Scenes like this became more commonplace along the Belleville stretch of yesterday's May Day parade route as people who were not originally part of the parade started to join the marchers. (Picture by Charles Grant.)

THE LABOUR DAY PARADE is not a "wuk-up" party, but a show of solidarity to prevent the abuse of workers.

General secretary of the Barbados Workers' Union (BWU), Sir Roy Trotman, said this yesterday after he was asked to comment on the Crop-Over-type "wukking up" that took place in some sections of the parade.

Sir Roy said he wanted to remind the public the march was not an excuse to behave like it was Kadooment.

"More and more people are coming out to the celebration and we are trying to use the occasion to get across what we call the new May Day message.

"Many of the people who are coming are young people and it is going to be very difficult to tell those people not to jump up and not to wine," said Sir Roy, whose BWU organises the parade.

He said he was urging people that, if they felt they had to jump up, then to make sure they at least understood it had to be done "with a certain decorum".

"There has to be respect for the fact that this is not a Kadooment, this is a rally that promotes labour and the interests of workers.

"The May Day solidarity activity is because workers were murdered [in the past] and this is supposed to be solidarity action to prevent workers from being abused, mistreated and even murdered at their workplaces [now]," he said.

Sir Roy said this was why marshals had been put into place to "moderate the influence of hyperactivity within the groups", but acknowledged it would not always work.

Some of the revellers were not originally part of the parade, but joined along the route. (CA)