

Corporate Germany still treats East Germany with disdain. Not much has changed since conservative politician Helmut Kohl promised “blooming industrial landscapes” during the 1990s – an electoral lie.

Germany’s chemical giant BASF illustrates this clearly. In February 2026, BASF announced a comprehensive “restructuring plan” – managerial code for job losses. Its works council and the trade union swung into action on the spot. For the East German state of Brandenburg, the management plan would mean production and services being outsourced or transferred.

In Berlin alone, management threatens the loss of 2,800 jobs. BASF’s corporate apparatchiks want to “combine” – a conveniently vague word – its Berlin services with those in India. This means severe job losses are on the horizon. In other words, corporate bosses treat workers as a disposable human resource.

Despite the attacks of corporate management on workers, German trade unions also had reasons to celebrate. Trade unions managed to fend off attacks by Germany’s government and its “private jet–flying” and neoliberal-worshipping chancellor on the eight-hour day.

Meanwhile, the very same multi-million-euro chancellor frustrated Berlin’s inhabitants, the unemployed, and social welfare recipients with political attacks on what remains of the welfare state after Kohl, Schröder, and Merkel.

Not just on 1 May, Germany’s peak union body, the DGB, issued a massive counterattack against Germany’s conservative government. Unionists spoke of the largest assault on Germany’s welfare state and public services since the 1990s.

Instead of neoliberal cuts, Germany’s unions are calling for forward-looking policy, investment, and improved conditions so that companies can maintain operations.

Unionists from IG BCE (mining, energy, chemicals) said there is strong resistance inside companies to these government plans, and that this resistance is substantial. Yet, in upcoming collective bargaining rounds, employers are preparing to challenge workers.

In Germany’s public transport system, unions have put forward a comprehensive wage claim. Unionists said it is about public transport as such. Yet employers in East Germany’s Thuringia seek to increase working hours to 42 hours a week – an attack on the eight-hour day.

In other words, government policies and corporate bosses work hand in hand when attacking Germany’s welfare state and workers’ conditions. Regularly, German employers’ associations – the direct counterparts of trade unions in collective bargaining – advocate loudly for far-reaching restrictions on collective bargaining. While employers seek to contest hard-fought agreements, collective bargaining provides security for workers.

Yet only 42% of all workers in Berlin and Brandenburg, for example, are covered by collective agreements – far too low. For only 16% of companies does a collective agreement apply. Taken together, the DGB trade unions have lost ground in the context of industrial and demographic changes. Yet they have also gained members, as recent strike waves have been rather successful.

What German trade unions observe is that wherever unions enter disputes, wherever they engage in conflict and strike action, particularly young people are joining trade unions. This is a positive development. It also means that trade unions can slow their losses, halt them, or ideally reverse them.

Sadly, the once-revolutionary day – 1 May – has all too often degenerated into a commercialised street festival. Instead of “workers unite!”, today it is “revellers unite!”. This trend may be reinforced as a majority of young people connect through TikTok and Instagram.

Yet calls for union-organised rallies still dominate and remain visible. Rallies on 1 May also include queer, feminist, and “take back the night” demonstrations. At least one revolutionary rally countered this trend while trying to make up for the prevailing tendency. About 25,000 people took part. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands gathered to celebrate and attend large radical-progressive rallies across the country.

Many still agree that 1 May is, without a doubt, the most important holiday of the working-class movement. For the past 136 years, workers have celebrated it as one of the few secular holidays around the world. As the day of the working class, it became established in 1889 in Paris. On one 1 May, workers were shot and killed in Chicago by police officers while demonstrating for the eight-hour day.

For many workers, 1 May remains an important day. In 2026, this is also because of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s attacks on the basic rights of workers – an attack on the working class as a whole.

In mid-January 2026, the conservative, neoliberal, and rather zealous Merz (CDU) spoke in Halle in East Germany against Germany’s long-standing Working Time Act. He called for its abolition. The act regulates, among other things, the right to the eight-hour day and the 40-hour week.

Merz’s assault was an attack on workers’ rights, but it was also offensive to those who once fought for the labour movement and the eight-hour day. So far, major protests against Merz’s attacks have remained limited. Perhaps his insults against – in his view – workers will change after 1 May, at least for a few days.

As in many countries, there has been, at least since the 1960s, a well-engineered decay of a unified working-class movement. Corporate bosses, along with an ever-compliant business press, constantly question the usefulness of trade unions – every year.

It is, as the actor Sean Penn might say, “one battle after another” to defend workers against the sustained onslaught of corporate media, CEOs, right-wing politicians, pro-business think tanks, corporate lobbying, and the adjacent propaganda apparatus of capitalism.

Despite all this, people still take to the streets every year on 1 May across Germany. Even if workers are no longer as highly organised as they once were, union rallies are still held in almost all cities.

Some union rallies count more than 10,000 participants. In some cities, there were radical left-wing rallies. One rally included 800 anarchists – not a strong tradition in Germany – organised under the black-and-red flag. Around 3,000 people attended a Communist Revolutionary 1 May rally. The youth bloc at a DGB rally argued against compulsory military service, holding posters that read:

if hundreds of billions can be spent on arms,
why not on schools, universities, and healthcare systems,
where funding is lacking?

In other words, 1 May remains an important day. At some rallies, the powerful metalworkers’ union IG Metall (IGM) was accused of hypocrisy. On the one hand, IGM opposes arms manufacturing. On the other hand, it participates in it, for example at the Blohm + Voss shipyard. A similar contradiction is currently playing out at Volkswagen.

IGM knows that €1 million creates 6.9 jobs in arms manufacturing, compared to 10 in sustainable energy, 14.3 in healthcare, and a striking 19.2 in education – almost three times more. In other words, the critique of Germany’s most powerful trade union, IGM, is not unfounded. Yet while job creation is minimal, profits in Germany’s military-industrial complex are far from minimal.

In fact, 1 May is almost the only day of the year when workers, trade unions, and the labour movement rally against the injustices of corporate capitalism. On this day, people demonstrate that the social composition of Germany’s working class still exists – despite claims by the pro-business media.

In spite of their best efforts, political workers have not vanished into thin air over recent decades. In other words, as long as there is capitalism, there are workers – and as long as there are workers, there are organised workers. These workers continue to rally on 1 May.Email

Thomas Klikauer

Thomas Klikauer has over 800 publications (including 12 books) and writes regularly for BraveNewEurope (Western Europe), the Barricades (Eastern Europe), Buzzflash (USA), Counterpunch (USA), Countercurrents (India), Tikkun (USA), and ZNet (USA). One of his books is on Managerialism (2013).

Climate Coalition Block 395 Freeway Exit; Access to Capitol, in May-Day Protest Against Fossil Fuel Lobby

By Build the Resistance
May 2, 2026
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Will, Insta - @Current.Noise, Bluesky - @Current.Noise
Over 40 local climate activists shut down rush-hour traffic leading to the Capitol to condemn the American Petroleum Institute (API) and American Gas Association (AGA) for their role in enabling fossil fuel companies in driving climate catastrophe.
The three year period between 2022-2025 was the hottest in recorded human history, with 2026 already positioned to be another record-breaking year. In DC alone, residents have been facing violent heat waves, flooding, sea level rise, and unpredictable storm surges, the extreme threat they pose a direct result of Big Oil’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“In the few years I’ve lived in DC, I’ve almost passed out due to extreme heat, been forced to hide out from tornado warnings, and watched my utility costs skyrocket just so I can stay safe from the escalating temperatures,” said Liana SC, an organizer with Sunrise DC. “This is not normal, and it’s only happening because of the chokehold oil and gas companies have over our government.”
Thanks to lobbying efforts by API and AGA, Big Oil reports yet another year of soaring profits, all while continuing to mislead the public about their role in worsening climate disasters. And now, they have pressured lawmakers into proposing new legislation to shield the oil and gas industry from litigation that could otherwise pave the way to a greener and more just future.
“Corrupt lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are working hand-in-hand with the Trump regime and the fossil fuel lobby to incinerate what’s left of our futures for a quick buck,” said Jackson Schnabel, a student organizer with Sunrise Georgetown. “They are profiting off of our suffering, and we’re here to say we’ve had enough.”
At 8 a.m., activists from Sunrise Movement DC, Extinction Rebellion DC, and the Elders Coalition for Climate Action used banners to blockade Massachuesetts Ave NW and the 395 freeway exit, stalling rush hour traffic outside both the API and AGA headquarters. Protesters chanted “No Trump, No API, No fascist USA” while carrying a giant model Earth along with banners that read “API, AGA, USA: End Fossil Fuel Fascism,” “Big Oil Fuels War,” and “No Jobs on a Dead Planet.”
This blockade occurred simultaneously with three other May Day blockades stationed at different intersections in downtown DC, all calling for investment in American communities over corporate profit–their specific demands being tied to No War, DC Statehood, and Labor Rights.
“We are in the street this May Day because business as usual cannot continue,” Said Alex Ames, a DC resident. “Not when ‘business as usual’ means funds that should be supporting working people are instead going into the pockets of oil billionaires, tech billionaires, and war profiteers.”
The morning efforts of these four coalitions kicked off a full International Worker Solidarity “Day of Action,” made up of a midday rally and evening concert, all of which was part of the nationwide May Day Strong movement that called for No Work, No School, No Shopping, and for everyday people to take the streets on Friday to demand our government prioritize people over billionaires. DC May Day actions were hosted by a large coalition of local organizations and unions, including Free DC, CASA, DC Jobs With Justice, Sunrise Movement, and more.
Sunrise DC is a local hub of the national Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate justice organization fighting for collective liberation and a better future through a Green New Deal.
Extinction Rebellion DC is a local hub of an international movement using non-violent direct-action to fight for climate justice. Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.
Elders Coalition for Climate Action recognizes the unique responsibility that elders have facing the linked crises of a near total erosion of our basic freedoms with the endangerment of life itself on earth. We are never too old!Email

Build the Resistance
Build the Resistance is a coalition made up of Sunrise DC, Extinction Rebellion DC, and Elders Coalition for Climate Action.

Labor Leaders and Organizers Announce Mass May Day Actions Demanding Workers Over Billionaires

By Numerous Authors
May 1, 2026
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.
Image by Fibonacci Blue/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 2.0
At a Tuesday press conference and mass call, labor leaders, educators, healthcare workers, and community organizers announced coordinated May Day actions on May 1, signaling a growing, multi-sector movement demanding an economy that works for people, not billionaires.
Speakers outlined plans for widespread mobilizations, including educator walkouts in North Carolina, ongoing nurse strikes in Louisiana, and worker actions spanning industries from gig work to fast food. Organizers also called for economic non-cooperation, urging people to refrain from spending.
“The pro democracy movement cannot win without workers, and the labor movement cannot win without fully embracing its role in defending democracy, and on May Day, we’re bringing both of those things together,” said Neidi Dominguez, Executive Director of Organized Power in Numbers.
“This Friday, working people across the country are saying we are done seeing billionaires put before workers,” said Saqib Bhatti, Executive Director of Action Center on Race and the Economy. “We demand a country that invests in our neighbors instead of attacking them, and we are not giving up our democracy without a fight.”
In North Carolina, close to 20 school districts were expected to close as thousands of educators and supporters take action.
“This Friday, for the third time in eight years, in a state with the worst labor laws in the country, and where lots of folks get tricked into thinking that unions are illegal, we are taking action that unites our workplaces and our communities in solidarity in a way that only public school workers can do,” said Bryan Proffitt, Vice President of the North Carolina Association of Educators.
Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO, joined the evening mass call representing 15 million workers across 65 unions and framed May Day as a continuation of the labor movement’s longest-running tradition.
“Workers all over this country, whether you’re in a big city, a small town, deep in rural America, we are all connected by the frustration, the anger that we feel with the status quo,” Shuler said. “If you are a worker in this country, May Day is your day.”
Jackson Potter, Vice President of the Chicago Teachers Union, connected May Day to the broader fight against concentrated power.
“These bad billionaire bosses who are running the White House, they need to be confronted at the ballot box, in the streets and through labor and community uniting in bigger, broader and bolder coalitions and actions together,” Potter said.
Across both calls, speakers pointed to shared demands: increased funding for public education, healthcare, and housing; fair wages and union rights; safe staffing in healthcare; and an end to corporate tax policies that favor the wealthy over working families.
“We cannot just protest, we cannot just educate. We must apply economic pressure,” said Sarah Parker of 50501. “We know that those towers will crumble by the weight of the people, but we also know the only way they’re going to do that is if we apply pressure.”
Stacy Davis Gates, President of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union, framed May Day as part of a longer struggle for democracy.
“Our history shows that every expansion of democracy has come from workers organizing and taking collective action. On May Day, we are reminding the country that our power is in our solidarity,” said Davis Gates. “On May 1, we are going to be testing our country’s patriotism.”

Building Beyond May Day

Speakers stressed that May Day 2026 represented a turning point in a broader movement toward sustained organizing and collective action.
From the Deep South to the Midwest to major cities, participants described a shared commitment to building long-term power, uniting union and non-union workers, students, and community members in a fight for a more just and equitable future.
“We want to win a democracy for working people, Black, white, brown, gay, straight, native born, foreign born,” said Terrence Wise, leader at the Missouri Workers Center. “I’ve seen people make the impossible possible when we get organized.” “If you look at examples across the world, young people and students have often been at the forefront of defeating authoritarianism,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement. “This is an action that meets the intensity of the moment and that wields our power as students, which is why we see 70,000 students pledged to walk out.”

Florida Workers Deserve a Better May Day Than This

Hayley Brown

May 1, 2026

May Day is traditionally a day for workers to celebrate their collective power. In Florida, however, lawmakers have advanced yet another bill meant to undercut just that by weakening the state’s public-sector unions. Critics have characterized SB 1296 as a naked attempt to bust public sector unions. The bill’s champions include the Freedom Foundation, whose CEO reportedly lauded the legislation as a step toward the “decimation of Florida unions.”

SB 1296 would harden existing hurdles for unions by tightening the rules for union certification and recertification. Recertification elections require workers in an already-unionized bargaining unit to affirmatively vote to retain their existing union as their representative. Requiring them shifts the burden onto an already certified union to repeatedly prove that it should continue to exist. Under the bill, unions would need not only a majority of votes cast, but also participation from a majority of eligible voters in the bargaining unit. In other words, even if most participating workers vote to keep their union, the union could still fall short if too many eligible workers do not vote. SB1296 effectively treats failure to cast a ballot as a vote against the union rather than an abstention.

SB 1296 builds on SB 256, which passed in 2023. That law prohibited many public employers from deducting union dues directly from workers’ paychecks, requiring unions to spend time and resources moving members onto less efficient alternative payment systems. It also required unions to submit annual registration renewal applications that include audited financial statements and detailed membership information. Public employers may challenge those applications before the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC), and PERC may revoke a union’s registration and certification if it finds the application inaccurate or noncompliant. If fewer than 60 percent of workers in the bargaining unit were dues-paying union members, the union would have to petition PERC for recertification within one month of submitting its renewal application. This requirement means that even unions with clear majority support in a workplace could be forced to spend time and resources defending their existing status as workers’ bargaining representative.

Taken together, the laws are clearly designed to weaken existing unions. SB 256 makes dues collection more difficult, then uses the dues-paying share of the bargaining unit as a basis for forcing recertification. SB 1296 then raises the stakes of recertification elections by adding a participation requirement, giving employers another avenue to bust unions merely by obfuscating and undermining election turnout. Both SB1296 and SB256 exempt police and firefighters unions, a common thread among state laws that otherwise target state and local government workers.Both SB1296 and SB256 exempt police and firefighters unions, a common thread among state laws that otherwise target state and local government workers.

The underlying principle of solidarity is that an attack on one is an attack on all. In Florida’s case, however, it’s an attack on many. Public sector workers account for 52.7 percent of union members in Florida, and state and local government workers comprise 38.6 percent.

The effects of anti-union legislation can be dramatic. In Wisconsin, the passage of Act 10 — one of the most sweeping pieces of anti-union state legislation in recent history — coincided with a significant decline in public-sector unionization, driven by a decline in state and local unionization (Figure A). Wisconsin differs from Florida in that it started as a strong union state and thus had further to fall. Florida’s trajectory since 2023 (Figure B) has been far less striking than Wisconsin’s in the wake of Act 10, which was admittedly a harsher piece of legislation for unions. However, additional evidence suggests that more than 63 thousand Florida workers have lost union representation because of SB256 alone. It remains to be seen how much the addition of SB1296 may affect union membership rates among Florida’s state and local government workers going forward.

The attacks on unions in Florida have advanced alongside broader attacks on unions in general and public sector unions in particular. But despite conservatives’ best efforts to demonize them, unions remain very popular with the US public. The Freedom Foundation, a key union antagonist, asserts that “…government unions are a root cause of every growing national dysfunction in America.” Polls suggest that Americans believe the opposite, however, with 60 percent agreeing that falling unionization hurts the country and 62 percent saying that it hurts working people.

Laws that target public sector unions are attacks on the entire labor movement. A meaningful workers’ movement must explicitly include public-sector workers, and their right to organize must not be treated as optional. Federal legislation like the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act of 2025, which would codify organizing and collective bargaining rights for government workers, is an important step toward this goal. This May Day, lawmakers at every level of government should do both the right and the popular thing and ensure that all workers — public-sector included — have a real, enforceable right to organize and bargain collectively.

This first appeared on CEPR.

Hayley Brown is a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Chicago Teachers Are Organizing to Fight Beyond a Day of Action on May Day

A Q&A with Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter about why they're mobilizing en masse this May 1.

By Jackson Potter

April 30, 2026

Source: Inequality.org

This May Day, workers, students, and families across the country are set to turn out in the thousands or even millions to make their voices heard against the growing power of the billionaire class.

May Day, often referred to as International Workers’ Day, has a long legacy in the labor movement. In the late 1800’s — an era of extreme wealth concentration much like our own — American workers organized a general strike on May 1st demanding an eight-hour workday. After a wave of violent state and police repression of labor epitomized by the 1886 Haymarket Affair in downtown Chicago, May 1 was enshrined as a celebration of the working class.

This year, organizers are hoping to expand the scope of the day of action into a broader movement against corporate power and the start of a longer organizing process.

Inequality.org spoke with Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, about their plans and hopes for this year’s May Day.

For people who don’t follow labor or politics closely, what do you want them to understand about what is happening this May Day?

May Day has always been International Workers Day, and this year it is something more. On May 1, workers, students, and families across the country are going to march, rally, and in many cities, refuse business as usual entirely, no work, no school, no shopping, to show this country what it looks like when working people decide not to show up for the people who profit from our labor.

The reason for that is straightforward. Working people are already being forced to choose between food on the table and medicine on the shelf, between paying rent and keeping the lights on. At the same time, resources that should be going to schools, housing, and health care are being diverted to pay for billionaires’ fortunes and arming federal agents to attack our neighbors. People are fed up, and they have every right to be. May Day is the moment when that fed-up energy takes a coordinated form.

The Chicago Teachers Union voted to make May Day a civic day of action. What does that mean, and why did CTU decide to do it?

It means that on May 1, instructional time in Chicago public schools will be devoted to civic engagement, with buses being provided for students who want to attend the rally, discussions in classrooms, and educators and students participating in the kind of collective action that we spend all year teaching young people about in the abstract.

Teaching students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks. It requires educators who are willing to model what it looks like to stand up when the stakes are real. We teach about the eight-hour workday, about the labor movement, about the history of people organizing to change what was considered politically impossible, including the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, when on May 2, 1963, young people left their classrooms and helped force the country to confront injustice.

This is not a new idea for CTU. When Rahm Emanuel tried to turn our 300-page contract into a 50-page document and close 50 schools in Black communities, we did not just file grievances. We organized parents, students, and community members and fought back. May Day is that same tradition applied to this moment.

You have watched the Department of Education be systematically dismantled over the past several months. What does that mean concretely for public school students and teachers?

We have seen this before. In Chicago, we watched the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club publish a report calling for 100 charter schools in the city’s Black communities, and watched Democratic and Republican mayors alike implement it. Closing 200 schools over two decades. The research has been clear for years that school closings destabilize communities, increase violence, and produce no educational gains. None of that stopped it. What stopped it, finally, was organized power. It was parents, educators, and community members who refused to accept that their schools were expendable.

The dismantling of the Department of Education is the same agenda, scaled to the national level. It is not about improving education. It is about transferring public resources to private operators. And the response has to be the same, organized power at every level.

How do attacks on public education, the threat of undermining elections, and an illegal war in Iran connect? Are these separate fights or the same fight?

They are the same fight, and understanding that is essential to building the kind of coalition that can actually win.

Think about who benefits from the war in Iran. Oil companies that invested $75 million in Trump’s reelection are collecting tens of billions in extra revenue from the price spike. That money does not go to schools, or health care, or housing. It goes to executives and shareholders. Meanwhile, working families are paying more for gas and groceries, and the U.S. Postal Service has proposed a fuel surcharge on package deliveries because of war-driven oil prices. The war is not separate from the affordability crisis, it is one of its causes.

The attack on elections follows the same logic. When working-class communities cannot vote, the people making decisions about school funding, about ICE operations, about war, do not have to answer to them. The corporate oligarchy did not start with Trump. It was built over decades by Democrats and Republicans alike who put the interests of billionaires before workers. Protecting free and fair elections is not a procedural question. It is a question of who has power over the decisions that determine whether working families can survive.

Workers are already stretched thin by the affordability crisis. How does the war in Iran make that worse?

The connection is direct and it is not complicated. When U.S. oil companies are generating an extra $63 billion in revenue because of war-driven oil prices, that money comes from somewhere. It comes from every working family filling up a gas tank, every small business paying more for deliveries, every school district paying more for transportation. The war is a wealth transfer from working people to the top of the income distribution, and it is happening in real time.

The three demands of May Day Strong are not random. Tax the rich, no ICE and no war, expand democracy. They fit together because the same billionaires driving authoritarianism are the ones profiting from federal contracts, war spending, and the suppression of wages and unions. You cannot address the affordability crisis without confronting the concentration of wealth and power that is producing it.

What are you seeing on the ground heading into May 1? What does it look like when labor and community organizations actually move together?

The school district has officially made May Day a civic day of action. The labor movement has called for an economic blackout. That kind of alignment does not happen automatically. It is built through years of relationships, through showing up for each other’s fights. In Chicago, the CTU has been in relationship with immigrant rights organizations, with tenant organizing groups, with community organizations in Black and Latino neighborhoods for a long time. Those relationships are what make it possible to move together at scale.

Nationally, more than 500 labor and community organizations have come together under the May Day Strong coalition. That includes National Nurses United, SEIU, UNITE HERE, and hundreds of others. As many as 3,000 events are anticipated across all 50 states. This is not a moment. It is a movement that has been building.

What do you want someone reading this to do on May Day and after?

Show up on May 1. Find a march or rally in your city. If there is not one, organize one. The May Day Strong website has a map.

But the more important answer is what comes after. May Day is not the destination, it is a test of the infrastructure we are building. After May Day, go back to your workplace and organize your union. Connect with the community organizations in your neighborhood. Find out what your local school board is doing about funding, about ICE in schools, about the resources your students need. Run for something. Support someone who is running.

The corporate oligarchy did not get here overnight and it will not be dismantled overnight. What has always changed the balance of power is workers and communities moving together over time. That is what we are building. May Day is where we show what that kind of power looks like.

Chicago Teachers Are Making This May Day Count

A Q&A with Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jackson Potter about why they're mobilizing en masse this May 1.

By Jackson Potter, Inequality.org

April 29, 2026

Source: Inequality.org

An SEIU member chants alongside striking CTU members during the 2012 Chicago teachers strike. (Flickr / Spencer Tweedy)