May Day rally in Berlin on Wednesday. (Sean Gallup/AP)
Happy May Day—time to take to the streets. Thousands protested throughout Europe on Wednesday, the day set aside to honor unions and organized labor. Trains and ferries were canceled in Greece as police—including 1,000 who were deployed to Athens—prepared for what they predicted would be thousands of protesters. “The government must take back austerity, the people can’t take it anymore,” said Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of the public sector union ADEDY. Meanwhile, in Spain, where 27 percent of the population is unemployed, at least 80 protests were planned by organized labor throughout the country. The head of UGT, one of the country’s largest trade unions, called on workers to join in, saying there has “never been a May 1 with more reason to take to the streets.”
