As has been the case every year for the past 33 years, the May Day Concert was held in Rome this May 1st as well: Ambra Angiolini and Fabrizio Biggio conducted the event.
May Day Concert
An occasion that, every year, brings together hundreds of thousands of people in Rome to listen to the artists called to perform on the May Day stage. Music, entertainment, lots of rain and, above all, spotlights on the world of work: the May Day Concert reflects on rights, society, safety and critical issues that affect all workers in Italy. For this year’s edition, the running was entrusted to Ambra Angiolini and Fabrizio Biggio. The actress, presenter and new judge of X Factor (also for the next edition?) wanted to devote some reflections to two delicate and important issues: women’s rights and safety in the workplace, and it is no coincidence that the hashtag that accompanied this big concert was #ildirittochemanca.
Ambra Angiolini against gender inequality
“Lawyer, engineer, architect: will all these vowels at the end of words be weapons of mass distraction?” she wonders, and she asks whoever is listening, Ambra Angiolini on the May Day stage. A provocation that aims to shed light on the condition of working women, because, she continues, “they make us lose sight of the facts. And the facts are that one in five women doesn’t work after having a child, who earns a fifth less than a man who covers the same position”. “Didn’t the Constitution already say in 1948 that women should have the same rights as men in article 36?” continues the provocation of the presenter, who concludes: “What can we do with the words? I want to propose an exchange: take back the vowels at the end of the feminine words, but give us back the 20% salary. Pay and put the women in a position to work. Equal means to be equal. And it ends with an e”.
Ambra Angiolini remembers Lorenzo Parelli
Safety in the workplace, but also dignity, a fair wage, an end to exploitation: the stage of the May Day Concert amplified the sound of messages and struggles that are tirelessly carried forward. Thus Ambra Angiolini was moved when remembering Lorenzo Parelli, who at the age of only 18 lost his life during the school-work alternation: “Lorenzo is 18 years old and the word we gave him is ‘work’, who can ensure what still more, the word ‘future’ belongs to him by right. It is his last day of the school-work alternation: Lorenzo dies in the first syllable of the word future, because Lorenzo will never get a job. Died of work during the school hours, pay with your life without ever having been paid by anyone. Today, we are here, on this stage in front of you, to deliver something really important to you: take care of it, because you can always change things, leave defeats to us. So that no Lorenzo dies in the word future”.
