Fighting spirit of May Day lives

For the first time in generations, the United States was gripped with the fighting spirit of International Workers Day—May Day—as protests and boycotts focusing on the rights of immigrant workers and their families swept the country.

Paris WW photo: Lal Roohk

And the revival of May Day’s spirit wasn’t confined to the U.S. Worldwide this year, May 1 actions led to genuine class battles and outpourings of worker solidarity.

There were vibrant celebrations of people’s power in countries where the struggle is marching to new heights, like Nepal and Venezuela; militant fight-back actions where the labor movement is waging important defensive battles, like Indonesia and Turkey; and mass expressions of the heroic determination to persevere where workers have seized power and held it, like Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam.

Latin America and Caribbean

In Mexico, workers’ energy focused not only on their own struggles, but those of their sisters and brothers living in the U.S. Unions, immigrants’ organizations and community groups called on Mexicans to boycott U.S. products and stores on May 1, in solidarity with the Great American Boycott for immigrant rights in the U.S.

Word of the boycott spread throughout Mexico and Central America via e-mail and word-of-mouth. Teresa Garcia Her nandez, a nurse from Mexico City, told the April 30 Los Angeles Times how she heard the news from her children. “They’re really excited about it, and they’re telling all their friends, cousins and uncles.

Indonesia

“They told me, ‘Mama, since your friends don’t have this thing called the Internet, you tell them in person not to buy anything gringo that day.’”

Led by Zapatista rebel-leader Subcomandante Marcos, a coalition of unions and anti-capitalist groups marched in the Mexican capital, starting at the U.S. Embassy. “We will create a clearly anti-capitalist May Day,” Marcos told unionists April 29, reminding them that the day’s purpose is ultimately to “take the property from the owners of the means of production.” (Reuters, April 30)

Protesters in Tijuana sent a contingent to the U.S. consulate, where respect for maquiladora workers and their right to self determination were stressed.

Demonstrators in Mexico blocked the bridge connecting Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, KWTX-TV reported.

Youths battled cops in the midst of a large labor march in Santiago, Chile, while locked out Puerto Rican public service workers protested by going to their jobs in defiance of government orders. (WBAI/Pacifica, May 1)

Havana, Cuba

An estimated 7 million people in Cuba marked May Day with militant marches in towns and cities across the island, including a million in Havana who marched under the slogan, “United in Defense of the Socialist Homeland.”

“Workers, students and farmers are gathered in [Revolution] Plaza, reaffirming their support for the revolution, demanding the immediate release of the five Cuban political prisoners incarcerated in the U.S., and condemning Washington’s continued aggressions against Cuba,” reported Ahora.cu.

Cuban Workers Confederation General Secretary Pedro Ross Leal said that Cuba had the highest increase in Gross Domestic Product of any Latin American country in 2005—11.8 percent—while preserving and expanding free, quality health care and education for all.

President Fidel Castro denounced President George W. Bush for falsely accusing his government of terrorism while the U.S. harbors admitted anti-Cuba terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles.

Cuban workers were also celebrating the expansion of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which focuses on mutual aid for economic development and Latin American unity as an alternative to U.S.-sponsored “free trade” agreements like NAFTA. Bolivia has officially joined Cuba and Venezuela in the agreement. Castro and Presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia made the announcement in Havana April 30. (Prensa Latina)

Fidel Castro

Morales returned to Bolivia May 1 to declare that his government was nationalizing the oil and gas industry. The Bolivian armed forces occupied 53 installations. “The pillage of our natural resources by foreign companies is over... The time has come, the awaited day, a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources,” Morales said. (Reuters, May 1) Tens of thousands of workers rallying in La Paz cheered his televised announcement.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, workers and farmers joined mass marches against imperialism in Caracas and other cities. They called for strengthening the Bolivarian Revolution and its social programs, Prensa Latina reported.

At an April 28 program honoring workers, Chávez announced an increase in the country’s minimum wage effective Sept. 1, along with an end to wage discrimination between rural and urban workers, increased maternity leave and vacation pay. Teachers will receive a 40-percent pay raise this year.

Asia and Pacific

More than 100,000 workers flooded the streets of Jakarta, Indonesia, demanding an end to government/business plans to undo progressive labor legislation won in 2003—an outcome of years of militant struggles that included the ouster of the bloody U.S.-backed Suharto dictatorship. Under pressure from U.S. and other foreign investors, the government wants to roll back job security measures, including a law that requires bosses to pay a fired worker two months pay for every year on the job.

The Jakarta Post reported that workers draped in the red, green and yellow colors of their unions began gathering in the capital before dawn. The march targeted the House of Representatives, the Presidential Palace, and City Hall, disrupting traffic and shutting down businesses along the route.

Demonstrators pointed out that today’s labor protections are rarely enforced. Siti Mariam, an 18-year-old factory worker, told the French Press Agency how she was recruited from her home village to work at a snack food factory outside Jakarta and paid just $20 per month for three months. She was fired after she joined others demanding the legal minimum wage of $69 per month.

Basra, Iraq

In the Philippines, the May 1st Move ment (KMU) and Bayan Muna marchers went head to head with heavily armed cops. The government had tried to ban protests in much of Manila, but 10,000 workers calling for the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made it partway to the Mendiola Bridge near the Presidential Palace. They faced off with police in riot gear for several hours in sweltering heat. (Reuters and New York Times, May 1)

In Nepal, the combined efforts of Maoist rebels, workers’ organizations and opposition political parties, including several communist groups, has just forced the king to restore parliament after more than a decade. There, May 1 was a day of celebration as well as determination to continue the struggle for people’s power.

Sunil Manandhar, president of the Nepalese Federation of Trade Unions, told NepalNews.com that only 3.6 percent of Nepal’s 11 million workers are employed in formal sectors of the economy that the labor law protects. The overwhelming numbers employed in agriculture and construction have no protections, he said.

In neighboring India, the Socialist Unity Center (SUCI), Communist Party of India (Marxist)-Liberation, and others declared May 1 “Nepal Solidarity Day.” They staged actions in support of the people’s movement and demanded an end to U.S. and Indian intervention there. Com munist-affiliated unions also held large demonstrations throughout the subcontinent.

South Korean workers battled police wield ing water cannons outside the Hyun dai Hysco factory in Sunchon. They demanded equal rights for non-regular or casual employees. (Reuters) May Day mar ches in Seoul and Bangladesh rejected U.S.-backed free trade agreements, along with demanding higher wages and job security.

Australia saw some of the largest May Day marches ever in response to reactionary laws targeting job security, passed under John Howard’s government. Some marchers also raised demands for Abo riginal rights and Papuan independence.

Some 35,000 union members marched in Queensland, up from 12,000 last year. “Even though the laws have been passed, people are not losing hope,” said Public Sector Union Secretary Alex Scott. (The Australian, May 1)

Katmandu, Nepal

Middle East and Africa

Even under occupation, 1,000 Iraqi workers came out in Basra, the country’s second-largest city, as did thousands of Palestinians in Ramallah and other towns on the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian public-sector workers have been hit hard by U.S. and Israeli financial sanctions targeting the new Hamas-led government.

More than 80 leftist and Kurdish activists were arrested at May Day actions in Turkey, and 34 people swept up in Istanbul when truncheon-wielding cops attacked a communist-led march on an avenue the government declared off-limits. In Izmir, on the western coast, Kurdish demonstrators were forced to defend themselves after they refused to let cops search them. (TurkishPress.com)

Banners bearing pictures of Che Gue vara and protesting the U.S. occupation of Iraq and threats against Iran were prominent at May 1 marches in Bahrain and Pakistan. (AFP)

Thousands of workers in Maputo, Mozambique, defied heavy rain to protest a plan being pushed by business groups to make it easier to fire workers. Banners at the march read, “We want to keep the current labor law. Stop deceiving the people!” and “We demand fair wages compatible with the cost of living.”

Rallies sponsored by the Congress of South African Trade Unions focused on the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the pending World Trade Organization trade agreement. (IOL.com) COSATU also announ ced plans for rolling strike actions throughout May in several sectors of the economy as party of its Jobs and Poverty Campaign. Almost two-thirds of Black South Africans under age 30 are unable to find work. (Mail and Guardian, April 29)

COSATU spokesperson Patrick Craven also emphasized support for an ongoing strike by security guards, saying they are ruthlessly exploited and underpaid.

Bolivia

Europe

Germany, Sweden and Switzerland both saw violent police attacks on youthful May Day protesters. More than 500,000 German unionists joined rallies opposing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plans to dismantle the public health system and other social services.

Michael Sommer, head of the German Federation of Trade Unions, told 10,000 at a rally at Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, “We don’t want American conditions.” (AFP) He denounced Bonn’s attempt to impose youth job laws that would make it easier to fire people under 26. A similar bill in France led to massive demonstrations of youths and workers and was withdrawn abruptly.

London, England cops suppressed a youth protest targeting the Tesco grocery chain. But they couldn’t stop tens of thousands of British workers who gathered to march and protest to Trafalgar Square, including workers facing layoffs at a Peugeot auto plant near Coventry. (BBC)

Major demonstrations were held throughout Spain, France, Portugal and Italy. Some 140,000 marched in Vienna, the Austrian capital, while marchers in Greece targeted the U.S. Embassy with demands to get the troops out of Iraq. All told, well over a million demonstrated in Western Europe.

South Africa

Smaller but militant demonstrations were held in the formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe, where government and far-right attacks frequently target communists. Up to 9,000 communists marched in Prague, Czech Republic. Party Deputy Chair Jiri Dolejs, who was recently attacked and beaten by rightist goons, received a hero’s welcome. (Ceske Noviny)

Across Russia more than 1.5 million people joined May Day marches, along with many more in other republics of the former Soviet Union. Two large demonstrations of about 25,000 each were held in Moscow-one sponsored by the official trade unions, another by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and other left groups.

Communist supporters marched from the Lenin monument on October Square to the bust of Karl Marx near Red Square. They chanted, “Putin resign!” and “Our homeland is the USSR,” and carried red flags and banners reading, “Stop the arbitrary laws of the oligarchs and the workers.”

Protesters put special attention on the impending housing crisis. President Vladimir Putin’s government is poised to repeal housing guarantees left over from the Soviet era, threatening homelessness for millions impoverished by the country’s counter-revolutionary transition to a capitalist market economy.

Ivan Klyuchenko, a 17-year-old student, said: “Our industry is in ruins and wages are pitiful. A lifetime of work is not enough to buy a room in a Moscow suburb.” (AFP)

Twenty-thousand-strong marches were also held in Leningrad (“St. Petersburg”) and the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. (MosNews)