MAY DAY PROTESTS

 In JAKARTA, Indonesia Tens of thousands of low-paid workers took to the streets on May Day to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions a week after a building collapse in Bangladesh became a grim reminder of the dangers of lax safety regulations in poor countries.

Laborers in Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines and elsewhere marched and chanted en masse Wednesday, sounding complaints about being squeezed by big business amid the surging cost of living. Asia is the manufacturing ground for many of the world's largest multinational companies.

Thousands of garment factory workers in Bangladesh also paraded through the streets calling for work safeguards and for the owner of the collapsed building to be sentenced to death.

In Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, tens of thousands of workers rallied for higher pay and an end to the practice of outsourcing jobs to contract workers, among other demands. Some also carried banners reading: "Sentence corruptors to death and seize their properties" and protested against a proposed plan for the government to slash fuel subsidies that have kept the country's pump prices among the cheapest in the region.

"It seems that the government is so stupid," said a protester who identified himself only as Sarwan. "They don't know, every time they talk fuel price increase, it will bring up the prices of other goods."

A day earlier, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the country must reduce fuel subsidies that are a major drain on the budget. In 2011, the subsidy bill ran close to $20 billion, the same amount targeted for spending on infrastructure this year. The government is now trying to help offset the fuel increase among the poor who would be most affected by it.