May 1, International Workers Day, is a celebration of the heroic struggle for a better world waged by workers and oppressed people around the world. Monopoly capitalism is the system we fight against. This system is everywhere, from our low wages and the lack of affordable health care, to racist and bigoted laws, to the neverending war and oppression felt around the globe.
Monopoly capitalism is a doomed system that is destined to give way to socialism, a system that puts working people before profits. The road to revolution and socialism grows shorter as workers and oppressed people gather together and organize against greedy corporations, against backwards politicians and those who protect their dying system. Their days are numbered – our day will come.
This May Day, Freedom Road Socialist Organization commends all those who fight against a crumbling, rotten system run by the billionaries and their politicians. We ask all those who love peace, equality, and justice to organize and march in the streets demanding a better world. Only a united and well organized force of workers and oppressed people can see us through the endgame and lead us to victory.
Working and oppressed people of the world unite!
Long before the election of Donald Trump, workers and many others in the United States faced oppression. May Day was born on May 1, 1886 when hundreds of thousands of workers marched in the streets across the U.S. demanding a better life for all. Many were immigrants, not unlike the immigrants Trump attacks today with massive deportations and his attempts at “building a wall.” The revival of May Day as a mass, working-class event came on May 1, 2006 with more than a million Chicanos, Mexicanos, Central Americans and others pouring into the streets to protest the racist and anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill.
The working class should stand together and build a strong movement that can beat all of Trump’s attacks. The wealthy own the places where we work. The working class is made up of those who own work for others for a living. Our class includes women, Black, Chicano, Latino, Asian, Arab, white and Native people. It also includes Christians and Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and many other groups. Working class organizers seek to unite as many workers as possible to win victories and teach one another a very important lesson – that an injury to one is an injury to all. There is no better way to stop Trump’s plans to build a wall than to put that lesson into practice and stand with Latino, African, Arab, and Asian immigrants, along with Muslim immigrants.
Trump’s military aggression threatens workers all around the world, especially those in Asia and in countries like Venezuela. Practicing solidarity with the international working class means opposing intervention and war overseas just like we oppose economic cutbacks and rascist police crimes here at home. The U.S. working class will not benefit from regime change in Venezuela, a country with a popular government that looks towards socialism, just like the working class saw no benefit from intervention and mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nations like Palestine need liberation, not more war, and we honor heroes like Rasmea Odeh who face repression. The Filipino people have a right to liberation and independence and the U.S. government should stop supporting repressive military and policital forces there. At home and abroad, wars waged by the rich always cost poor and working people the most.
Organize and fight to win
Activists working in struggles around the U.S. continue to fight and win. The working class has proven that we can push back when forced into a corner by the 1%. Trump’s government shutdown was designed to make the working class suffer until he got funding for his rascist wall. It ended after federal workers began withholding their vital labor across the nation. The truth is the boss needs us and our labor as workers, despite trying to fool workers into thinking we need them. Once critically important workers at places like air traffic control centers began fighting back and refusing to work without pay, Trump was forced to end the shutdown. This was a major victory for the U.S. working class earlier this year.
Teachers’ unions have taken the lead in fighting back with one of the strongest weapons in labor’s arsenal: the strike. With major victories for teachers in cities like Chicago, the lesson remains clear: organization and building union militancy can defeat the boss’s greed and desire to drive wages, benefits and working conditions down. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters also made history when members at United Parcel Service voted to authorize a strike and then voted a terrible two-tier contract down. However, sellout union bearucrats are ignoring the voice of the members and are trying to force the contract through anyway. Rank-and-file Teamsters will see some justice when Hoffa Jr. and his cronies are voted out of international office in 2021.
Around the country, working-class Black people are fighting back and winning victories against police crimes. Police crimes are a serious problem in the Black community after centuries of slavery, Jim Crow and the racist laws of today forged an oppressed nation of Black people in the United States. The Chicago Alliance Against Rascist and Political Repression (CAARPR) has put renewed vigor into the demand for community control of the police. That demand is spreading like wildfire. Organizers fighting police crimes around the country are learning from Chicago and leading important struggles in places like Los Angels, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Jacksonville, and many other areas. Chicano and Puerto Rican organizers deserve recognition for their hard work fighting police crimes in their own communities Students and other community organizations also help fight to end national oppression in all its forms.
Ready for the 2020s and beyond
The year 2019 represents an amazing opportunity to prepare for the next decade of struggle. May Day is a time when we look to the working class for a vision of the future. We remember those who have fallen or been imprisoned because of their beliefs, and put our faith in the working class and in our goal of building movements united under the most advanced working class fighters. We must stay vigiliant in guarding our movements from all enemies who seek to stop us.
Freedom Road Socialist Organization salutes the workers, oppressed nations, students and allies fighting around the world for liberation from the old ways of running society. We will make serious advances through the 2020s along our common road. We insist on the end of capitalism and the establishment of socialism – a system where the political and economic power is in the hands of workers. We are resolved to march ever onwards to victory.
