There are dates that call into question. May Day is one, by definition. It is not a complacent anniversary or an empty ritual: it is an uncomfortable mirror that forces us to ask ourselves if work allows us to live with dignity or if, on the contrary, it is becoming normalized that millions of working people do not make ends meet. This year, this challenge is harder than ever. The slogan we have agreed upon with the unions –“Rights, not trenches. Wages, housing, and democracy”– is not a rhetorical catchphrase: it is a line of defense against those who seek to substitute rights for confrontation, cohesion for division, and social dialogue for imposition.All this occurs, moreover, in an adverse international context, marked by geopolitical instability, open conflicts, and the dispute over the control of energy and supply chains. The aggression against Ukraine, the escalation in the Middle East – with attacks against Iran outside international law – and trade tensions between powers directly impact daily life: more inflation in essential goods, volatile energy prices, and declining real wages. And this adjustment often ends up falling on labor.Catalonia is not foreign to this context. On the contrary: it embodies it with special intensity. It is one of the most dynamic economies in the State, with average wages above the average –around 34,700 euros per year–, but also with deep internal divides and growing pressure on the living conditions of working people. Because the question is not only how much is growing, but how this growth is distributed. And here collective bargaining is an essential tool.The distributive conflict is today at the center of the debate. While business profits have shown remarkable resilience even in this uncertain environment, wages have lost purchasing power. And when work does not guarantee a dignified life, social cohesion cracks. Therefore, wage improvement is not a conjunctural claim, but structural: it is the basic condition for sustaining the social contract, for strengthening domestic demand, and for preventing economic recovery from being built on fragile foundations. Collective bargaining must continue to be the instrument that orders this distribution, that closes gaps – including the gender gap – and that prevents growth from concentrating in the hands of a few.

UGT and CCOO had long been proposing to "decentralize" the main May Day demonstration and change Madrid as the location, as explained by the general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, this Monday. Finally, they have opted for Malaga, but it has not escaped anyone's notice that it coincides with the start of the election campaign in Andalusia. In fact, it is taken for granted that the socialist candidate for Andalusia and until recently first vice-president of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, will attend. "It has nothing to do with the elections [...] [The mobilization] cannot be improvised overnight," the unions indicated, thus ruling out the idea of a conscious coincidence. The choice of the Andalusian city is due to the fact that it experiences firsthand the problem of access to housing, as they explained.

UGT and CCOO had been planning to "decentralize" the main May Day demonstration and change Madrid as the location for some time, as explained by the general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, this Monday. Finally, they have opted for Malaga, but it has not escaped anyone's notice that it coincides with the start of the electoral campaign in Andalusia. In fact, it is taken for granted that the socialist candidate for Andalusia and until recently the first vice-president of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, will attend. "It has nothing to do with the elections [...] [The mobilization] cannot be improvised from one day to the next," the unions have indicated, thus ruling out the idea of a conscious coincidence. The choice of the Andalusian city is due to the fact that it experiences the problem of access to housing firsthand, as they have explained.

"For those of us with very physical jobs, beyond improving work-life balance, reducing the workday would help us reduce this workload and improve our health." Diego works in the cleaning industry and this holiday, May Day, he dedicated it to demonstrating to demand that Spain finally approve the 37.5-hour work week. The proposal to reduce the legal limit for the workday for the first time in forty years has once again been the focus of protests that have been repeated in some eighty Spanish cities.

Donald Trump's arrival at the White House will not go unnoticed this May Day, or at least not among the majority unions, CCOO and UGT, which are proposing next week's mobilizations as a dam against the policies of the US president. "It should be a May Day marked by the clamor for shorter working hours, but it will be a clamor for democracy with the arrival of Donald Trump," said CCOO leader Unai Sordo at a press conference this Monday, during the presentation of the two unions' manifesto for International Workers' Day 2025: "Win the Future."