LAHORE, April 30: The May Day will be observed throughout the country with usual enthusiasm and zeal on Thursday by the working class.

Various trade unions and workers organizations have made elaborate arrangements for holding rallies and seminars to pay homage to the workers of Chicago who laid down their lives for the rights of the working class.

In Lahore, a large number of rallies and processions will be held at various places. Tens of thousands of workers will attend the rallies. It will be a public holiday. All government offices, educational institutions, banks and insurance companies, industrial and commercial centres will remain closed. This is the second year of the government observing the May Day by declaring it a public holiday which had been discontinued by the previous government in 1998. The public holiday was resumed last year on the demand of the country’s trade unions and workers’ organizations.

The main procession will be taken out by the Pakistan Workers Confederation, the All Pakistan Trade Unions Federation and other workers’ organizations from the Lahore Press Club at 10am which will march up to the Punjab Assembly building. The procession will be led by PWC general-secretary Khurshid Ahmad, Chaudhry Talib Nawaz, Chaudhry Gulzar Ahmad, Muhammad Yaqub, Muhammad Amin Rathore, Muhammad Aslam Firdausi, Khushi Muhammad Khokhar and other labour leaders.

Various workers organizations held separate meetings here on Wednesday to make final arrangements to make the May Day a success. A seminar will be held by the Democratic Labour Federation and Women Workers Helpline at 40-Abbot Road at 9am. Historian Dr Mubarak Ali, human rights activist I.A. Rehman and Aslam Raheel Mirza will address.

The Muttahida Labour Federation will hold a rally at the Bakhtiar Labour Hall at 10am.