All out for May Day 2017!
According to a story broken by
Buzzfeed over the weekend, it looks like
the first May Day of the Trump era could be a record-breaker.
A
coalition of unions, worker centers, and alt-labor organizations,
including SEIU United Service Workers West, Restaurant Opportunities
Center United and the Food Chain Workers Alliance, have announced plans
for a general strike on the internationally recognized day of workers.
The May Day strikes come on the heels of the “day without an immigrant”
and “day without a woman” strikes on February 16h and March 8h
respectively, but is expected to dwarf both of them. The coalition
leading the strike has estimated that 300,000 food chain workers and
40,000 unionized service workers will walk off the job in multiple
states.
“We understand that there’s risk involved in that,” David
Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union- United
Service Workers West told Buzzfeed, “but we’re willing to take that risk
in order to be able to move forward in this moment, while the most
marginalized are in the crosshairs of this administration.”
May 1 will mark the 100th day of the Trump administration.
I would suggest you do this on May Day...
Prior to May Day (like right now) write a Letter to the Editor of your
local newspaper stating the need for a National Public Health Care
System... when your letter is published, print it on one side of the
paper and the petition below on the other side of the paper... don't
forget to print some contact information so people can get in touch with
you (phone number, e-mail address, etc.) At the bottom of this post you
will find the Letter to the Editor I wrote which was published in the
Austin American-Statesman, the main daily newspaper in Austin, Texas---
use it as a guide.
I would suggest you circulate the petition below at May Day events in your community...
Campaign for a “21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity”
We are fed up with politicians campaigning on promises of “Jobs, Jobs,
Jobs” and then failing to make themselves legislatively responsible for
attaining and maintaining full employment.
We are fed up with our
tax dollars being squandered on militarism and wars instead of being
used to create jobs by solving the problems of the people and defending
our living environment… its time to beat swords into plowshares. Put
people to work solving the problems of the people.
A National
Public Health Care System would create over twelve-million new jobs
paying real living wages providing people with free health care---
general medical, eyes, ears, dental, family planning and mental
health--- through a network of neighborhood and community health care
centers; this is a better use of our tax-dollars than wasting our human
and financial resources on a far flung empire of over 800 U.S. military
bases around the world. Or, it could be financed the same way Social
Security is financed. Or paid for with a tax on Wall Street
transactions. Or financed with a combination of these methods. Public
funding. Public administration. Public delivery… nothing controversial;
just like public education.
A National Public Child Care System
would create over three-million new jobs providing working class
families with free child care.
We need to restore the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (C.E.T.A.), Works Progress
Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
“At
Will Employment” legislation in states across the country needs to be
rescinded and repealed to expand democracy in the workplace and provide
workers with the right to freely participate in the communities where
they live.
All attacks on immigrant workers, documented and undocumented, need to end.
Planned Parenthood needs to be defended and programs expanded.
We insist Congress and the president enact full employment legislation
which makes them legislatively responsible for attaining and maintaining
full employment; assure everyone who wants a job employment at real
living wages in line with the actual cost-of-living.
Full
employment would provide stability for Social Security; everyone paying
in; everyone getting something out. A Basic Income for All must be
guaranteed. Pensions must be honored and protected. The Wall Street
swindle of pension funds must end; restore the Glass-Steagall Act.
Turn Habitat for Humanity into a massive public works project to create jobs and assure everyone has a decent home.
Free education through university; cancel student debt. End military recruitment in the high schools.
Unemployment and lack of a National Public Health Care System is the
price we pay for militarism and wars. We are entitled to a Peace
Dividend……... Let’s talk about the politics and economics of livelihood.
Name Address
City State
E-mail
1.
2.
3.
4.
My Letter to the Editor...
Re: Feb. 9 article, “Trump looks to stabilize health insurance market”
So, the “health” — read: profits — of the health insurance industry supersedes the human right of access to health care?
Left out of the discussion is the real solution to this health care
mess, which would eliminate the health insurance industry: national
public health care based on the public education model. Publicly
financed. Publicly administered. Publicly delivered.
It makes
more sense to finance a network of publicly funded neighborhood and
community health care centers across the country dispensing free health
care for everyone instead of squandering the precious wealth of our
nation maintaining over 800 military bases dotting the globe protecting
Wall Street’s interests and wasting trillions of dollars on these dirty
wars from which only the Wall Street merchants profit.
ALAN MAKI, LAKEWAY
About May Day...
New Masses, May 6, 1941
May 1st: The Sun of Tomorrow
“Primo Maggio, il sole dell’ Avvenire” – May First, the sun of
tomorrow! as our Italian comrades so beautifully it, is here again. It
links ancient traditions, these modern times, and the future. Always a
people’s natural holiday, since time immemorial it was the occasion for
the gathering of the of the poor and lowly for one gala day of
festivity. For the last fifty-five years it has been universally
recognized and cherished by workers around the world as an
International Labor Holiday. It is actually the only holiday celebrated
internationally. It obliterates all differences of race, creed, color,
and nationality. It celebrates the brotherhood of all workers
everywhere. It crosses all national boundaries, it transcends all
language barriers, it ignores all religious differences. It makes sharp
and clear, around the world, the impassable chasm between all workers
and all exploiters. It is the day when the class struggle in its most
militant significance is reaffirmed by every conscious worker.
This day is to the enlightened worker an augury of a new world, a
classless world, a peaceful world, a world without poverty or misery. It
is the glowing promise of socialism, the real brotherhood of mankind.
On this day in 1941 the wise words of Lenin; “Life will assert itself.
The Communists must know that the future at any rate is theirs,” will
light up the lonely jail cells of Browder and Thaelman and countless
others. Lowhummed snatches of revolutionary song will be heard in
concentration camps. On the sea, in military barracks, in the forced
labor of factory or mill, the hearts of the driven workers will beat to
unison with those far away who parade joyously behind gleaming red
banners, to stirring music on Moscow’s Red Square. “Do your damnedest to
us!” they mutter between clenched teeth, the conscripts in European
trenches, the prisoners in Franco’s dungeons, in Hitler’s hell holes, in
Mussolini’s prisons; “Your days are numbered. You can’t stop the final
victory of the people!"
International? That must be “foreign,” many folks mistakenly infer. But
what could be more international in its origin and population than these
United States? Proudly we declare
May Day is American. It is
not a foreign idea. Many good ideas come from abroad, but this is an
American idea exported to all other countries from America. May Day as
an official labor holiday was born in the fierce struggles of the
eighties to establish an eight-hour day. Workers of all nationalities,
immigrants, political refugees, exiles, from every foreign land; native
born grandsons of the American Revolution and Civil War veterans made a
common, determined demand: “
Eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s work from and after May First, 1886.”
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor of the United States and
Canada (later to become the American Federation of Labor) called upon
the workers to down tools. Enthusiastic, they poured out in the first
American general strike. It spread from city to city, over 3,000 miles.
The whole continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was astir:
192,000 won the demand.
The employing class, appalled at the solidarity of the workers, struck
back viciously. Six workers were killed and many wounded at the
McCormick Harvester Works in Chicago.
May Day was baptized in the blood of American workers. A protest meeting
Haymarket Square May 4, 1886, resulted in another bloody battle and a
bomb frameup. It caused the railroading to the gallows of Albert Parsons
(whose ancestor had been at Valley Forge) and three of his comrades,
Engel, Fischer, and Spies.
"Let the voice of the people be heard!"
cried Parsons, as the noose tightened around his neck. It has been, it
ever Will be on May Day, brave martyred hero of yesterday! This year the
newly organized, victorious strikers of the International Harvester
Works in Chicago will hallow your names on May first.
The struggle for the eight-hour day was renewed. The AFL decided to
reinaugurate it on May 1,1890. To widen its effectiveness they sent
delegates across the sea to Paris to the International Labor Congress.
They proposed that May first be officially declared an international
labor holiday. This was done amid great enthusiasm, on July 4, 1889, the
100th anniversary of the Fall of the Bastile, after the delegates had
heard recounted the struggles of the brave American workers. With the
passing of the years the growing needs of international labor expanded
the significance of May Day far beyond the eight-hour demand.
Rosa Luxemburg, brave woman Socialist of Germany, who was later brutally
murdered by the militarists, sounded the alarm against a World War in
1913. She called upon the workers to make May Day a mighty demonstration
for peace and socialism. “
Workers of the world, Unite!”
became the insistent cry on May Day. Every vital issue was pressed, more
and more militant slogans raised in each country and internationally.
Are you a bad member of your family because you go out of your home to
be a good citizen of your state? Are you a traitor to your state because
you are equally concerned shout your country? Are you betraying your
country if you are also an internationalist – dedicated to the
brotherhood of man? Only workers are forbidden to be internationalists.
It’s perfectly proper for J. P. Morgan and Henry Ford; for the bankers,
the munitions trusts, the chemical companies. It’s proper for
scientists, stamp collectors, athletic associations, musicians,
spiritualists, people who raise bees, to be internationalist – but
not workers. Only the clasped hands of the workers across the boundaries
are struck down in every country. It will pass for all anthropologist
to say in abstruse language, “There is but one race – the human race!”
But let a worker say, “Brother, fellow worker, comrade” – and there’s
hell to pay. He should be sent back from where he came from! He should
be deprived of his citizenship; he should lose his job; he should be
jailed! If a Christ-like voice should challenge them: “But what about
loving thy neighbor as thyself?” the wild man from Texas would roar:
“Who said that? He’s a Red, subversive, a trouble maker!” Let us not be
dismayed in the slightest by all this
frenzy. Let us remember the cool words of Lenin:
"Acting thus the bourgeoisie acts as did all classes condemned to death by history."
Every beautiful May Day of solidarity, triumph, and hope is another
reminder to us to take “the long view” – the Bolshevik view of passing
events. The road ahead may be rougher but it is shorter than the road
behind.
Once they laughed at us, these rulers of America. We were still, small
voices, crying in the wilderness, we were dreamers of idle dreams,
Utopians; we couldn’t change human nature. What would the world be
without the profit incentive? Answer that now, you agitating soap boxer.
We were as Vanzetti said: “Talking at street corners to scorning men!”
But this was two decades ago. Now they know, the rulers of the world,
that the era of socialism has begun. They have been tried and found
wanting. The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics not only guarantees a
peaceful, happy, secure life on one-sixth of the earth’s surface to
nearly 200,000,000 people. It is a constant inspiration to downtrodden
and exploited workers in every capitalist country in the world to “go
thou and do likewise!” On May Day we salute the Soviet Union – land of
socialism – land of peace and plenty, the great ideal of labor since
time immemorial, the cooperative commonwealth of all who toil. “It
works, brothers!” they say in the deep, dark mines; “It works,” they say
by the blazing furnaces in the steel mills; “It works,” says the tenant
farmer; “It works,” says the sailor in the hold of the ship and the
truck driver rushing through the night. No bosses, no landlords, no
bankers, no munnitions makers, no loan sharks, no employment agencies;
no child labor; no prostitution; no unfinished educations; no broken old
age; no long hours; no low wages; no speed-up; no unemployment; no
rich, no profiteers, no capitalism. Organization is the stage we have
advanced to now. Music to the ears of all old time agitator is all the
justified scorn and contempt the average worker expresses
uncompromisingly of the boss class. These workers don’t take off their
hats; they don’t say “Sir!” They are unafraid. There is a fighting class
spirit abroad in this land today among the people.
MAY DAY traditionally celebrates victories won; makes new demands;
presses forward slogans of immediate action. Have we won victories in
1941? You tell it, you hundreds of thousands, union men of Bethlehem
Steel; US Steel; Allis Chalmers; International Harvester; New York
Transport Co.; Ford Motor Co. Ten million organized workers in America
today and more to come. Skilled and unskilled, black and white, native
and immigrant, man and woman, young and old – shoulder to shoulder. Let
the war mongers shout; let the profit-mad rave. “
We shall not be moved!”
retort these millions of American workers on May Day. There is nothing
to be despondent about; nothing to be weary about – not so long as we
are organizing and fighting. Not so long as we are holding what we have
won in an iron grip; are moving forward, getting more. Not so long as
there is unswerving resistance to the Roosevelt-Willkie war party among
eighty-six percent of the American people.
Organize. Fight. Press Forward – that’s the spirit of America’s May Day in 1941.
Organize and fight, to stay out of war! Against all imperialism and
fascism, including American!
Protect labor’s rights to organize, to make
demands, to strike. No blackout of the Bill of Rights. Defend the
rights of minority parties – the Communist Party – vital test of the
people’s rights to free elections. Stop war profiteering. Lower the cost
of living. Resist wage cuts and longer working hours. Free all fighters
against imperialist war.
Free Earl Browder! End Jim Crowism
and anti-Semitism in our country. Cement a friendship with the Soviet
Union. These slogans are aloft, the fighting slogans of America’s May
Day everywhere. For
peace and socialism is in the hearts, in
the minds, on the lips of millions around the world May First, 1941. The
“sun of tomorrow” shines upon us. The future is ours.
May Day - 1951
Howard Fast
IS IT SUBVERSIVE
to march on May Day? Well, by now you know that anything which
does you some good and takes a nickel out of the boss's pocket is
subversive. A dollar raise is "subversive," and it's "subversive" to
want your kids to grow up instead of becoming corpses in Korea.
But how
"subversive" is May Day? It just happens to be the most American holiday
we have. It was brought into being in 1886 by the Chicago workers, in
their struggle for the eight-hour day. Remember their slogan:
"Eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep, eight hours of recreation!"
The kept press, the
bosses and the sellout artists screamed that it was "subversive," but
the American working class fought it through, and the eight hour day
became an accepted thing.
Not without the
workers paying a price. There was never a time when good things came
easy. Even then, the bosses worked with the time-honored pattern of
frameup and lies, and four of the best and bravest leaders of American
labor were framed for a crime they never committed; and then they were
sentenced, and executed.
And one of them, a brave and honest man, August Spies, said, as he stood on the gallows:
There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!"
And his words have
come true. This May Day, millions of workers will march in every corner
of the earth. They will march on that day which our working class
ancestors won with their courage and militancy.
James Turnbull's drawing (above) and
Fred Ellis's (opposite page) deal with the historical and international
aspects of May Day. Turnbull and Ellis are not only among the best of
America's labor cartoonists, but fine graphic artists as well. Fred
Ellis is the foremost cartoonist of America's labor press.
WHY DO THEY FEAR
the worker's holiday? Why, when a hundred days in the year are
celebrated, is the one day that the American working class has chosen as
its own day hated and maligned?
Why do they scream that May Day is subversive, a foreign importation, an "un-American" plot?
What are they
afraid of? They have many sweet words about organized labor, but on that
one day when organized labor marches through the streets of New York
City, the corrupt press, the bosses and the sellout artists scream with
rage and fear. Why?
We have some
answers, good answers. Answers which mean life and peace to you, as
workers, and to all the millions of good and decent people in our land –
people whose only hope of happiness lies with the working class.
Here are some of them – good reasons why you must march for life, for peace, for freedom on May 1st.
WE MARCH FOR PEACE
on this May Day. Back in Civil War days, the Confederate soldier summed up his position in these words:
"A poor man's fight and a rich man's war."
A lot of truth in
that. You never saw war profiteers in the infantry. The workers do the
fighting and dying; the bosses grow rich. Only this time, they're
playing with atom bombs. Your boss can buy himself an atom-proof shelter
in the Sherry Netherlands Hotel. You and your wife and kids are
supposed to fry and like it.
More than any other
group, the working class suffers from war; and only the working class,
in all its strength, can lead and win the fight for peace.
That's what we
march for this May Day, for peace, for a decent world where our kids can
look to a future other than death. The whole of the human race looks to
the American working class to win its fight for peace.
For a peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union!
For an end to the Korean war!
For peace, friendship and trade with China!
The struggle and desire of the worker
for peace is a new theme in American graphic art; but it will yet be
one of the great themes of our time. Here, Charles White (opposite page)
and Philip Evergood (above) render this theme graphically as a tribute
to the working class on this May Day. Evergood has long been considered
by many critics as one of the best of all living American artists, and
Charles White is a talented and outstanding graphic artist.
I conceive of
labor as a giant. This giant has the power and strength to do almost
anything. His history as you know has been exploitation, betrayal and
misleadership. He has been blinded and hypnotized by this poison
propaganda to the extent that he is not fully aware of what goes on
about him. He does not want war, yet he works for war, pays for war, and
sends his sons to a war he does not want. He produces all the
necessities of life, yet he has a difficult time getting some of these
necessities for himself and his family, and so with his education,
culture, amusement.
When this giant
finally stands up and lifts his head out of the fog, it will be then
that we will have no hysteria, loyalty acts, McCarran Bills, wars,
persecution of the minorities, lynchings, rats, inflation, gangsterism,
corrupt politicians, Peglers, and what not, but a wonderful MAY DAY.
WILLIAM GROPPER
In
the history of the American labor movement very few artists share that
place of honor and integrity and consistent service occupied by William
Gropper. For three decades American workers have found their hopes,
their dreams and their bitter anger mirrored in the magnificent drawings
and paintings of William Gropper. Gropper's integrity has become a
by-word in the field of American culture. He cannot be bribed or bought,
nor can he be swerved from his chosen arena of struggle in the defense
of the workers and oppressed people of America. Gropper's reputation is
an international one. Not only has he drawn for the labor press in a
score of lands, but his paintings have an honored place in the galleries
of Europe and Asia as well as America.
WE MARCH FOR FREEDOM
from want on this May Day. There was a time when our great labor
unions could look with pride and confidence on the gains they had won
under honest and militant leadership.
That is not the case today. We have come through a period when the sellout artists did their work well. The Taft-Hartley Act
has crippled organized labor. President Truman has broken strike after
strike. Supporting the war makers, the Murrays and the Reuthers split
the CIO. And honest and militant labor leaders, such as Harry Bridges
and Julius Emspak, are thrown in jail.
Wage freezes, phony
escalator clauses, and skyrocketing prices – these add up to misery for
the American people. There can be no freedom and no peace in America
without a free and powerful and courageous trade union movement. Recent
strikes in coal, railroad, textile and packing house have demonstrated
that labor will resist the war profiteers. This resistance must be
directed into the building of a great peace movement of the working
class. Only the struggle for peace can defend the hard-won gains of the
workers.
There can be no
freedom for American workers if the Communist Party is outlawed and the
Communist leaders jailed. This meant fascism in Germany and in Italy,
and it means fascism here. And under fascism, workers are slaves.
Above all other things, it was to enslave the working class that the fascist McCarran Bill was passed.
Down with the Taft-Hartley Act and the McCarran law!
We march for freedom from want on May Day.
Robert Gwathmey has often been
compared to Picasso; and certainly as a colorist and linear designer, he
has no peer in America. His superb paintings of Negro workers hang in
many galleries. In his drawing (above) he depicts a Negro worker laying
aside his tools to March on May Day. His worker is gravely calm,
deliberate and conscious of his role.
WE MARCH FOR EQUALITY
on this May Day, and in defense of our Negro brothers. "Labor in white skin can never be free, while his brother in black skin is branded!"
It is almost a
hundred years since those words were written, but they were never more
true than today. The same Truman government that is smashing organized
labor has instituted a veritable blood bath among the Negro people.
Because the Negro
people are overwhelmingly workers, and because the Negro people
understand and oppose the injustice and horror of the Korean war.
The Hitler-like
murders of the Negro people must stop! John Derrick and the seven
Martinsville martyrs already dead – the Trenton Six and Willie McGee to
die – the bloodbath must end!
On this May Day, we
march shoulder to shoulder, Negro and white – for democracy and
equality. We march with full understanding and bitter memory of the
murder of six million Jews by the fascists of Hitler Germany, and we
take a sacred vow that this will not happen here.
We demand an end to segregation! We demand an end to Jimcrow in every form and manifestation! We say:
"Hands off the
leaders of the Negro people! Hands off Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois and
William L. Patterson! Free Lieutenant Gilbert!
We call for unity of all Negro and white workers!
The above drawing by Hugo Gellert was
chosen as the poster for this May Day. Hugo Gellert is a muralist,
painter, and graphic artist of note.
WE MARCH FOR THE CONSTITUTION
of the United States and for the people's Bill of Rights on this May Day.
The Truman
government has torn the Constitution to shreds. For the first time in a
century and a half, our jails are crowded with political prisoners,
Negro and white. Artists, writers, film workers who have taken their
stand on the side of the working class are either in jail or facing
imprisonment – as are Communists and trade unionists.
Leaders of people's
organizations are being jailed daily. Guilt by association or through
the testimony of stoolpigeons is becoming the legal pattern of America.
Leaders in the
peace movement are being terrorized and jailed. The greatest of all
American scholars, W.E.B. Du Bois, leader of the American peace movement
and of the Negro liberation movement, has been indicted and faces five
years in jail – in spite of his 83 years.
The un-American
Committee has become the fascist inquisition of America. Workers,
artists, professionals – all who fight for peace and freedom are hailed
before it. The Smith Act and the McCarran Bill round out the fascist
work of this committee.
Great peoples' leaders, like Paul Robeson, are denied passports and virtually imprisoned in America.
Only the working class can restore the Bill of Rights to the American people. Freedom for all Americans to assemble and speak!
We march for the Constitution on May Day!
Ten of America's fine artists have joined together in
the making of this pamphlet. They undertook the task as a tribute to
our working class and as a manifestation of that unity of workers and
intellectuals which is our only guarantee for free expression and
democratic culture. Each of the drawings was made expressly for this
pamphlet, and the result is a splendid achievement in working class art.
March on May Day – Tuesday, May 1st
FOR PEACE
FOR FREEDOM
FOR NEGRO EQUALITY
FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS
FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
This pamphlet is published by the
United Labor and People's Committee for May Day
Hotel Langwell, 123 W. 44th St., N.Y.
Telephone: JUdson 2-5067
Pamphlets may be ordered in bulk at $7.00 per hundred, at $5.00 per
hundred in quantities over a thousand.
Pictures or text may be reproduced without permission.
1919 May Day Speech.
by Eugene V. Debs
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1919/0501-debs-maydayspeech.pdf
