"Christchurch will be holding a march celebrating International Workers Day on Saturday the 1st of May" said the May Day Committee spokesman Sam Kingi. "It out was started out of the struggle for an 8-hour working day, which is now basically non-existent. Internationally it is a day to celebrate achievements of the working class or a day to protest and struggle for radical changes."

Workers all over the country are involved in struggles such as nurses, university staff, and waterfront workers. It just happens that waterfront workers in Lyttleton went on strike on Thursday night due to contract negotiations.

The march will meet at Cranmer Square at 3pm, Saturday, May the 1st, where it will be addressed, then it will march to Cathedral Square, where there will be more speakers.

Sam said "Workers' rights and the class struggle will be at the forefront, as well as the imperialist war on Iraq that the New Zealand Labour government is involved in. Also the reality is that under capitalism, workers and unemployed workers are exploited for the benefit of a few, and are always hit the hardest during economic down-turns and are constantly asked or forced to make concessions for a rotten system that we have no stake in."

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