Lebanon celebrates Labor day on May 1, which happened to be on Sunday this year. We usually get the next working day instead but since we are celebrating Easter today, Prime Minister Salam decided to just ignore that holiday that we are all entitled to.
The idea from Labor day is to give all this country’s workers a break to honor their contributions to Lebanon’s well-being and prosperity, or whatever is left of that. I just got back from Rome and nearly all stores were closing on that day, except few ones in tourist areas.
Since it’s not common for shops to close down on Sundays, labor day should be set on a working day (first Monday of May for example). If the government and parliament celebrate Labor day every day, that’s not the case for most hard-working Lebanese.
Let’s not forget also that domestic workers are also workers, and that they are still being treated as slaves in this country because our government still refuses to annul the Kafala system.
