Dita Alangkara / AP

Indonesian workers shout slogans during a rally to mark May Day in Jakarta on May 1, 2012. Thousands of Indonesian workers staged the rally demanding the government raise the minimum wage and reject outsourcing.

The Associated Press reports — May Day moved beyond its roots as an international workers' holiday to a day of international protest Tuesday, with rallies throughout Asia demanding wage increases and marches planned across Europe over government-imposed austerity measures.

Thousands of workers protested in the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan and other Asian nations, with the demand for wage hikes amid soaring oil prices a common theme. They said their take-home pay could not keep up with rising consumer prices, while also calling for lower school fees and expressing a variety of other gripes. Read the full story.

Andrey Smirnov / AFP - Getty Images

A man carries a poster reading "Putin is our President!" during the May Labor Day rally of the Russian Trade Unions and United Russia party in Moscow on May 1, 2012. Russia's president-elect Vladimir Putin and outgoing head of state Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday joined over 100,000 people in a Soviet-style mass march through Moscow.

Bullit Marquez / AP

Protesters dance around the burnt effigy of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III during a May Day rally near the Presidential Palace in Manila on May 1, 2012. Thousands of workers marched under a brutal sun in Manila to demand a wage increase amid an onslaught of oil price increases, but the Philippine President rejected a $3 daily pay hike which the workers have been demanding since 1999 and warned may worsen inflation, spark layoffs and turn away foreign investors.

AFP - Getty Images

Bahraini Shiites attend a demonstration celebrating Labor Day in the village of Muqsha'a on April 30, 2012. Many Shiite employees were either dismissed or indefinitely suspended from their jobs in the wake of a brutal crackdown by the Bahrain government.

Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP - Getty Images

Indian sex workers hold candles and posters as they march in a May Day rally asking for their rights and the recognition of their profession in Kolkata, late on April 30, 2012.

Vincent Thian / AP

Visitors takes picture in front of Tiananmen gate in Beijing, China, on May 1, 2012. Tens of thousands of visitors flock to the area around Tiananmen Square to enjoy a public holiday to mark May Day.

Alexey Druzhinin / AFP - Getty Images

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (2nd L), Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (2nd R), Independent Trade Unions' Chairman Mikhail Shmakov (L) and State Duma deputy Viktor Pinsky (R) toast in a bar after attending a rally in Moscow on May 1, 2012.

Abir Abdullah / EPA

Garment workers attend a rally to mark May Day at Paltan in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 1, 2012. Different workers organizations have arranged programmes inluding a rally, seminars and cultural events as they demand the establishment of workers' rights.

Farooq Khan / EPA

Laborers drilling a mountain to extract rocks inside a stone quarry on May 1, 2012 in Srinagar, Kashmir. Local labor leaders told media their colleagues at many construction sites were denied a May Day public holiday by their employers.

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Jason Cohn / Reuters

First year apprentice ironworker George Vacheresse pauses during a class at Ironworkers Local 539 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Vacheresse was a steelworker for 17 years but decided to retrain after watching layoffs erode the workforce at his machinist shop over 17 years. He hopes his new skills will lead to a much higher-paying job.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

The town of Wheeling, West Virginia is emblematic of the economically struggling region it sits in, and could get a big boost from a new Shell chemical plant planned for the area. Real estate agents, restaurants, banks and others report a business jump that they expect to be made permanent by the arrival of chemical plants.

Reuters reports from Wheeling, West Virginia — In George Vacheresse's lifetime, Appalachia has fallen from its prime when steel mills and coal mines anchored middle-class communities and offered hope there always would be enough work to go around.

In this historically poor region nestled in the misty mountains of the eastern United States, most steel mills shut down long ago and the coal workforce has shrunk by 90 percent in the past 40 years.

Now Vacheresse and other residents are counting on cheap natural gas from the massive reserves in the Marcellus and Utica shale rock formations to reinvigorate the region's economy.

In the Northern Appalachia area alone, where West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania converge, billions of dollars of investment is planned by major companies, including most recently Royal Dutch Shell, to recover the gas and build new chemical plants.

"I hope it gives us jobs for everybody," said Vacheresse, 39, who last fall joined an apprentice scheme at a Wheeling, iron workers' labor union to learn how to work in steel construction. He made the move after watching layoffs erode the workforce at his machinist shop over 17 years. He expects his new skills will lead to a much higher-paying job building Shell's planned new $2 billion cracker, industry slang for a chemical plant.

"Something like this could carry our region for years and years," he said. Read the full story.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

Charles Comas, owner of Comas Family Barber Shop on Main Street in Wheeling, West Virginia, finishes giving a hair cut to regular customer John Oliver on March 6, 2012. Oliver, who has lived in Wheeling his whole life, remembers when the now sparsely occupied downtown was so packed with people "you couldn't walk down the street without bumping into someone." He is skeptical that the burgeoning shale gas industry or the rumoured Shell cracker plant will help the city.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

A community garden is seen in a vacant lot left over from one of few demolished buildings on Main Street in Wheeling, West Virginia. The city is struggling to find creative ways to deal with their down economy while waiting for new investment.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

First year Ironworker apprentices (left-right) Ian Welshhans, Daniel Truax and Jason Taylor practice their welding skills during a class at the Ironworkers Local 549 training facility in Wheeling, West Virginia on March 6, 2012.

Jason Cohn / Reuters

An old Ohio Edison electric plant, rumored to be the site for the first new U.S. chemical cracker plant in more than 20 years, is seen across the Ohio river from Moundsville, West Virginia.

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Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Wuilne Novi Michell, 22, a sugar cane worker, stands in a room in a batey on March 1. Like thousands of other youths who were born to Haitian parents inside the Dominican Republic, Wuilne has no personal identification or Dominican citizenship. Without identification a person in the Dominican Republic lives a marginal life without full employment, a bank account, or a mobile phone.

A batey is the name given those communities that reside inside sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic that are comprised mainly of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent. Living and working conditions inside the bateys are often extremely impoverished, with limited access to health care, running water, electricity and sanitary facilities.

For decades Haitians have been fleeing the turmoil of their country to come and work as seasonal workers in the sugar cane industry in the Dominican Republic, with many staying on permanently in the country. The Dominican government refuses to grant children born to Haitian parents citizenship or give them Dominican identification.  

It is estimated that somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Haitians are currently living Dominican Republic. Due to a climate of discrimination based on ethnic origins and a fear of a Haitian influx, the Dominican government has adopted policies that make it difficult to impossible for many Haitians to live a normal life in the country.  

-- Getty Images

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Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Homes in a batey in San Pedro, Dominican Republic. A batey is the name given to communities that reside inside of sugar plantations that are comprised mainly of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

A Haitian woman relaxes in a tree on a sugar cane batey on March 1 in San Pedro, Dominican Republic.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

A Haitian family stands near their home on a sugar cane batey on March 1 in San Pedro, Dominican Republic.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

A Haitian sugar cane worker cuts cane in a field beside a batey on March 1.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Kesnel Nene Pie, 18, a sugar cane worker, stands with his mother Louisa Fernandez in a room in a batey in San Pedro, Dominican Republic.

Akhtar Soomro / Reuters

Zakir, 10, pauses during his work of cutting fish at Karachi's Fish Harbor on Feb. 1, 2012. Zakir earns $2.20 per day. Rising food and fuel prices and a struggling economy have forced many families to send their children to work instead of school.

Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

Simon, 12, holds a light to assist his supervisor working on a motorcycle engine at a workshop in Islamabad on Jan. 31, 2011. Simon earns 22 cents per day working as a workshop helper.

Reuters reports: Tears tracing lines of dirt on his face, six-year-old Pakistani boy Nabeel Mukhtar cries while crouching on a pavement to scrub motorbikes, his job for nine hours a day, six days a week in Islamabad, Pakistan.

"From the bottom of my heart, I want to send my son to school but we have so many expenses ... We struggle to put food on our table," said Mukhtar's mother, Shazia, who also has a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

"He's learning to work and he also earns around 300-400 rupees. So what's wrong in that? We are poor," Mohammed said of the boy.

Meanwhile in Lahore, Pakistan the death toll from the collapse of a three-story factory rose to 17 on Tuesday as rescuers searched for survivors in the rubble. A gas explosion caused the building to collapse on Monday, trapping dozens of laborers, mostly boys aged 14 – 14 inside.

Governance in Pakistan is described as too corrupt and inept to tackle an array of problems, from struggling industries and child labor problems to Taliban insurgents who carry out suicide bombings across the South Asian nation.

Related PhotoBlog posts:

• Pakistan's railways driven toward ruin
• Factory collapse in Pakistan traps dozens
• Gunmen set fuel trucks ablaze in Pakistan
• See more images of Pakistan in our slideshow: A nation in turmoil.

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Photojournalist Andrew Lichtenstein is documenting sites important to America's past, with the idea that what he finds there reflects on what's important to people in the present.  Introduction: About this project

Andrew Lichtenstein / Facing Change

Lawrence, Massachusetts

Above: A man fills out a job application at a restaurant built in a newly renovated section of the Wood Mill in Lawrence, Mass. Most of the huge industrial factories along the Merrimack River are abandoned or have been torn down, but there have been recent efforts to renovate some of the remaining mills. The Wood Mill was at the center of the famous Bread and Roses textile strike of 1912, when thousands of young immigrant women walked off the job because of horrible working conditions. Today a growing Latino population supplies labor for the service industry in the economically depressed town.

Andrew Lichtenstein / Facing Change

Flint, Michigan

Above: In the 1930s the General Motors production plants in the "Chevy In The Hole" complex in Flint, Mich., were among the largest automobile factories in the world, employing thousands of workers. These GM factories played a pivotal role in the sit-down strike of 1935-36, which gave birth to the United Auto Workers and the C.I.O. Today, the area is an abandoned, weed-strewn lot, the workers' homes and bars and churches torn down or rotting like ancient ships abandoned in a concrete sea.

Andrew Lichtenstein / Facing Change

Blair, West Virginia

Above: James Weekly, a former coal miner, refuses to sell his land to mining companies, which are seeking to strip mine the mountain he lives on to remove billions of dollars worth of coal. Blair Mountain is an historic site because of a 1921 four-day gun battle between union coal miners and the National Guard. The state of West Virginia, under pressure from coal companies, has refused to list the mountain as an historic site to be preserved and plans to continue mining the area are moving forward.

Andrew Lichtenstein / Facing Change

New York, New York

Above: Every year, on the anniversary of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the unions that were born from that disaster hold a rally at the site, next to Washington Square Park in New York's Greenwich Village. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, most of them young Italian and Jewish immigrant women from the Lower East Side, died trying to escape the flames. The survivors joined, and built, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Editor's note: This is Part 3 in a three-part series, History through the lens of today, that we're publishing in PhotoBlog this week.

• Introduction
  
• Part One: Civil rights
• Part Two: Native Americans

Lichtenstein continues this work with the help of a grant from The Aftermath Project. 

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