What’s next? May Day

People will gather on Wall Street April 3 and 4 to stage a focused political protest against the core center of the U.S. and worldwide capitalist system, now in its most severe crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The protesters are among those searching for a strategy to rescue the working class. The question in the minds of those who want to take the struggle further is: What’s next?

Barring dramatic changes, the answer is obvious: Organize for May Day!

May Day—International Workers’ Day—was first inspired in the 1880s by the actions of tens of thousands of mostly European immigrant workers fighting in Chicago and demanding the eight-hour day. The Communist International recognized the importance of the workers’ struggle in the United States—a rapidly developing capitalist country, continental in scope, and with none of Europe’s feudal past—and declared May 1 as the day for workers to demonstrate across the world.

May Day had been mostly ignored for decades here in the U.S. when in the spring of2006, immigrant workers and their supporters demonstrated by the millions in a wave of demonstrations across the country. Angered by the threat of the horribly repressive Sensenbrenner bill, they held the strongest May Day job action ever in the U.S., and have been marching on May Day ever since.

In 2006 these immigrants were mostly from Latin America, with a substantial minority from Asia, the Pacific Islands, Caribbean and Africa. It’s this new group of immigrant workers who have brought May Day back in the United States. Since then immigrants have faced Gestapo-like raids and deportations, along with a loss of jobs since the economic crisis hit. This repression is meant to keep the working class divided, when what is needed is unity.

Sympathy and compassion for immigrant workers are honest and legitimate feelings. But the solidarity immigrant workers deserve from the rest of the working class is not based only on these feelings. Workers born in the U.S. should recognize the great contribution that immigrant workers have made to the struggle of all workers. At this moment workers need all the forces and all the leadership that the immigrant workers can provide. Solidarity with immigrant workers can strengthen the combined struggle of all workers.

Trade union members, bring this message to your unions.

Community organizers, spread it to all the poor and oppressed.

Bring out all members of the working class on May Day to stand in solidarity with immigrant workers and ALL workers. Bring out all workers, students and your community to stand together against the assault by big capital against our jobs, our benefits, our homes.

It is not only the right thing to do.

It’s the only way we can win.