On May 1, SSM - the Federation of Trade Unions of Macedonia - launched a protest in Skopje with a message everyone knows but nobody official wanted to say out loud: around 260,000 of the country's 530,000 workers earn less than 600 euros a month.

That's almost half of those employed. Half of the active working population below a line that in Brussels is treated as the floor of decent EU wages. The numbers don't come from the opposition. They come from the head of SSM himself, Slobodan Trendafilov.

The protest's slogan: "We fight for wages - we don't beg". Pretty simple. And pretty precise. Because in Macedonia, when wages come up, there are always three sides: the workers who demand, the government that promises, and the employers who - for a decade and a half now - insist that "there's no money".

Not every union is on the street. SONK, the education union, decided not to take part. Their stance is dialogue, not street demonstrations. That's a political choice that divides workers - at a moment when joint action would carry the most weight, they're arguing about the form of expression.

Skopje traffic will be different today. The police have warned drivers about traffic restrictions. This is the standard May 1 game - the city shuts down for a day, parades happen, and on Monday everything returns to the same unchanged economic reality.

The question is whether 260,000 workers under 600 euros is a political priority or just a statistic for reports. The answer usually comes in the form of new promises: "the minimum wage will be raised", "reforms are on the way", "EU integration will bring wages". In the Balkans we've been hearing these sentences for 30 years. Today, again, people will listen to the same promises - and will go back to work for the same 600 euros.