May Day Greetings 2008!

By Freedom Socialist Party

ccun.org, May 4, 2008

 

On labor’s international holiday this year, the good news is that the world's working women and men are offering fierce opposition to corporate rulers, who are trying to resolve a deepening social and economic crisis at their expense.

The Iraqi popular resistance movement and heroic strikes by the Oil Workers Union are preventing imperialists from privatizing Iraq’s oil. Palestinians in Gaza broke through the walls of their prison and thumbed their noses at the murderous Israeli occupation, sparking new optimism among downtrodden people across the globe.

In Latin America, the fight against “free trade” agreements persists, and support for revolutionary ideas is high. In Puerto Rico, a mostly female workforce of more than 41,000 teachers recently shut down the schools to demand smaller class sizes and a doubling of their meager pay. And, in China, thousands of people protest or strike every day for better working and living conditions. Their efforts are pressuring the state-run trade union federation to take some steps to actually represent workers, and an independent union movement may be on the horizon.

In the United States, CEOs can no longer be certain that labor leaders will keep angry workers under control. Unionists are pressing for increased democracy in their organizations and are demanding that their leaders start fighting for them and stop cozying up to management. Rank-and-file organizing is shaking up and energizing the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union. In the Seattle area, militants have formed a multi-union activist caucus, and Amalgamated Transit Union members have also established a rank-and-file caucus within their local.

Workers like these are reacting against a capitalist system that is exposing ever more clearly its inability to satisfy even the most basic of human needs, with poor people rioting for food from Egypt to Mexico and Haiti. The system is fighting to survive – but it does not deserve to survive. And it will not survive, because it is giving the planet's majority better and better reasons every day to rebel against it and fight for the birth of a much better world – a socialist world.

On May Day, let us remember the heroic achievements of workers who came before us, recognize our own power today, and pledge to use that power to rescue the beleaguered earth and bring about justice and comfort for all working people.

¡Venceremos!

Freedom Socialist Party

U.S. Section 4710 University Way NE, #100 Seattle, WA 98105 USA

Australian Section PO Box 266 Brunswick, VIC 3055 Australia