BERLIN
About 400,000 Germans have held International Workers Day rallies across Germany calling for better working conditions and protesting against attempts to dismantle the minimum wage, rally organizers have said.
Germany’s largest trade union, the DGB, organized about 470 rallies across Germany under the slogan: “We are shaping the future of work!”
DBG chairman Reiner Hoffman criticized lawmakers of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc for attempts to dismantle the minimum wage.
Hoffman said in an address to crowds at a rally in the German capital of Berlin: "We will not allow them to curtail the minimum wage.
“The minimum wage of €7.50 per hour, in practice since January this year, is a historic achievement for us after a decades-long struggle."
Demonstrators carried placards reading: “Adios, wage dumping”, “Bye-bye burn out!” and “F.ck off racism!”
DGB organizers said that about 400,000 demonstrators joined rallies across Germany.
About 20,000 demonstrators rallied in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district on Friday evening calling for solidarity with the Greek people opposing austerity measures imposed by international creditors and Kurdish forces who fight Daesh in northern Iraq and Syria.
They demanded more support for asylum seekers and chanted slogans: “No one is illegal” and “Refugees Welcome!”
In the eastern German city of Weimar, a group of 50 far-right extremists tried to stop a May Day trade union from gathering.
Four people were injured during a scuffle and police arrested 29 far-right extremists.
About 4,000 people rallied peacefully in the northern city of Hamburg.
Some left-wing protestors clashed with police during evening protests in the suburbs of St. Pauli and Altona.
Hamburg police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protestors.
