While Labor Day, the first day of May, is marked around the world as a celebration of labor rights, workers in some European countries strove for economic justice and a better pay by walkouts.

A new round of nationwide protests in France was launched on Monday as people are angry over the passage of President Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reforms. Last month, Macron signed a law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, despite months of strikes against the bill.

In Italy, railway employees around the country went on strike from April 30 to May 1, demanding higher wages. People from the country's public transport system will also start nationwide protests on May 2 over high inflation.

Nurses in the UK are staging their biggest strike of the year so far on Monday, with the walkout affecting intensive care, emergency rooms and cancer wards for the first time. Thousands of nurses went on streets to reject the government's offer of a 5-percent pay raise for the current year and a cash payment for the previous year.

Workers in the UK have suffered from a cost-of-living crisis due to lower wages and higher inflation. In March, more than 100,000 British civil and public servants said they would join an all-out strike starting from April 28 till early May, in a long-running dispute with the government over pay, pensions, redundancy terms and job security.

(With input from agencies)

(Cover: Nurses protest outside University College Hospital in London, UK, May 1, 2023. /CFP)