On Saturday, Malta and most of the world celebrated Workers’ Day. The political parties had their say as did the trade unions, and one has to say that the conditions of 2010 are massively different from those of 1910. Only 100 hundred years ago people were still digging for coal in mines by candlelight. Thousands of women and underage children still packed the workhouses. Disease and illness were rife. Social housing was inexistent. You literally worked to live. There was no option of saving money – every last penny earned went into your rent, your measly meals and in many cases, any spare money was spent on ‘medicine’ – whisky for the women and beer for the men, in an attempt to escape the misery of working fingers to the bone day after day, seven days a week.

Pensions were for the privileged, not for the workers. Workers existed only to work, to produce, to be abused and to be ‘flogged’.

Sadly, there are still places in the world where this goes on. Perhaps not down in the pits, but sweatshops still exist and children, as well as adults, are still being held as slaves in Asian nations. A shocking story emerged in China last year as workers were whisked off to work in brick kilns. Not for a wage, definitely not for a pension, and definitely not to make a living. They were beaten, made to carry red-hot bricks with their bare hands and more. They were modern day slaves. The owner of the kiln was brought to justice – which is not very forgiving in China. However, we have moved forward. In Europe, we have holiday leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick leave, pensions, healthcare, insurance, workers’ rights, quotas on time to be worked, overtime and more. Make no mistake – these are important rights which workers struggled to get, along with trade unions the world over. In a nutshell, we probably have the best deal going since the working class was able to dictate terms to the nobility when the plague began to abate (due to lack of supply of workers).

But what of the future? The world is in flux. We are being told we have to be more competitive and many are becoming slaves of a different variety. While no one is shackled to their desk or quarry face, it is becoming more apparent that we must all work harder as a collective force. If we don’t, our economies – which are very much in the balance – will fall off the edge and into the abyss. That will mean no more pension, no more healthcare, no more holidays and no more retirement. We have already seen retirement age being raised across Europe – if it is not raised, state pensions will simply not be available.

Many point to the baby boomers as being the reason – but it goes far deeper. It is time for the Western world to admit that it has been living beyond its means for too many decades. The old ways are unsustainable. Early retirement and golden handshakes are no longer an option. Without knowing it, we have already become slaves to materialism, but more importantly, we are already becoming ‘slaves’ to the system of the future.

The next decades will see governments tackling this problem – if they don’t, they are only hastening their countries’ demise. Clearly though, it must be planned well and viable solutions need to be found. We must not forget that a worker can only give as much as his health allows – we cannot burn ourselves out, yet we cannot carry on as we are. Pension reform in Malta was a good start, but clearly, the problem cannot be ignored and we must start dealing with it now – if we don’t, today’s 30- to 40-somethings will be in very dire straits as they approach 60 and 70.