The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

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The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Post by blindpig » Wed Apr 29, 2020 2:07 pm

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The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

April 28, 2020 By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers – April 26, 2020

On Friday, May 1, an ongoing General Strike campaign begins. This campaign could become the most powerful movement in the United States and reset the national agenda. It comes when the failures of the US political system have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which triggered an economic collapse in a presidential election year. The General Strike campaign will be ongoing with actions on the first of every month. Strategic strikes of workers, students, consumers, prisoners, and renters will also continue.

This new era of mass strikes builds on successful strikes by teachers, healthcare workers, hotel workers, and others. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the last two years, there has been the largest number of major work stoppages in 35 years with more than 400,000 workers involved in strikes in both 2018 and 2019. This continues in 2020 with a wave of wildcat strikes.



People must commit to an ongoing campaign of strikes starting now and continuing after the election. FDR faced more than 1.4 million people striking after he was elected, which forced him to put the New Deal and workers’ rights legislation in place. The next president should be subjected to continuous strikes with specific demands. Striking is the most powerful tool of the people. We need to learn to use it effectively.

United action magnifies popular power and shows those in power that they cannot ignore us any longer. You can participate by sharing this article with other people and urging them to participate. Follow and share the hashtags #CoronaStrike, #GeneralStrike, #MayDay2020, #GeneralStrike2020, and #PeoplesStrike.

Participate in Popular Resistance’s Zoom call on April 29, 2020, at 7:00 pm Eastern/4:00 pm Pacific to learn about what will be happening on May Day and how you can be part of it. Register at bit.ly/MayDayMeeting.

The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

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COVID-19 exposes the fact that essential workers who provide food, healthcare, and deliveries to our homes are mistreated and underappreciated. Workers are underpaid and are not being provided with protective equipment or allowed sick leave. The COVID-19 rescue laws have given trillions in funding to investors and big businesses while leaving people and small businesses with crumbs. Twenty-six million people have filed for unemployment but states are not processing claims quickly and the COVID-19 rescue only provided an inadequate one-time $1,200 payment. Millions of the newly unemployed are losing their health insurance.

The #GeneralStrike has five demands:

(1) Protection from Covid-19

(2) Safe Housing.

(3) Living Wages.

(4) Medicare for All.

(5) Equal Education.

We would add a sixth urgent demand – saving the postal service.

The tactics of the General Strike will vary over time. During this initial phase of the COVID-19 virus, there will be car caravans, sickouts, and signs on windows supporting the strikes. People will use social media to show support for the demands. On May 1 and beyond there will be webinars on the strike and the issues raised by it.

With a campaign of strategic and general strikes very likely going on until 2022, people can take control of the country and put the necessities of the people at the top of the agenda. Jane McAlevey points to three areas where workers have decisive power. These include logistics, healthcare, and education.

Logistics includes providing food, delivery, transit, and other services that keep the economy functioning. Workers disrupting these areas makes the country ungovernable by creating economic dysfunction.
Despite being essential, healthcare workers lack protective equipment and basics such as tests. Healthcare workers have stood against the dangerous so-called “Liberate” protests Donald Trump is encouraging to prematurely re-open the economy. Nurses have protested the lack of protective equipment and been fired for doing so. These acts of defiance must be supported as we also demand national improved Medicare for All so everyone has access to high-quality healthcare. We must build our public health system so never again will the country be unprepared for a pandemic.
Teacher’s unions have developed the model for all unions to follow, strikes for the common good. Teacher strikes have been successful because they have represented the interests of students and the communities where they live. Poverty, inadequate housing, brutal policing, and ICE raids undermine the ability of teachers to do their jobs. Making demands for the common good unites us to work for what we need.
Recently, there have been wildcat strikes. These can include a variety of work stoppages, e.g. people taking sick days, work slowdowns, work disruptions due to flat tires on delivery trucks, and other ways that prevent work from being accomplished. To follow strike actions, visit On The Picket Line or check out this interactive map of strike actions, or the “Dual Power” map by Black Socialists in America. Get in the loop and get connected at General Strike 2020.

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Rent Strike

As unemployment reaches Depression-era levels, with one in six US workers being unemployed, and the government is unable to process unemployment benefits and is refusing to provide a basic income, people are unable to pay their rents. According to data from the Rentec Direct property management software platform, “The rent received by property managers in the U.S. by April 8 was 17% less than it was through the first eight days of March. Other data point to a similar trend. For example, data from the National Multifamily Housing Council found that 69 percent of renters paid their rent between April 1 and April 5, down from 82% in the same period in April 2019.” According to the New York Times, 40 percent of New York City tenants may have skipped their April payments.

In January before the pandemic, a Harvard University report found that nearly half of US renters are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, a quarter of renters—eleven million people—are “severely cost-burdened,” spending more than half of their income to make rent. There was already a housing crisis in the US, the economic collapse has magnified it

This economic reality is turning into an organized and growing rent strike against corporate landlords. Calls for an expanded rent strike on May 1 are growing. In Kansas City, Missouri, tenant advocates tweeted: “Highway takeover in an hour. We will have tenants spanning the state, every five miles, from Kansas City to St. Louis.” Tenant groups from South Carolina to Los Angeles called for a rent strike in May as have groups in Chicago, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Denver, Bloomington, St. Louis, and New York. Yesterday, Cancel the Rent car caravans were held in many cities. Rent strikes are building into a nationwide revolt with calls for rent strikes going viral in unlikely places like Georgia. How this will evolve? If tenants are made homeless, people will take over buildings to be housed, assets of landlords could be nationalized, and social housing could escalate.

Rent strike organizers say, “We are banding together: folks who cannot pay and those who will join them in solidarity. We refuse to pay for the right to live. Many will have to choose between rent and food, and many won’t have enough for either. We will not sacrifice our lives to keep the market afloat, or to fill the pockets of real estate lenders and landlords…Together, we can transform this moment of isolation into a moment of shared strength, support and compassion.” Rent strikes are demanding:

Forgive unpaid rents and waive mortgage interest and defer mortgage payments for the months of April, May, and June;
Cease evictions of any renters and foreclosures on any homeowners during the full duration of the crisis — for at least six months;
Use their political power to call on public officials to support housing relief for the tens of millions of American workers who have lost their jobs.
The COVID crisis has magnified a reality in US housing — housing has been turned in a profit engine for the super-rich. Rentals have been corporatized and controlled by some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. The Action Network reports: “Companies like Greystar, Equity Residential, and Lincoln Property Company control the rents for apartments in every state in the United States, while billionaires like Sam Zell founder and chairman of Equity Residential and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital effectively serve as landlords for millions of us. These enormous companies dictate the rent and home prices in communities across the country. “

As a result, polling shows that a majority of people across the political spectrum support canceling rent payments and suspending home mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic. By a margin of 22 percent, voters strongly favor suspending or forgiving rents, for those under 45 years of age, the margin is 50 percent.

The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

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Building Power For An Effective General Strike

We do not yet have the organization to conduct a massive General Strike and only a few unions are aggressive enough to conduct strategic work stoppages. We must use the General Strike campaign to build our power and learn how to strike.

The foundation of all movements is education. We must constantly work to educate people about what is going on around them. This means overcoming the corporate media, which reports from the perspective of major corporate interests and the two Wall Street-funded parties. Independent media and social media are areas of activism that must always be a priority.

Subscribe to our daily digest for ongoing movement news and choose articles to promote in your social media networks. Each of us should act with the intention to build our social media networks so we become an effective media outlet. If the tens of thousands of people who receive this newsletter behave as media outlets, we will change the national dialogue.

We are over halfway to raising what we need in our Spring Fundraiser. Donate now to support Popular Resistance as a media outlet and as an organizer of the General Strike. DONATE HERE.

We must organize to bring people into the movement. Mass movements win, fringe movements fail. How do you organize? Organizing is as simple as talking to people who are not yet part of the movement, listening to their concerns, and showing them how joining together we can solve problems. This requires the patient and steady systematic building of relationships in the community. Talk to your neighbors, participate in apolitical neighborhood email groups, and speak with those who deliver to your home.

In the workplace, talk to co-workers, form clandestine strike committees, and speak and listen to each other. Work stoppages can vary in form. Workers can use the tactic of “Work to Rule,” following often ignored workplace safety and other rules, resulting in a slowdown. The bosses will fight back, so this will not be easy. Workers need to build community support so bosses are isolated and the conflict is broadened.

There are also tactics for at-home workers where sickouts and slowdowns are easy to adapt. Workers can call in sick during the first week in May. Even mild symptoms can result in a day or two off work. With the stress of COVID-19 and the economic collapse, a ‘mental health day’ is needed for many.

Then, we must mobilize people. When people are in the movement, a union, or an organization, they are ready to be mobilized in mass action. This requires showing this is a strategic campaign, not one protest, but a series of escalating events that build and are focused on achieving change. We discuss how you can create a strategic campaign in the free Popular Resistance School, How Social Transformation Occurs, eight web-based classes and readings we urge you to use.

If you are not part of a union or organization, become an active supporter of their actions. Show up, join them, call the media, religious leaders or neighbors, and urge them to show up. If you see a picket line, join the workers or bring food and beverages. See yourself as the media and report on strikes, share their stories, and use your social media networks. If a union organizer is fired, come to the aid of that person including highlighting the injustice, insisting the person gets their job back, and raising funds to support them. We can support local strikers through “GoFundMe” pages or join a local Mutual Aid team.

In the coming era of strikes, we must remember that an injury to one is an injury to all. Show solidarity with the general strike. Wear red on Friday. Display a strike poster in your window. Wear a red or black or lavender bandana. Change your Facebook cover image.

As the era of strikes builds and people develop the skills, confidence, and courage to exercise their rights, the potential for transformational change will grow in ways that we cannot yet foresee.

The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Source URL: Popular Resistance

https://orinocotribune.com/the-era-of-m ... -campaign/

Videos at link.

Mebbe this time? Well, hope springs eternal, but one might ask, "Where's the Party?"
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Post by blindpig » Fri May 01, 2020 1:36 pm

May 1st at the time of the Coronavirus

by Kovac

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Also for May Day, May Day, social distancing measures will be in force in most European countries, following the continuation of the Covid-19 epidemic . Traditional parades and demonstrations organized by trade unions and parties related to the workers' movement will therefore not be possible in most cases. However, several initiatives have been created to ensure that this May Day does not become a quarantine day like any other but is used to celebrate workers, especially those at the forefront of providing health care to the sick and guaranteeing essential services.

Moreover, the general trend in various European countries is to proceed towards a more or less gradual reopening of economic activities. The dangers of a hasty reopening of workers' factories, offices and shops are at the heart of alternative events organized by various organizations in Europe.

ITALY

In Italy, traditional marches will not be able to take place following measures taken by the government to tackle the epidemic. The trade unions CGIL , CISL and UIL have decided to organize a TV-only event / concert broadcast on Raitre and for which the chosen slogan will be " Work in safety: to build the future ". Unfortunately, no forms of active worker involvement, at least in virtual form, beyond the musical event and the television participation of the leaders of the three main Italian unions are not reported.

The planned reopening of various economic activities after the peak of the emergency does not provide the certainty that the protection of workers' health and the effective availability of personal protective equipment are taken into due consideration, if not purely verbally. Trade unions should not limit themselves to the folkloric element of May 1st, but strongly oppose any reopening of economic activities without the certainty that the protective devices are actually distributed and are of adequate quality, in addition to claiming that the production rates are organized in such a way as to guarantee worker safety and not vice versa.

In addition, it is already clear that the intent of the Italian bosses is to put the working class on the ropes, requesting holiday reductions, overtime and over the weekend to compensate for lost profits. The Italian union should show firmness in not giving in to employer demands.

Another virtual initiative is that organized by a large group of associations, unions and movements, including Power to the People , the Union of Base (USB), Iside Onlus Network , the Italian Communist Youth Federation , the Communist Network and others, which includes an 8-hour virtual procession with the participation of delegates from the workplace, international guests from unions around the world (including Cuba, South Africa, Greece, Venezuela) and various artists. The theme of the "telematic procession" will be the slogan "Patience Zero, to mean the unwillingness to pretend that nothing has happened, that you can resume everyday life without paying the bill to a system that has shown its inability to manage the boomerang of the failure of globalization, who chose profit instead of the health and safety of the population and workers ".

GERMANY

In Germany, the country's main trade union, DGB ( Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund ), has officially announced the cancellation of street demonstrations normally scheduled for May 1st. Alternatively, there are online events broadcast live on the DGB website and on Facebook and Youtube profiles and supporters are invited to show solidarity through the display of banners and flags on the balconies.

However, the German Communist Party ( Deutschen Kommunistischen Partei - DKP ) invites its members to take part in the local initiatives promoted by the Heraus zum 1 platform . Never!, which plans to request authorization at regional level to be able to demonstrate in public places, with respect for the necessary spacing measures at least 1.5 m and with the use of protective devices. The DKP denounces how the federal government has decided to increase the German contribution to the NATO budget, by subtracting resources from social, cultural and educational spending. In addition, the DKP fears that the immense resources deployed by the federal government to support the economy to combat the recessive effects of the epidemic are not intended to support wages and small and medium-sized enterprises, but end up in support of dividends from banks and large multinational companies.

The party Die Linke has decided to try to organize demonstrations in public places in a creative form, taking into account the social distancing measures to ensure the safety of participants, such as marches by car or bicycle. Die Linke denounces non-compliance with the eight-hour working week in hospitals and nursing homes, non-compliance with safety standards and the distribution of personal protective equipment in many companies, as well as non-compliance with Sunday closings in the commercial sector. detail.

The main claims for May 1st in Germany lead to the fight against the intention of the federal government to discharge the economic costs relating to the epidemic on workers in layoffs: temporary unemployment benefits are requested to cover 90% of wages, a capital to finance the costs related to the crisis, a permanent increase of 500 euros in the salary of health workers and the retail trade, in addition to hiring new staff in hospitals and increasing the amount of tests and protective devices to disposition of workers.

FRANCE

In Paris, it is impossible to organize the traditional procession from Bastille Square, in the context of the rules of social distancing decided by the government. The trade unions CGT , FSU , Solidaires , Fidi , MNL , Unef , UNL have invited the workers to demonstrate from their homes with placards, banners, making their solidarity felt on Twitter , Facebook , etc ... The unions denounce how the crisis linked to the COVID-19 has been exploited to try to impose on workers the 60-hour working weeks, the renunciation of holidays and rest days, Sunday work, abuses related to the implementation of telework.

The French Communist Party (PCF) has decided to organize a virtual mobilization on its Facebook page , inviting citizens to post slogans and images of banners hanging on balconies and windows, using the hashtag # MasquesPasMuselés ("with the mask but not gagged ")

A hot front in France is that of the struggle of the workers of the multinational online commerce company Amazon, to have conditions of organization of work that put their health at the center. Amazon workers achieved a first big victory : the closure of the plants until a risk assessment is discussed at the various sites and effective protection measures are put into practice.

BELGIUM

In Belgium, the government promises a gradual reopening of economic activity, without being able to provide health care workers and nursing homes the proper protective equipment, after years of management negligence of the stock of masks.

On the occasion of May 1st, the Dutch-speaking wing of the ABVV union invited its members to hang red objects on the windows, as a visible sign of solidarity with the workers of the supermarkets, the health workers, those who continue to expose themselves to keep public transport in service, etc ... The French-speaking wing of the same union ( FGTB ), organized a live event on its Facebook page to give voice to the workers at the forefront of the fight against the epidemic.

The Belgian Labor Party (PTB-PVDA) has invited his sympathizers to record a video in which they sing "Bella Ciao" in anticipation of a flash mob for May Day. In addition, on the evening of April 30, the PTB organized a live meeting , in which Cuban doctors who came to bring support in the most acute moments of the epidemic will also participate, in connection from Italy.

SPAIN

In Spain, another country heavily affected by the epidemic, the CCOO (Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras) and UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) unions organized a day of virtual mobilization, inviting them to express solidarity with the workers at the forefront in the fight against coronavirus and requesting the Government to reverse the route of cuts to public services practiced for years and to extend the social protection network, establishing a minimum vital income.

A COMMON FIGHT: PROTECT WORKERS

In the absence of the possibility of physically occupying the public space, as per the tradition of the workers' movement, left-wing parties and unions have, in many cases, found new forms of mobilization through the use of new technologies. A strongly felt need not to let the containment measures of the Covid-19 pandemic and the discussions on the restart of economic activities obscure the reality that stands before this historic moment: the health of workers is jeopardized by the needs of the capitalist production, which can no longer claim that profit is overshadowed.

It is more than ever necessary that trade unions and communist and left-wing parties occupy the communication space to reiterate that restarting economic activities must not be the priority without adequate measures to protect workers' health and without production levels being adapted to health needs and not vice versa.

https://ottobre.info/2020/04/30/il-prim ... ronavirus/

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Re: The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Post by blindpig » Fri May 01, 2020 1:48 pm

CP of Greece, Message of the CC of the KKE on Workers’ May Day

4/30/20 3:11 PM

This year’s Workers’ May Day finds the working class of our country and all over the world in the middle of a pandemic. The working people, the poor popular strata are once again the great victims of this “healthcare” crisis that functions as a catalyst for a new deep capitalist economic crisis, but also for the promotion of plans and demands from big capital and its political representatives.

The collapse of the public healthcare system, even in the apex of capitalism, the USA, despite the heroism of healthcare workers there, the intensification of labor and the lack of even the most basic protection measures with risks to the lives and the health of the working people, unemployment, the testing out of new, more advanced forms of exploitation, such as telework, are just a few of the daily images that reveal the decay and the historical bankruptcy of capitalism.

At the same moment, the quest for profits and competitions around it undermine the existing capabilities of science and research that could provide a faster way out of today's pandemic and to satisfy contemporary needs. The “global war” between the capitalist states and the giant corporations over the patent for the new vaccination, the therapies and the vital healthcare supplies, confirm what most people all over the world comprehend and shout out “Capitalism is the real virus”. All of this brings closer the necessity of the socialization of the means of production, of distribution, of services, of scientific central planning, of Socialism.

The teachings from the History of the labor movement in our country and all over the world are more relevant than ever today. Whatever the working class gained, it won it through tough battles, through a clash with capital and its power, overturning the correlation of forces that may have seemed indestructible.

Above all, History has proven that the working class, the most vanguard force of society, can, in alliance with the oppressed popular forces, overthrow the power of capital, to build a new society that will have as its focal point the satisfaction of expanding popular needs.

The experience of socialist construction in the 20th century, although it concerned countries with absolute and relative – in comparison with today’s scientific and technological standards – conditions of great delay, demonstrate the superiority of socialism in the protection of health, insurance, work, extensive social protection. The overthrow of socialism and the global retreat of the labor movement neither vindicate the capitalism barbarism we live in, nor do they halt wheel of History that despite the difficulties and the obstacles, always moves forward.

This barbarism is not vindicated by individual measures to mitigate its consequences, by the attempts at covering up what its governments do, its parties, the international imperialist alliances, in total, all the forces that defend and serve this unjust exploitative system.

They deify “individual responsibility” in order to cover up the vast state deficiencies, mainly in the public Health systems.

They attempt to put a silencer on the workers, with the pretext of the pandemic and a false “national solidarity”.

They seek to subjugate workers to the aims of capital, with the false argument that ‘we are all in the same boat.”

They develop measures for direct economic state intervention – with investments and funding, even the nationalization of huge bankrupt companies – in order to boost capitalist incentive and profit-making However, the workers will pay for all of this through new harsh measures and memorandum in the name of “emergency conditions”.

They evoke the myth of “European solidarity” to hide the fact that the EU, the Eurozone, is by its very nature an alliance of competing nations and economies, which especially in times of crisis “show their teeth”, both amongst themselves but above all, against the people.

Both the ND government and SYRIZA as well as the other bourgeois parties of our country are moving in this line preparing for the next day, which for working people will be painful if they do not stand up more decisively, in a mass way and militantly , if they do not go on the counter-attack.

No illusions, no deceptions are allowed for employees, pensioners, the self-employed of the city and the countryside. NO change in the mix between fiscal and monetary policies, no new “Marshall Plan”, no digital modernization of state services will constitute a “progressive reform” of capitalism, it does not absolve it of its giant deadlocks and the upcoming crisis, as occurred in 2009. From the new large-scale economic crisis, the working people will not emerge victoriously.

For this reason, a workers’ counter-attack, the alliance of the working class with the other popular forces does not remain “on ice”.

We remain strong under pandemic conditions.

We fight for the protection of the health of the people, for Education, labor, Culture, tackling the refugee problem, the defense of labor and and wider trade union rights and civil liberties, by repealing any laws restricting trade union and political action, the intensifying of repression.

We strengthen the struggle for those who are responsible to pay, the capitalists, with an increase in their taxes, with the abolition of tax-exemptions for capital, a crackdown on obscene profiteering.

We step up the fight for the abolition of all the older memorandum laws and the recent anti-people measures.

With the demand for a statute of limitations on the state debt that was not created by the people who are paying for it dearly and continually all these years.

With the withdrawal from the program and the dangerous plans of NATO, that as a country we pay for with 4 billion euros every year. With the total and liberating for the people clash with and disengagement from the imperialist alliances of NATO and the EU.

The only path for the working people to not pay for the crisis is the road of struggle and workers’ power.

The coronavirus will be cured and the pandemic will end, just as others did in the past. Capitalism, however, is incurable and will continue to torture humankind, with poverty, unemployment, wars, the destruction of the environment, until the peoples decide to lead the way in the developments.

Today’s system can only be overthrown and replaced by a superior social system, socialism – communism, where social ownership of the means of production with workers’ power, scientific central planning for the satisfaction of people’s needs, workers’ control of all the administrative organs and participation in all the organs of power, from the bottom to the top, can lead to prosperity for the people, to peace and the progress of humankind.

Workers’ May Day symbolizes the invincible battle against the class enemy. This is the precious legacy of our time. With this weapon in our hands and in our thoughts, we honor Workers’ May Day, the dead workers of Chicago in 1886, the tobacco workers of Thessaloniki in ‘36, the 200 executed communists in Kaisariani May 1st 1944, all those who remain unflinching in the class struggle, all those who were sacrificed for a society without exploitation of man by man.

We continue on this path, for the satisfaction of all of the modern social – popular needs.



PROLETARIAT OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Athens 25/ 4/ 2020

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Greec ... s-May-Day/

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Party of Labour of Austria, Labour Day 2020
4/30/20 2:56 PM

Labour Day 2020: A mask is not a muzzle! Let us protect our health! Let us defend ourselves against exploitation and oppression!



Declaration of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Austria on Labour Day, Vienna, 28 April 2020



For exactly 130 years - since 1890 –May 1, International Workers’ Day, has been celebrated as a worldwide day of struggle and holiday of the working class. In all these years there have been several reasons in Austria which made it impossible to hold Labour Day events - repression of state power, fascist dictatorships, war. This year, in 2020, for the first time in decades, there will be no large rallies and demonstrations in public, because the epidemic measures of the government do not allow these activities.



But class struggle cannot be quarantined. While it is true that common sense and mutual respect dictate that we should refrain from organising large gatherings this year, this does not mean that we should also refrain from making our voice heard in other ways. While Social Democracy and its associated Trade Union leadership are once again counting on collaboration and capitulation, one thing is certain for us: there can be no closing of ranks and no truce with the government and capital.



It was the governments of capital and all the parties represented in parliament that brought us to the present situation: They have been demolishing the health and welfare system for decades to achieve absurd deficit goals and to open these areas to capitalist profiteering. Not only the conservative People’s Party, but also Social Democracy was in the lead: for a long time it placed the Federal Chancellor in charge and pursued a capital-friendly policy against the interests of the working class - with social cuts, privatisation, liberalisation, cuts in benefits, percentage excesses, site closures, underfunding, staff cuts and the promotion of precarious employment. But hospitals and statuary health funds are not business companies that have to make profit. They are public institutions to ensure the health and survival of the population, whatever the cost - not only in times of epidemics. Nor must the provision of medicines, medical materials and equipment and, last but not least, sufficient staff, who are decently paid and have tolerable working hours, be subject to "market logic". It is the unforgivable fault of the ruling class that this is not so. The primacy of capitalist profiteering, the exploitation of labour for the further shameless enrichment of the rich, led almost lawfully to the present situation. It is the rich, the capitalists, the greed of the banks and corporations for profit that we can no longer afford - not hospital beds, medical treatment for all or humane working conditions and salaries for health and nursing staff.



The government, instead of funding the public health system, is taking billions to subsidise capitalist companies and corporations - in fact, on a particularly large scale at present. The working class-whether in employment, on short time or unemployed-must continue, and even more so, to live on alms. Those who remain in business all the time despite the crisis - in supermarkets, for example - are massively drained and notoriously badly paid. "Bonus payments" on a ridiculous scale, hypocritical expressions of gratitude by politicians and public applause will not change this. Even the health protection of working people is obviously of no value to the government and capital, because in many industrial companies or in the construction industry work must continue as usual. Disease is a class issue under capitalism. The fact that unemployment figures are exploding and reaching an all-time high of the Second Republic cannot be prevented by the given short-time work model - nor should it: it exists to support the capitalist entrepreneurs, not the workers.



The government knows very well, why it must support capital. Because with and after the epidemic comes the economic crisis - on a scale never seen before. As a regularity of the fundamentally flawed capitalist economic cycle, the crisis would have been inevitable anyway, but the epidemic and its accompanying conditions are accelerating and exacerbating the development. Of course, the government and capital will try to shift the burden of the crisis back onto the working class. There will be new "austerity agendas", which will once again affect the social system, pensions, education and - of course - health care. There will be wage losses and the destruction of jobs. For capital, this is just a purification process. For the working class, it means increased insecurity of existence, unemployment, the risk of poverty. The government will lie to us again, it will argue that it was about general necessities and that we must now stick together. In reality, the capitalist losses will be socialised again - on the back of the working class - just as all profits are privatised in times of favourable economic conditions.



Capitalists and workers have no common interests, either in or outside the crisis. The workers can always work, even without a capitalist owner, but the capitalist cannot exist without exploiting human labour. Therefore, it is obvious what would actually save expenses: economizing the capitalist, because he does not work, but consumes and rakes in most of the wealth produced by the workers; he is useless, unproductive and parasitic in society. The workers do not need him. They may just as well - and better - be themselves joint social owners of the means of production, of factories and plants, of machines and tools, of land. With the difference that they would then be free from exploitation and would no longer have to feed the capitalists and unproductive rich. The money for their profits and luxury life would be available for better things. The workers as owners would have the financial and material resources and the political decision-making power to achieve prosperity for all through fair wages, adequate housing, secure pensions, sufficient leisure time and a comprehensive health system. And they would be able to eliminate future crises from economic life through planned production and distribution based on actual needs. Such a system is called socialism.



All the working class has to do to achieve it is to organise and take a firm stand against the capitalists and their governments - putting the overwhelming majority of the population against a handful of capitalist parasites and exploiters who care nothing for our lives. Dealing with the Corona epidemic illustrates this, and the economic crisis will illustrate it even more. Even under normal conditions, capital and its governments maintain a massive propaganda and repressive apparatus to deceive and, if necessary, oppress the working class. However, under the current restrictions of the epidemic, there has been an even greater concentration of power, which is manifested in the current epidemic regime. The government decrees the restriction and, in some cases, the complete abolition of fundamental rights and freedoms, of civil and human rights, with the parliament not exercising a control function but willingly assisting. The epidemic regime takes it upon itself to spy on individuals, to use police intimidation, to repress critical media and to promote denunciation. The government does not ensure that its actions conform to the constitution and shifts all measures to contain the epidemic onto the population. We will have to be attentive and watchful concerning this massive political power, which can easily tip over into fantasies of omnipotence and lead to the extension and continuation of restrictions even without necessity. Because, in the end, the bourgeois state is a tool for the oppression of the working class and the government is only a committee of the ruling capital, which should organize the optimal exploitation and prevent any counter-movement - by all necessary means.

We have to put an end to this. That is why the Party of Labour of Austria has made it its task to inform the working class about the actual situation, to expose the lies of the ruling class and to offer a way out - by organising the working class in a revolutionary way as a fighting unit against exploitation and oppression, against unemployment and insecurity of existence, which are inevitably connected with capitalism. This is what the Party of Labour is working for - onMay Day and all other days of the year.

For a militant workers front!

Against epidemic regime and crisis capitalism!

Socialisminsteadofbarbarism!

http://solidnet.org/article/Party-of-La ... -Day-2020/

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CP of the Workers of Spain, PCTE Manifest on 1st of May
4/30/20 3:12 PM

Workers, pensioners and retirees, students, self-employed workers, class struggle has not stopped in the health crisis and we must be ready for new assaults against our rights and our life conditions.

In this 1st of May we especially want to greet all those sections of our class that have been in the forefront of the struggle against the pandemics in these last weeks – especially health workers, who have suffered so many attacks in the last years –, and all those who have been forced to keep on their work activity without the minimum safety and protective conditions.

We equally want to express our condolences to all the families that have lost any of their members in this dire health crisis, as well as our deep indignation for the specific situation of hundreds of nursing homes, mainly private or concerted, where thousands of people have passed away because of the lack of means and equipment.

This 1st of May is celebrated under some quite special conditions due to the confinement caused by the Covid-19 pandemics. This situation has made the usual rallies, gatherings and events organized to celebrate the International Workers’ Day to change their format, but this exceptionality does not mean any change in the struggling orientation of this day. It neither changes the need to place within the public debate that the working class is the one that creates all the social wealth in our country.

The terrible economic crisis unveiled by the pandemics is a new evidence of the collapse of capitalism, both in Spain and worldwide. There are no recent precedents of such a serious and deep economic crisis, and we are already witnessing how the first measures, aiming to make the workers and the people’s strata from our country pay for it again, are put into practice.

So far, the social democratic Government of coalition has carried out a management of the health crisis that clearly states what interests are mainly defended: the interests of the monopolies, of the big capitalists. There is no reason to think that their measures are going to have a different nature in the management of this extremely dire economic crisis already unleashed.

The whole society has witnessed that the choice of the capitalist parties, when having to choose between the health and the lives of workers or the maintenance of production for the sake of the employers, is always in support of capitalists.

The social democratic Government has placed itself in the side of the interests of the employers, prioritizing the maintenance of the capitalist production even though health and safety conditions recommended for other areas of social life are not being met. When the bourgeoisie pushes, the capitalist governments kneel.

The first economic and labor measures adopted to deal with the outcomes of the health crisis protected the interests of the big monopolies as the State assumed quite a large part of their costs and a significant part of companies’ debt became public debt.

Later, the measures that allegedly had a “social nature” have proved to be terribly limited and not enough. Moreover, their real goal – as the Government itself has acknowledged – is that the working-class families can uphold some minimum levels of consumption to offload the huge quantity of commodities stocked in stores.

The bombastically so-called “social shield” is a package of measures essentially addressed to limit the impact of the crisis of overproduction and overaccumulation on the capitalists, not to protect and assure the lives and health of the working-class and people’s majority. It is pretended to prevent the stoppage of capital circulation, it aims to support the stocked commodities to come back to capitalists under the form of many in order to restart the cycle of accumulation.

This – and none other – is the main goal of the measures allegedly adopted thus far to help the working-class and people’s majority to overcome the health crisis. This – and none other – will be the way that the social democratic Government of coalition pretends to overcome the first stage of the widespread economic crisis.

This situation is not new; social democracy is playing the same role it already tried to play in the first stage of the 2008 crisis. They are trying to implement again the same tools that proved then to fail, as they do not conceive any measure for the protection of workers that does not include the salvation of capitalists.

In the immediate future we will witness the strengthening of the role of the State in the economy, but we warn that this larger State intervention will be headed towards the safeguard of monopolistic interests. We will witness the nationalization of companies that go or risk going bankrupt, we will hear proposals of alleged plans for reindustrialization. The case of Bankia shows how nationalizations are understood by capitalist governments: companies are passed into public hand to socialize their losses and later, once their accounts are sorted out, they are gifted to private capital.

The existence of public companies submitted to the rules of the capitalist market and competing with private companies does not solve the problems of the people. It is necessary to consider, as a first step, that the strategic economic sectors should not only be in public hands, but also to be under the control of workers and their activity assigned to the satisfaction of the people’s needs, not subject to the criteria of capitalist competition.

If the proposals of industrialization do not serve to a comprehensive planning aiming to cover the people’s needs, they will be the means to give facilities to monopolies, mainly by the flexibilization of labor conditions so they keep on producing according to their private interests and not according to the collective ones.

This Government, just like all the capitalist parties, cannot assume that the only class essential in the society is the working class: the workers, the exploited. History has already proved that a society without exploiters is possible, but no society could ever survive without workers.

Whether their proposals to support capitalism are more or less aggressive for the working-class and people’s majority, both the parties of the government of coalition and the other capitalist parties have linked their fate to those who get wealthier with the exploitation of others’ work. As managers of the interests of capitalists, they should be considered as enemies of the interests of workers. There is no possible conciliation when the contradictions of the capitalist society are more evident than ever and their efforts try to assure that those who overcome the crisis are those who exploit us every day.

They make laws for the owners of companies; we are struggling for the interests of those who create all the social wealth.

Several measures adopted to tackle the health crisis, initially presented as having an extraordinary nature, have come to stay; not only in the economic and labor area, but also regarding public rights and freedoms.

In the next weeks and months we will see how many of the temporary lay-offs approved in this term will be extended for months or indefinitely. We will see how many of them will transform into extinctive lay-off. We will assist to a widespread process of dismantling of collective agreements to make them ineffective. We will check how teleworking will be widespread beyond the quarantine period and how we will quickly advance towards increasingly more individualistic labor relationships.

Government, opposition and employers agree to promote a quick flexibilization of labor conditions for the sake of employers. They are opting for a model that goes further than the current one but that is already announced in the last labor reforms, which this Government only wants to touch in a hasty way.

The utmost inner flexibility in companies for the sake of employers has been presented for years under the deceitful name of “flexicurity”, sponsored by the European Union institutions. Thus far, it was already present through the system of accumulated hours, irregular workdays, the resort to subcontracted companies and temporary work agencies, the substantial modifications of labor conditions and a whole series of measures implemented in the labor reforms of the last decades.

The youngest sections of our class and our people will especially suffer this crisis, like it happened in 2008. They are nowadays those who know more directly the model of exploitation that is intended to be widespread: miserable salaries, permanent labor precarity, part-time contracts at request, growth of false self-employed workers and a large etcetera.

Under the excuse of the crisis, the capitalists aim to take a step towards the generalization of work at request; the model known as “uberization” of the economy that is coming along with a brutal ideological campaign aiming to break the class conscience and the collective nature of labor relationships, which the erosion of the trade-union movement is essential for.

The role of trade-union organizations every day in workplaces is irreplaceable. The hundreds of thousands of trade unionists who struggle in the companies all over the country are the forefront in the battle being waged, but in order to struggle with effectiveness they need a leadership that is not aligned to the social democratic thesis under the argument of the lesser evil.

The economic, social and labor model being raised is the one the monopolies require to guarantee the profitability of capital. The difference between the social democratic and the liberal proposals is found only in the speed and brutality of the adoption of those measures. We cannot choose between different murderers just because one of them is telling us that we will experience less pain when he will kill us.

Today, the rights of meeting, manifestation and freedom of speech have been limited de facto under the pretext of protecting the population against the virus. But a persecution of stances that allegedly generate a “climate against the management of the crisis” is also being carried out.

The role of parties like PP, VOX and their satellites is being key in the process of liquidation of the freedom of speech: slanders, calumnies and lies made and spread since the outbreak of the crisis serve as an excuse to legitimate before the masses some measures that are being adopted. They will be maintained in the next term and largely used by the PP and VOX when they will be in the Government.

The measures for social control through technology are complemented with speeches fill of war references and appeals to discipline, sacrifice and inter-class unity. If the country were to be under conditions of military clash, the climate would be very similar or even the same. Today’s “enemy” is a virus, but under conditions of a savage economic crisis tomorrow’s enemy can be any other country, any other alliance of countries whose monopolies are interested in the same resources or in the same markets than the Spanish monopolies.

The Government, the capitalist parties and the employers wants us behind the interests of the Spanish bourgeoisie with discipline for the future to come. They want us to defend the interests of the employers instead of fighting for our own interests.

Our answer is absolutely NO. Our answer is that a country where the primary interests are the ones of those who produce all the social wealth with their job – and not their exploiters’ – can and must be built.

Therefore, in this 1st of May, we openly say that the PCTE wants to build a country for the working class.

This new country will no be built by itself. This new country will not be born if there is no organized and rising struggle against capitalists and their governments. This new country will not be born if there are not millions of workers who want to put an end to the exploitation and who, recognizing themselves as the only essential class, want to take over their own future.

The struggles that the class will wage in the immediate future will be decisive. The defense of the workers’ and peoples’ rights is a first step. Examples like the strike called in Nissan and other companies or actions of protest made by the “riders” in the last weeks are a good evidence that the class struggle has not stopped. But the struggle for the most basic rights of the working class should be accompanied by a higher political proposal, headed to illustrate what country we the communists are proposing.

Hence, we call today, for the immediate tasks, to face the new cycle of struggles that is coming with the following priorities:

Stoppage of the production in the workplaces where the safety and health of the staffs cannot be assured.
Invalidity of all dismissals since March 1, with compulsory readmission and payment of the processing salaries.
Indefinite unemployment benefit for all the work demanders with the highest quantity, allocating for it the budget items aiming to fund the employers’ costs because of temporary lay-off.
Urgent Plan to guarantee the people’s health. Expropriation without compensation of private health centers, nursing homes and all the centers of social assistance.
Plan of Development of the industrial public sector that assures the basic health and energy supplies.
Staff enlargements in health care and immediate solution of the precariousness in the sector. Guarantees of health protection for health workers.
Expropriation of houses in hands of companies and “big holders”.
Opposition to any measure of inner labor flexibility in companies: no collective layoffs, whether temporary or definitive.
Opposition to the new labor reform being imposed through the exceptional measures and immediate repeal of labor reforms.
These measures are necessary to fen the first attacks of capitalists and their governments off, but it is essential to raise a new economic and social model that prioritizes the rights for the working-class and people’s majority.

The immediate measures raised by the PCTE should be integrated in a much bigger process of struggle for the socialist-communist society, where the State is not the tool that guarantees the exploitation of our class any more, but the tool of our class to put an end to the exploitation.

We want to build a country where the strategic economic sectors are socialized and under workers’ control, where planned economy shows its superiority against the productive anarchy ruling in every capitalist country.

A country where the private property of concentrated productive means does not mean a sentence to lose health or the life for the millions of workers that produce all the social wealth with our work.

In order to achieve this country, in order to build our own country, it is necessary to reinforce the communist ranks. It is necessary the highest unity of our class and our people against the exploiters and their governments. It is necessary to overcome all kind of division among workers promoted by capitalists. It is necessary to be conscious that it is only us who are essential, and that our unity is our guarantee to prevail.

It is time to organize ourselves again. It is time to step again in the streets to make them ours, to make this country work for those who make it work.

It is only us who are essential
Long live the struggle of the working class!
Long live the 1st of May!



Political Bureau of the PCTE
April 27, 2020

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-the-W ... st-of-May/

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CP of Mexico, Salute of the Communist Party of Mexico to the working class for May Day
4/30/20 3:10 PM

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Capitalism condemns peoples and workers to death.

Socialism or barbarism!



Workers, young workers, working women,

migrant workers, unemployed,

proletarian brothers, comrades:



The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico expresses its combative greeting to the working class on the occasion of May Day, remembering with emotion the proletarians of the World and Mexico who have given their freedom or life in favor of the rights and emancipation of our class . We pay tribute to the Chicago Martyrs and to the Cananea and Rio Blanco strike martyrs.



We commemorate this May Day in the difficult conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the dead are from the working class and popular sectors. It is also the working class that suffers the layoffs, being sentenced to quarantine with a reduction in wages, uncertainty about hunger, the payment of rent, basic services; the anguish before the post-coronavirus scenario of the capitalist plague with its economic crises, which already shows its contours.



We want to emphasize that the fatal victims of the tragedy are the responsibility of capitalism, that it commercialized health, that it privatized public health institutions, that it reduced budgets for this area, that it left scientific and technological research to the monopolies. Public hospitals are abandoned, without supplies, with poor wages and poor working conditions for medical, nursing, laboratory and service personnel. Many who could be saved die because health is not a right. In Mexico, the health system is overwhelmed, on the verge of collapse, while private hospitals are there only for those who can pay the prohibitive prices. How can it be that infrastructure, health personnel, are there for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, which is a minority, while the majority, the workers, those who live off their daily effort, are adrift despite the great effort of the medical personnel of the public system ?. Today it is possible to realize this inhuman logic of capital, but this is what happens every day in the capitalist system, and not only with health, but with everything.



-There are those who die from curable diseases, while monopolies profit from pharmaceutical patents, and condemn investigations to the archive for not ensuring profits.

-There are those who starve while tons of food decompose or are thrown in the trash, as the monopolies do not seek to feed but to make a profit.

-Millions are out of work, when the workday can already be reduced to 35 hours, but the monopolies are interested in unemployment to ensure cheap labor.

-Millions are homeless, but monopolies increase their profits by building sumptuous works that only serve a few.

-Millions are without water, but monopolies monopolize their control and distribution.

-Millions are without electricity, but monopolies are exempt from payment.

-Nature is destroyed, water and air are polluted, because it suits capitalism.

-The proletariat produces everything, but the bourgeoisie appropriates social wealth. It is the great contradiction between social production and capitalist or private appropriation.

-The monopolies with exploitation amass super profits, but hunger, misery, disease prevail on the planet.

- Capitalism is inseparable from crisis to crisis, from one war to another. It is a system of barbarism, destruction, death.



Proletarian brothers, comrades:



Capitalism only cares about profits. The life of the workers, the life of the peoples do not matter to him. It exploits us and oppresses us.



It is necessary, essential, urgent, to end capitalism, to overthrow it. And the only ones who can do it are the proletarians, the working class. The workers have the historic mission of burying capitalism and building the new society, the new world.



With workers power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, socialism-communism will be built, where through the socialization of concentrated means of production, workers control, the central planning of the economy will satisfy the social needs and will remain behind exploitation, oppression, unhappiness.



And that is what the proletarians of Mexico and the World have to choose: Socialism or barbarism !, and act accordingly.



Comrades:



As in all capitalist countries - whatever their form of government - in Mexico, López Obrador, facing the pandemic, abandons workers and popular sectors to their fate, and adopts measures to help the monopolies, which he serves with obedience.



As a result of the 2008 economic crisis, anti-worker measures were adopted in the legislation, which makes the workforce increasingly precarious. Our conquered labor rights were drastically reduced over more than a century of harsh class struggle; the 8-hour day was lost, and purchasing power decreased. The capitalists, the monopolies, sought to bear on our shoulders the costs of that crisis.



Now they are looking for the same thing, that we pay for the broken dishes, while capital loses nothing in its profits.



And still the Government of Obrador gives the representatives of the monopolies, the employers' chambers a vote of confidence so that it is "their good will" that prevents them from reducing wages or firing thousands, to which they respond with layoffs and wage cuts. , because what deprives is your class interest.



They say the owners of capital they hold workers: Bullshit! And those parasites know it. Your money alone, saved, does not make a profit. Salaried work is essential to increase profits.



Essential is the oil tanker, the electrician, the industrial worker, the construction worker, the stevedore or the carrier. Essential is the miner, the education and health worker, the dispatcher. Essential are migrant workers, working women, young workers. Essential is the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie is superfluous: while nothing moves without the strength of the worker, while profit is not created without the exploitation of wage labor, the bourgeoisie is superfluous, because factories, industry can function without it.



And on top of that they ask us for more sacrifices, to bow our heads to the measures that the bourgeoisie and its administrative board take against us. With the story of national unity they want to subdue us, that we tighten our belts more, that we do not protest, that we do not rebel.



Proletarian comrades:



It is necessary to organize and fight. The Communist Party of Mexico, a party of the working class, ready to fight in all conditions, calls you to raise your fist, keep it up for the new battles that are coming, to face the aggressive measures that the capitalists are preparing against us. Capitalism is in the process of a new and deep economic crisis of overproduction and over-accumulation, the coming times will be of more struggle. We call for strengthening with a class orientation the unions and accentuating the worker-employer conflict, the class against class clash, to face the wave of dismissals that is already underway, the cost of life, etc. Above all we call you to conquer the new world of workers power and socialism-communism.



Proletarians of all countries, unite!



The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Mexic ... o-de-Mayo/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Post by blindpig » Fri May 01, 2020 2:48 pm

May Day: KKE demonstrates in front of Greek Parliment



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNsA-RL1b4Y

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Re: The Era of Mass Strikes Begins on May 1, First Day of General Strike Campaign

Post by blindpig » Sat May 02, 2020 1:18 pm

And yet - May Day!
04/30/2020
32
Address of the Central Committee of the RKRP-CPSU

The working worlds meet this May Day in unusual conditions - in the conditions of the economic crisis of capitalism and the epidemic of the coronavirus COVID-19 that has spread across all continents.

For decades, Hollywood filmmakers have produced "disaster films," in which the world has been faced with unheard of threats. In these films, the governments of the so-called “free world” rallied to jointly combat misfortune and heroic efforts to overcome all adversities. And then the trouble came, though not the worst, but still real, not invented by the scriptwriters. What turned out to be in reality? The coronavirus pandemic has become an instrument of political intrigue and economic speculation. And the most powerful imperialist power is the “superman” country, which in every film was predicted to be a world savior, until it turned out to be the champion in mortality.

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“A pandemic is not a cause, but a consequence”

In a crisis, the pandemic unusually contrastingly exposed all the ulcers and contradictions of modern capitalism. She became a detonator to an unprecedented exacerbation of the general crisis of capitalism. Instead of cinema solidarity, everyone fights for himself. Big capital in every country casts all the hardships and hardships on the shoulders of the rest of society, most of which are workers. The ruined petty bourgeoisie will either join the ranks of the proletariat or try to survive at the expense of its wage workers. A huge wave of unemployment is sweeping both the leading countries of imperialism and the weaker capitalist states. But this does not prevent the ruling classes from continuing their feast during the plague.

The impact of the coronavirus on the planet once again demonstrated the inability of capitalism to cope with the crisis.

In these difficult conditions, the solidarity of workers is more important than ever. An attempt to survive alone is tantamount to death. We are witnessing attempts by the bourgeoisie to blame the competition, the aggravation of the contradictions of the superpowers, especially the USA, China and Russia, the continued use of sanctions and support for the escalation of bloody conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and other regions. Under these conditions, workers, faced with an infringement of their rights, should in no case "enter the position" of the employers' gentlemen. They should not succumb to persuasion, which, they say, is hard for everyone and must endure together, make sacrifices. The capitalists and bourgeois authorities had all the resources and opportunities to create “airbags” for their business and employees, for the whole society. But they preferred to stuff their own pockets, because for capital, profit is most important, including more important than people's health and life. Once again, we were convinced that there is no crime that capital would not have committed for profit.

The peoples of the world! Workers of all countries! Fight for your rights! Do not give in to propaganda of the need to share common difficulties. It is impossible to beg for a dignified life from the gentlemen for all the working people, they can only be shaken out of what is rightly justified - by struggle! Only struggle gives rights!

Demand production control over production! Let the gentlemen pay for their crisis themselves! Down with capitalist barbarism! Long live the world without exploitation!

Solidarity of workers is the key to future victory!

Long live May Day - the day of international solidarity of the working people!

https://www.rotfront.su/i-vsyo-taki-pervomaj/

Google Translator


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May Day: on the substitution of kebabs
05/01/2020

Is the solidarity of the workers obsolete?

All of us, probably, have heard more than once that the May 1 holiday is a tribute to the past, which would be nice to forget. Many, laughing, poison stories about "meaningless demonstrations with the same posters from year to year." And under the very date they see only barbecue and a "holiday" weekend.

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State propaganda is not in a hurry to dispel such prejudices, and with the passage of time, May Day more and more resembles the notorious November 4: a holiday, the meaning of which few can clearly explain. The reasons for this attitude to one of the most important holidays of the working people are, in our opinion, concluded in its original essence. We offer to look at it.

It all started with the fact that on May 1, 1886, American workers organized a mass strike for the first time in history. Across the country, workers demanded a reduction of the working day to 8 hours and an increase in wages.

In total, 350 thousand people claimed their rights in the States , then Chicago became the center of the labor movement - 40 thousand workers went on strike there . By the example of ordinary residents of Chicago, the methods by which capital is used to defend its position to this day were clearly outlined.

The May 18 strike in Chicago led to massive layoffs at the largest McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant . One day, "on the street" was 1,500 people. This quite naturally caused an increase in popular outrage and new protests.

At first, the factory owners tried to rectify the situation with strikebreakers, and then police units and hot guys with bats from the Pinkerton Agency went into action . As a result, dozens of people were injured, and four workers were killed.

The apotheosis of the Chicago confrontation was the bomb that the provocateur threw into the police squad during a May 4 demonstration in Haymarket Square. Then a huge crowd of people came out to protest against police arbitrariness, which, however, did not commit any violent actions.

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The explosion provoked shooting at the crowd (several dozen people were killed, among whom were women and children) and untied the hands of the police, giving rise to brutally crack down on the instigators of workers' protests. The authorities defeated workers' clubs, and hundreds of “suspicious individuals” were tortured in prisons, forcing them to report to each other.

Thus ended the attempt of the Chicago workers to defend their labor rights in 1886. And although such a finale does not favor optimism, these events for the first time demonstrated to the world that the mass labor movement has serious power, which cannot be ignored with a sufficient level of organization.

In 1889, May 1 was declared the Day of Solidarity of Workers of the World by the Paris Congress of the Second International . In honor of the Chicago workers who died defending the right to a decent life.

But is it relevant at the moment? Perhaps the horrors of “wild capitalism” remained forever in the 19th century, and workers can safely switch from a struggle to a country vacation?

This can be judged by the inexhaustible flow of reports of labor protests, both in Russia and abroad. Moreover, wherever a strike breaks out, In Spain , India, or on Russky Island , workers demand about the same thing: better working conditions and higher earnings.

It turns out that even in our "enlightened and humane" 21st century, the situation of workers throughout the world is equally unenviable. But capital is still in no hurry to invest in caring for ordinary people , and it is often repressive to the collective that responds to the demands of workers to improve their situation .

In this situation, is it worth forgetting the Solidarity of the working people of the world, replacing it with beer and barbecue, everyone can answer independently.

https://www.rotfront.su/pervomaj-o-podm ... ashlykami/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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