Workers' rights reduced to free beans

(novilist.hr)

We celebrated May 1st. Labor Day. Someone was resting. Someone was eating beans. But everyone felt, at least tangentially, that it was a holiday that celebrated and commemorated the struggle for better working conditions for those who live off their wages. Those who have been completely forgotten and neglected by the political class.

The problem with those who live off their salary is that they and their problems are not interested in politics. That is, they are interested to the extent that they accuse those in power of not caring at all about those who live off their work. And when they come to power, they do the same. For example, in Croatia, in 36 years of democracy, only one party has emerged that could be called social democratic. Of course, not just in name, because this adjective exists in the names of several domestic political parties. But only the Croatian Labor Party was an attempt to realize that old social democracy linked to unions and concrete action in protecting the rights of those who live off their work. The fact that it failed ingloriously, of course, says most about it and its leaders, who disagreed with each other, not to say quarreled. But it also says how incapable society is of paying attention to the issues that the Labor Party was pushing. But it was the only such party, and it is truly a shame that they ultimately failed.

Today's left-wing parties and their leaders who adorn themselves with left-wing phrases, from moderates to far-left fakers, are infinitely more interested in all possible world trends - global warming, pushing political correctness to the limit, LGBTQ+ issues, the smallest of the smallest minorities, the fate of the European Union - and are completely indifferent to the working conditions of cashiers in stores where they buy personal groceries or people in call centers where they inquire about problems that have arisen in their internet network. Or, for that matter, all those who live on plus-minus the average salary.

So they are surprised when such people increasingly start voting for right-wing and far-right options, which are of course the worst fakes, but at least on a verbal level they directly talk about the need to protect jobs and how to protect them. And when the working-class population reacted to these phrases, only insults came from the so-called progressive ranks. One of the more famous is the one uttered by the notorious Hillary Clinton. Of course, she is not the only one. This is how the entire left-wing elite in the developed and less developed West behaves. It has been going on for decades. And it looks like it will continue to do so. Everything, absolutely everything points to that. Basically, after the fall of communism and up until now, the story about how to protect workers' rights has completely died out. An attempt is being made in Western society to sell a completely false story that meritocracy is at work in them. In the sense that everyone is the forger of their own luck. Everyone has a chance, so whoever succeeds succeeds, and whoever fails, it is their own fault. Like when Tony Blair, the man who probably contributed the most to promoting this doctrine, at one point claimed that all of Britain’s residents were “now middle class.” Of course, only someone born into the upper middle class, educated at one of the best private high schools, and later attending one of the best universities in the world could say something like that.

Of course, no normal person here is talking about returning to some kind of revolutionary socialism. That was tried and after great sacrifices it failed quite deservedly. That's what fakers on good state salaries are talking about, without any sense of reality and without any sense of responsibility. What is needed is for someone in the political establishment to finally start seriously dealing with these things, both in Croatia and around the world. Anyway, a little belated Happy Labor Day to us. We spent it resting, which is not exactly the case in all countries in the world. In Croatia, its celebration boils down to that and free beans. It's not just politics that's to blame. We are all responsible. We have allowed ourselves to not be interested in such topics, even though they have a direct connection to our destiny. And in the most direct way.