As May Day approaches, the International Workers Association would like to express our solidarity to workers in struggle across the globe and to those fighting for a more horizontal economic and social order throughout the world. We would like to remind all of the meaning of May Day and the significance of the ideas behind the revolutionary workers' international – the IWA.

During the 1880s, workers and unionists like ourselves fought for the right to an 8-hour working day. They were violently repressed by the state and some of our comrades gave their lives for this struggle. Almost a century and a half later, many of us are still in the struggle for the 8-hour working day. The capitalists who exploit working people to collect their riches and usurp their power still work people beyond limits, especially in the poor countries of the world where they labor all day for their miserable existence. Often aided by the state, the capitalists may exploit and offer outrageously poor conditions which workers are driven into out of desperation. The world's working class is thus divided in relation to their access to the fruits of their labor, a world of more and less priveleged humans, with some workers clinging onto the lower rung for their survival. However, our struggle is a common one: to rid the world of this unjust and hierarchical social and economic struggle and to set about creating a world of truly equals.

On the occasion of International Woman's Day, we would like to address the issue of problems which disproportionately affect women in the workplace, dealing with them in a more effective manner and increasing the participation of women in our movement.

Talking to comrades from inside the anarchosyndicalist movement and from outside, we can see that we still have a long way to go to take an organized approach to fighting sexism in our workplaces. At the recent international anarchafeminist conference, during the workshop which dealt with workplace organizing, we found that women had many similar complaints and experiences in the workplace, but few of them had been involved in organizing around those issues where they worked. Only a few of them were involved in unions, either mainstream or alternative.

The reasons for this may be very complex and can also involve many personal specifics. But it is worth discussion. In some of our organizations we have a gender inbalance or women are somehow marginalized because of patterns of behaviour that may be more inclined towards male socialization. However we all know that our movement should not function like this and that the struggle for equality is not only an economic one, but a struggle for equality in all aspects.

On this occasion, we call on our comrades to explore these issues, to take steps towards making improvements where necessary and to highlight the role of women where they have been active and successful.

In the week of January 26-31, a number of actions were held at Amazon and Manpower in solidarity with workers at Amazon Poland, some of whom are employed through the Manpower agency. The ZSP union in Amazon is fighting to regulate payments which weren't made and to improve the overall working conditions.

Organizations and individuals sent protests from many countries and organized actions in the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Spain, Norway, Brazil and Poland. Prior to this week, there was also an action at Manpower headquarters in the USA.