European Communist Action: In the EU of monopolies, the right to vacation is sacrificed on the altar of profit

Statement of the European Communist Action: The right of popular families to vacation is sacrificed on the altar of profit through the ruthless exploitation of tourism workers

The right to leisure and rest is a social right, just like the right to work, touching on issues of health, culture, and even sports. This right has been and continues to be the subject of class struggles for the physical and intellectual capacities of workers. The struggle for paid leave or for the reduction of working hours are just two examples.

However, even if this right can be won, it is always, under capitalism, limited in practice or attacked. Today, the imperialist European Union seeks to establish itself as a strategically autonomous military and political force in inter-imperialist contradictions, with one means to achieve this end being attacks on the fundamental rights of workers. Thus, despite the European Union having set the minimum threshold for paid leave at 4 weeks per year, it is organizing, through the European Commission, massive cuts in the budget dedicated, among others, to culture and heritage, in order to invest in armaments. The EU’s policy of cutting pensions and forcing retired workers back into employment deprives them of their right to vacation and leisure, as it is moving toward a war economy in contradiction with popular needs.

Access to vacations and leisure is also difficult due to the large tourism monopolies that dominate the sector. Official figures indicate that 30% of the population does not go on vacation at least once a year, while during the summer they have to cope with sweltering heat.

Thus, the intense heatwaves that the working classes endured during the month of June causing thousands of deaths once again demonstrate the inhuman nature of capitalism. The lack of workplace protections and urban organization adapted to the new temperature changes is the result of the capitalist pursuit of profit, the EU’s, governments’, and capital’s “green” strategy, and the hundreds of billions spent not on preparing for natural disasters but on imperialist wars. Furthermore, the concentration of transportation, housing, and culture in the hands of a handful of monopolies is favored by capitalism and the imperialist European Union. As a result, housing prices have increased by more than 5% since 2025 within the EU, an increase attributed to speculation by business groups and to the rise in and concentration of rents. The environments and working-class neighborhoods are endangered by tourism driven by the profit of the tourist industry under capitalism and by the privatization commercialization of natural spaces and our living spaces through public-private partnerships, always to the detriment of their rational maintenance.

Moreover, based on the EU work plan, within the framework of the European program for tourism 2030, these concentrations of tourism monopolies also lead to the brutal exploitation of workers in hospitality and tourism who are faced with even more flexible working relations, precarious contracts during the summer seasons, as well as difficult climatic conditions. We particularly think of migrant women and men, as well as the youth, who face ruthless exploitation.

We support the struggles of seasonal workers in hospitality, catering, and tourism, as well as the struggles for wages and leave, for dignified holidays and leisure.

Only the revolution and the construction of socialism, through the centralized planning of the economy, have allowed and will allow the working class and the popular strata to achieve social development through leisure, culture, and vacations. The 8-hour workday (as opposed to 10 to 12 hours) was established just 4 days after the Bolsheviks' revolutionary takeover in 1917. The USSR was the first to establish paid vacations in the 1930s. Holidays (transport and accommodation costs) were free for workers.

The centralized organization and planning of social production is the only one capable of enabling the protection and maintenance of environments and culture free from capitalist profit.

Thus, the struggles of workers in tourism and seasonal work, as well as the demands for dignified leisure and rest, cannot be separated from the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, with the communists at its forefront.

eurcomact.org