The May Day uprising of 2006

This contribution from Larry Holmes of the Workers World Party Secretariat was written for discussion at the May 13-14 conference on socialism in New York.

The U.S. capitalist class—and anyone else who has sought to keep the working class in North America shackled to the ideology and the political parties of the ruling class and prevent it from developing class consciousness, militancy and solidarity with workers around the planet—has suffered a stunning defeat of epic proportions. To almost everyone’s surprise, millions of immigrant workers, from Los Angeles to New York to Chicago and more than 100 other cities, left their jobs and schools to take to the streets, bringing back May Day—International Workers’ Day—in a big way to the country of its origin.

May Day march in NYC. WW photo: John Catalinotto

Not only did immigrants reclaim May Day, a day that U.S. imperialists thought they had forever wiped out in this country, but these workers also pulled off the first truly national general strike—and what’s more, a strike against the government over political demands as opposed to a strike directed at this or that employer in a particular industry over economic issues.

May Day 2006 is a wake-up call for all who consider themselves progressive, socialist or pro-socialist, whether they be in the labor unions, the anti-war movement or wherever. Those who did not participate in or support the May Day uprising especially need to reassess their inaction immediately.

May Day 2006 is a wake-up call for all those who once were, and perhaps still remain, a part of the good fight but had given up on the working class and the prospect of a qualitative and historic break coming from down below, in spite of the seemingly endless prevalence of bourgeois reactionary politics. It’s time to reassess those doubts.

Perhaps most importantly, May Day 2006 is a clarion call to legions of new soldiers who are ready to join the class struggle on the workers’ side.

Potential for unity

The “Sleeping Giant,” as some have called the millions of workers who took to the streets on May Day in the U.S., is not only distinguished by the fact that many of these workers are undocumented. They are also the face of the working class in this country right now, and will be even more so in the future.

In every industry and in every part of the country, the working class is more often than not made up of workers in low-wage jobs, many of whom are recent immigrants, people of color and women. Many come from countries where May Day is a holiday and class consciousness is far ahead of what it is in the U.S. today.

Imperialist globalization—the impetus behind the large migration of workers—has re-introduced class struggle and militancy into the working class worldwide. At the same time that imperialism is globalizing super-wage exploitation, it’s also globalizing working-class consciousness and militancy.

In many ways the composition of the New York City May 1 coalition exemplifies the extraordinary potential for uniting the various nationalities who make up the working class in the United States. The coalition meetings were held at Local 808 of the Teamsters, in Long Island City. This was made possible by Chris Silvera, who is the secretary treasurer of the local, regional co-director of the Million Worker March Movement, and chair of the Teamster National Black Caucus.

Usually present at the meetings were representatives of immigrant communities from Mexico, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Puerto Rico and other Central and South American countries, the Philippines, China, Pakistan, India, Senegal and countries of the Middle East, and, of special significance, Black trade unionists and activists.

Join them!

While the outpouring of immigrant workers was spontaneous in nature, it was not without organization. While the larger U.S. labor unions have not been able to, or not tried to, organize immigrants, workers from Central and South America, the Caribbean, Asia, Africa and the Middle East have organized themselves into workers’ associations. This new network is active in every region of the country, doing everything from providing food and legal assistance to workers and their families, to fighting for basic workers’ rights in sweatshops of all sizes.

The biggest lesson for the tens of millions of workers in the U.S. who are being ordered from on high to fear and fight immigrant workers is, “Don’t fight and fear your immigrant sisters and brothers—join them and take a lesson from them!”

Just imagine if 3 or 4 million workers from all nationalities had joined with immigrant workers on May Day to press demands for all workers. What if the idea of a workers’ boycott or general strike caught on in other sectors of the working class? Just think: a general strike to end the war and/or to demand health insurance for all!

While it is still too early to say for sure that the immigrant worker movement has defeated the most repressive features of the anti-immigrant legislation known as HR4437—particularly the section of the bill that would have made it a felony to be in the country without documents—clearly, at least for the moment, the momentum behind that bill has been pushed back.

There’s a lesson in this for everyone who still thinks that they have no choice but to support the lesser-of-two-evils candidate of a capitalist political party. Millions of workers—most of whom have not voted for either big-business party and many of whom are not able to vote even if they wanted to—were able to push back repression through mass action, as opposed to waiting for the elections in order to place their hopes on the Democratic Party.

Political divide

Can the upsurge of immigrant workers spread to all workers? Yes it can, if there is leadership and direction. At the earliest possible time a national framework for a united workers’ struggle should be created with a program of demands that concretely unites the struggle of immigrant workers for full legalization with the struggle for justice for the survivors of Katrina, the fight for higher wages for all workers, health care and pensions, the right to a job, the right to a union, and opposition to the new wave of mass layoffs and plant closings that so many workers are facing.

But before such a plan for programmatic and organizational unity can be fully launched, the undocumented workers and their demands need to be supported.

The May Day uprising is first and foremost a rebellion against racist legislation that would criminalize undocumented workers and their supporters. Beyond this, it is a struggle to win full legal rights for the undocumented.

The immigrant rights movement is split over what course the movement should take.

On one side of the divide are those who support legislation that combines granting legal status to some undocumented workers with the institution of new “guest worker” programs, and more money and measures to repress the undocumented.

The more militant forces in this struggle are fighting for full legalization and full workers’ rights for all the undocumented.

Those organizations and leaders that support compromise legislation are generally inclined to lead the struggle into a Democratic Party electoral course. The more militant, struggle-oriented forces are the ones who called for May Day and the general strike and are looking to build a mass mobilization in Washington this fall.

This political divide over demands and direction is a natural and inevitable part of the struggle.

Those who believe that the greater potential for this struggle to win immediate demands, as well as open new potential for a wider class struggle, lies with the leadership of the militants, stand closer to those political forces. Nonetheless, the main responsibility for those who are in solidarity with the struggle of the immigrants is to do everything within their power to insure that the immigrant workers’ struggle is not isolated, but instead wins the support of broader and broader sections of the progressive and workers’ movement.

Build multi-national alliance

In this regard, at this moment, nothing could be more important then the solidarity between the Black movement and the immigrant rights movement. The solidarity of Black labor unionists with May Day in New York City was both concrete and decisive. After more moderate forces in the immigrant rights struggle declined support for the May Day boycott, it was Black labor unionists in the Million Worker March movement who made sure that the May 1 coalition had labor support.

The ruling class knows that if Black and Latin@ forces began to join and, for example, link the struggle for immigrant rights and the struggle to rebuild New Orleans for the people who have been victimized and displaced, then it will really have a big problem. In order to undermine the prospect of Black and Brown unity, bourgeois media mouthpieces have gone out of their way to draw attention to and exacerbate divisions. The efforts to sabotage the natural unity between Black and Brown must not, and will not, succeed.

In his excellent piece entitled “Build the Black and Brown alliance for justice and human rights,” Saladin Muhammad of Black Workers for Justice points out, “The struggle against the U.S. system of oppression is not a competition between the oppressed to declare themselves as the leaders of the struggle. The initiative from any sector of the oppressed must be seen as an opening for all of the oppressed to come forward and intensify their struggles.

“Yes, there must be recognition that these are two independent movements with their own demands and leaderships. However, there must also be a conscious effort to develop an understanding and practical work to build the political and strategic links and interdependence of these movements as a force for progressive social change throughout the U.S. and for global justice. Workers and oppressed peoples throughout the world have been desperately hoping for such a powerful interconnecting movement to develop inside of the U.S.”

Of course, the solidarity must go beyond Black and Brown, and all progressive forces have a lot of work to do because we are way behind. Nothing illustrates the magnitude of this problem more then a snapshot of two mass demonstrations in New York City, separated by 48 hours.

On April 29, hundreds of thousands marched two miles down Broadway from Union Square to Foley Square against the war. On May 1, upwards of half a million people marched the same route.

Both marches were anti-war, pro-immigrant workers’ rights. But the social composition of the two marches was as different as night and day. The April 29 march was overwhelmingly white. The May Day march was probably 99 percent people of color, predominantly Latin@ workers, with significant contingents of workers of Asian and African descent.

If pressed to guess how many from the April 29 march attended the May 1 mobilization, the answer would probably be such a small percentage that it was hardly noticeable. Yet if only half, or even one-third, of the April 29 marchers had demonstrated again on May Day, it would have sent a signal that all efforts to turn people against immigrant workers on the basis of race, social and legal status were doomed to fail.

The same problem is evident in the minimal participation of anti-war protesters at the various local and national demonstrations in solidarity with the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Racism fragments working class

The biggest obstacle to forging a truly multi-national working-class movement that can move in a revolutionary direction is not the might of the Pentagon, but the racial fragmentation in every part of society in this country, including the progressive movement.

This fragmentation goes deeper in this country than in other parts of the world.

The U.S. ruling class loves for the world to consider this country the land of opportunity and the apex of modernity, scientific, social and cultural superiority. But the U.S. really is the center of decaying imperialism, racism, classism, sexism, homophobia and every other kind of reactionary social division that capitalism spawns. Inequality is celebrated here, and the poor are demonized. This country is the citadel of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois privilege, prejudice and arrogance, and the dominion of wealthy white men.

The long period that reactionary politics and policies have dominated the scene in this country, coupled with the absence of a generalized and sustained struggle coming from the working class, has made the fragmentation in the U.S. even deeper.

One must understand the effects of all this, even on attitudes and behavior within the progressive movement, in order to understand and to fight the conservatism, opportunism and non-struggle traditions that have corrupted much of the leadership of the labor unions and to one extent or another the forces that guide most of the progressive movements.

The good news is that the fragmentation is not impossible to overcome. But it will take a ceaseless, determined, iron-willed struggle on the part of those who are ready to break down old barriers of behavior and prejudice and nurture a tradition—new for many—of solidarity in the struggle against all forms of oppression.

Need for a revolutionary party

Understanding the utter necessity of solidarity for the struggle to move forward, and knowing the hard work and patience, the revolutionary principles, sensitivity, political maturity and experience that will be required for this job should put the appreciation of the need for a revolutionary party in a whole new light.

Without a serious, thoughtful and disciplined revolutionary party to assist in the development of the class struggle—especially where the unity between nationalities is a decisive component—the struggle will fall short and ultimately not be able to progress.

The task of building a genuine multinational working-class party that is capable of helping to guide and synthesize the day-to-day struggle for the immediate needs and demands of workers with the struggle against imperialism and for socialism is not determined by which group shouts socialism the loudest or proclaims most adamantly that it is the answer.

The struggle to build such a party will be a long and difficult one, especially in this country, but it is a necessity that cannot be put off by serious people.

A prerequisite for those who are building the party is an understanding that the movement must return to the socialist road. The most consistent and revolutionary socialists, along with workers and oppressed of the world who have yet to read the first page of the Communist Manifesto, may not know everything. But they do know that the state of the world today and all that can be learned from history makes it more apparent that society cannot advance further in any meaningful way—and will instead be subject to even greater inequality, violence, reaction, instability, war and worse—until imperialism has been replaced with world socialism.

As long as the working-class organizations, and those who are trying to fight in the interests of the working class, are limited in consciousness and action to accommodating to the notion that the rule of imperialism and capitalism is unshakable, unalterable and permanent, they will find at some point that they can’t pursue the struggle any further.

Guiding the movement in the U.S. back to the socialist road has already received some help from abroad. Indeed, the awakening of the Latin@ immigrant workers here is connected to the revival of militant struggle against U.S. imperialist rule in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Moreover, the revival of the struggle in Latin America—centered in Venezuela and Bolivia, as well as other places and with more rebellions to come—has come back on an advanced, avowedly pro-socialist basis. This alone has worldwide repercussions. It amounts to the first triumph of socialist over bourgeois ideology and reaction since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a way, the revival of May Day in the U.S. is part of the early fruit of this phenomenon.

But we in the U.S. cannot depend on our revolution, our struggle and our party as a gift from fellow comrades and freedom fighters abroad. It is those on the front lines of the struggle against imperialism—from Palestine, to Iraq and Iran, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia—who are depending on solidarity emanating from the development of the anti-imperialist, anti-war, working-class struggle here at the center of imperialism to help them break free of the empire.

Build a Workers World!

This brings us right back to the question of the revolutionary party. How activists view those who are working to build such a party, and whether or not they join in this endeavor, will no doubt be based on the history of how those revolutionaries conduct themselves in the course of the struggle.

This is particularly true regarding how those trying to build the party conduct their relationships with important allies, especially amongst oppressed nationalities, and a million other variables both large and small, but all important.

Some good revolutionaries will wait to join such a party. Some will be ready to join now.

We in Workers World Party urge all who are ready to make the commitment and join now.

The more who join sooner, rather than later, the more likely it is that the struggle of immigrant workers—of all workers—and the struggle for a world free of imperialism will reap the benefits of a stronger party dedicated to their interests.

With this in mind, Workers World Party announces the opening of a recruitment drive as an integral part of the preparation to take the struggles that have already begun to a higher level and pave the way for newer and greater ones.