The spirit of May Day

May Day is workers’ day. But its origins go back to the  rituals of hallowed antiquity. Long before the emergence of trade unions, May Day was a spring festival dedicated to the spirits that people thought controlled the destinies of humanity. Houses were decorated with green branches. Peasants danced and picked a "May King and Queen", believing this would magically bring about a  good harvest and prosperity. 
Nowadays it’s a time to remember past struggles and achievements and look forward to the bright red future still to come. From the big parades in the people’s democracies to the rallies in Europe and throughout the Global South, May Day is celebrated to honour the generations that have gone before us and to look to the future with confidence and determination. 
We recall the fight for the eight-hour day and the strikes in the United States on May Day 1886 that ended in the murder of six strikers by the police in Chicago, and the deaths of seven police the next day when a bomb exploded during a protest in the city’s Haymarket Square. Eight union leaders were arrested on trumped-up charges and four were later hanged.
In 1889 the First International, the International Working Men’s Association, declared May Day an international working-class holiday to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs, and the Red Flag, representing the blood of working class martyrs – the martyred dead of Labour’s anthem – was adopted as the international symbol of working people.
Lenin’s May Day was a call to action. He said “May Day is coming, the day when the workers of all lands celebrate Their awakening to a class-conscious life, their solidarity in the struggle against all coercion and oppression of man by man, the struggle to free the toiling millions from hunger, poverty, and humiliation. Two worlds stand facing each other in this great struggle: the world of capital and the world of labour, the world of exploitation and slavery and the world of brotherhood and freedom.
“On one side stand the handful of rich blood-suckers. They have seized the factories and mills, the tools and machinery, have turned millions of acres of land and mountains of money into their private property. They have made the government and the army their servants, faithful watchdogs of the wealth they have amassed.
“On the other side stand the millions of the disinherited. They are forced to beg the moneybags for permission to work for them. By their labour they create all wealth; yet all their lives long they have to struggle for a crust of bread, beg for work as for charity, sap their strength and health by back-breaking toil, and starve in hovels in the villages or in the cellars and garrets of the big cities.
“But now these disinherited toilers have declared war on the moneybags and exploiters. The workers of all lands are fighting to free labour from wage slavery, from poverty and want. They are fighting for a system of society where the wealth created by the common labour will go to benefit, not a handful of rich men, but all those who work. They want to make the land and the factories, mills, and machines the common property of all toilers. They want to do away with the division into rich and poor, want the fruits of labour to go to the labourers themselves, and all the achievements of the human mind, all improvements in ways of working, to improve the lot of the man who works, and not serve as a means of oppressing him”. Let us all follow in Lenin’s footsteps to build a better tomorrow for the generations to come.

May Day – A Day for the Workers!

Although the origins of May Day go back to hallowed antiquity when it was a festival for the ancient gods, it has also always been a day for working people. On May Day we remember those dark days of old when workers fought against grasping employers who would have them work all day, every day but Sunday, for a miserable pittance of a wage.

We recall the struggle for the eight-hour day and the strikes in the USA and Canada called on May Day 1886 that ended in the murder of six strikers by the police in Chicago, and the deaths of seven police the next day when a bomb exploded during a protest in the city’s Haymarket Square. Eight trade union leaders were arrested on trumped-up charges and four were hanged in Illinois in 1887.

In 1889 the First International, the International Working Men’s Association, declared May Day an international working-class holiday to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs, and the Red Flag, representing the blood of working class martyrs – the martyred dead of Labour’s anthem – was adopted as the international symbol of working people.

From the big parades and marches in the people’s democracies to the street meetings and rallies in Europe and throughout the Third World, May Day is celebrated to honour the generations that have gone before us and to look to the future with confidence and determination. But this year the celebrations are muted as the shadow of the coronavirus plague hovers across the globe.

Whilst we celebrate May Day in our hearts we also remember the tens of thousands who have needlessly died in the pandemic due to the criminal neglect of the health service by Tory and Tory-led governments in recent years.

Now everyone across the parliamentary spectrum claims to champion the NHS. “Lessons have been learnt” they say, along with lavish promises of more money to come for the health service when the crisis is over. But when that time comes it will be business as usual as far as the bourgeoisie are concerned. There’ll be nothing on the table for the NHS, nor the health service workers who keep it going, without mass pressure on the streets and from the unions.

Although a recent opinion poll shows growing support for rent controls, job guarantees and public ownership of key services, this has not been reflected in the stance of the new Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, who rarely strays from the Blairite agenda and the Remainer-wing of the bourgeoisie that still thinks it can use these troubled times to scupper Brexit.

Though Starmer has highlighted the scandalously high COVID-19 death-rate amongst the elderly, which he rightly links to a lack of personal protective clothing in care homes, his more vocal supporters would rather concentrate on calling for a lockdown exit plan and an extension of the Brexit transition period beyond the end of this year.

We can only wind down the lockdown when the danger is over. This must be left to the medical experts and the unions to decide. Stringent health and safety norms must be in place before any return to work. The job retention scheme must be prolonged and extended. Sick pay and unemployment benefits must be raised, and the Government must ban zero-hours contracts, tackle false self-employment, and guarantee all workers day-one employment rights. And that’s just the start.

The ruling class is brutal and oppressive because that’s the only way it can ensure that the rich can continue to live the lives of Roman emperors on the backs of the workers and peasants they exploit. They fear and loath organised labour because they know that the entire wealth of the world comes from workers in the factories and peasants in the fields.

They fear the spirit of May Day because it represents the unity of working people that sooner or later will sweep the whole rotting system to the oblivion it richly deserves.

MAY DAY 2019

 THE WEALTH BELONGS TO THOSE WHO PRODUCE IT!

The World Federation of Trade Unions, on the behalf of its 97 million members in 130 countries of the 5 continents, greets the celebration of the International Workers’ Day 2019 with the slogan: “The wealth belongs to those who produce it!”

We greet workers throughout the globe, and their irreplaceable role in the production of all goods and services, necessary to cover all contemporary needs of the peoples internationally. We honor the history of the world working class, the great struggle of workers in Chicago in May 1886, who fought and achieved the establishment of the 8-hour working day, even by sacrificing their life.

The class oriented trade union movement, through the ranks of the World Federation of Trade Unions, firmly continues its struggles with demands for the essential improvement of the working and living conditions of workers and poor popular strata.

Nowadays, when 1% of the population possesses more than 80% of the produced wealth, while 4.5 billion people live in poverty and misery, workers must claim even more dynamically all the wealth we create, so as to put an end to the injustice and inequalities!

In countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, monopolies exploit their immense natural wealth, giving peanuts to the peoples. The rivalries among the powerful imperialist states maintain tensions, outbreaks of war and open wounds in countries where interventions, wars and bombings have taken place in the previous years, where crowds of uprooted peoples, of migrants and refugees, were created.

Even in the so-called developed countries, the attack against salaries and pensions, against historic achievements of workers, is taking place in the name of the capitalist economic crisis, for the support of the profitability of big businesses. Poverty, unemployment, insecurity are on the rise, healthcare services are deteriorated, the governments try to limit the action of the militant trade union movement with fierce repression, by putting obstacles to trade union actions, to the right to strike.

The World Federation of Trade Unions calls on its members, friends, workers of the world, to hoist the flag of historic struggles of the peoples and to organize May Day’s strike for one more year, in a way worthy of the day when the world working class celebrates.

Against the false theories of employers, governments and corrupted trade union leaderships, who claim that strikes, demands, action of trade unions have become out-dated, so that they can serve the interests of the big capital in the best possible way.

With massive, dynamic strike mobilizations everywhere, under the banners and slogans of WFTU, which express the class unity and internationalist solidarity. With demands for full-time stable work for all, salary and pension rises, free and high quality health and education services for workers and their families. In defense of the rights of youth and women of the working class.

For peace, for the end of foreign interventions in internal affairs of the countries. For the right of the peoples to decide on their own about their present and future.

For the end of racism, fascism, xenophobia, which is promoted by capitalist exploitation. For the unity of all workers. For the end of imperialist wars, waged for the interests of a minority who exploit the toil of workers and bathe the peoples in blood.

For the end of capitalist exploitation, for a society with true justice and equality, where the wealth will belong to those who produce it, to workers, who are the driving force of all progress and achievements of humanity.

Since the first moment of its foundation and for the 74 years of its course and action, the WFTU firmly by the side of the workers around the globe, on the occasion of May Day 2019 expresses once more its solidarity to the peoples of Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Libya.

We will steadily continue our struggles, aiming to make them stronger through new initiatives, activities and mobilizations! With internationalism and solidarity.

Let’s continue our efforts for the strengthening of the militant trade unions with many new members, with young people and women, with the enhancement of class characteristics and of the class unity of all workers. By revealing the dirty role of reformists and of corrupted bureaucrats that turn trade unions into servants of the bourgeoisie.

We participate actively in the strike of May Day 2019!

Long live the International Workers’ Day!

The wealth belongs to those who produce it!