The May Day uprising of 2006

Workers World originally posted this article on May 9, 2006, and it is featured in the book “Marxism, Reparations and the Black Freedom Struggle,” which can be downloaded at: workers.org/book/marxism-reparations-and-the-black-freedom-struggle/

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. 

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 was a wake-up call for all who consider themselves progressive, socialist or pro-socialist, whether they be in the labor unions, the antiwar 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 was 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 was a clarion call to legions of new soldiers who are ready to join the class struggle on the workers’ side. 

Potential for unifying 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-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, countries of West Asia 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 West Asia 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!” 

The writer is Workers World Party’s First Secretary.