Defiant Cuba celebrates May Day. An AFP report (“Communist Cuba celebrates Worker’s Day, four days late”), datelined May 5, 2023, said: “Cuba finally celebrated May Day on Friday, four days late, after the original celebration of workers was postponed due to the risk of rain and trimmed down as a result of a fuel shortage. “The May 1 celebration is[Read More…]
This year’s May Day celebration in Cuba was interrupted by severe storms that knocked out electricity in much of the country. Authorities had no choice but to postpone the traditional mass marches. But for over 150 young grassroots organizers from the United States who had traveled to the country to mark the holiday, this turn of events was just more[Read More…]
In 1889 an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1 as a day in support of workers in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago (1886). May Day commemorates the struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement around the world. It also serves to highlight the deplorable conditions of workers and their oppression under patterns of[Read More…]
Violence against labor is as old as capital dominating labor. The tool – violence – is older than the rise of capitalism. Capitalism has sharpened the tool: made it more threatening, made it more mischievous, and, at times, has made it appear non-violent. A recent ILO report, Experience of Violence and Harassment at Work: A Global First Survey(Geneva: ILO, 2022,[Read More…]
The labor from which capital is formed is the surplus labor of the worker, and from labor itself the process of capital formation continues unabated. But it is suitable for the labor that creates capital. It also involves struggle as there is no reward. Intertwined with the above relationship between labor and capital is the history of Labor Day, which[Read More…]
Today is May 1, 2022, the May Day. It’s workers’ day, working people’s day, working people’s international solidarity day. All divisive, sectarian, supremacist ideology and politics is opposed by the working people all around the world. On this day, this position is reiterated by the working people. Today, this task – oppose divisive, sectarian, supremacist politics – is much urgent,[Read More…]
Workers in India Feel Increasing Need for Unity in the Middle of Increasing Unemployment, Inflation and Privatization This year May Day is being observed at a time of increasing need for wider unity by workers in the wake of adverse government policies leading to increasing burden of unemployment and inflation at the same time. Policies relating to demonetization, poorly conceived[Read More…]
Activists came together on the international workers’ day outside the Indian Visa and Passport Application Center in Surrey, to remember more than 300 farmers who have laid down their lives during the ongoing agitation. Indian farmers have been camping on the borders of New Delhi since November against controversial farm laws which have been passed by the ruling right wing[Read More…]
In 1889, Clara Zetkin wrote: “Wherever busy folk are drudging under the yoke of capitalism, the organised working men and women will demonstrate on May Day for the idea of their social emancipation.” In today’s world, the murderous claws of oppression have dug deeper into the flesh of humanity. The globalization of capital, establishment of post-Fordist economic arrangements of flexible[Read More…]
In the course of the farmers’ movement the need for improving unity with workers has been emphasized several times. This was taken forward on April 29 in a joint online meeting of Central Trade Unions and Sectoral Federations and Associatons with the front of farmers’ organizations coordinating their ongoing movement called Samyukta Kisan Morcha ( SKM). It was resolved here[Read More…]
Corona attacks us again. This time intensity is much higher than last year. As a result of the previous sudden lockdown, millions of workers, porters, drivers of rickshaw auto taxi, etc., employees of shopping malls and restaurants – in a word, various sections of the toilers lost their jobs. The country’s economy had almost collapsed. This time the central[Read More…]
Today is May Day – a day for the labor to celebrate, a day to vow for carrying forward its political struggle for emancipation of humanity, a day to reiterate its position on the questions of capital and capital’s political power; and a day to learn from the working people’s history of struggles. This land – Bangladesh – is rich[Read More…]
Labor around the world is facing a hostile situation to the extent and intensity unprecedented in labor’s history. At the same time, labor in the Global South and Global North is theoretically, organizationally and politically unarmed. In this perspective, Timir Basu, a revolutionary once organizing the poor peasantry, and after passing hard time behind bar, organizing the labor, and delivering[Read More…]
May Day is one of the most important days to the exploited people. Michael D. Yates, director of Monthly Review Press and former Associate Editor of Monthly Review magazine, focuses on US labor and its movement in the following interview taken in April 2019 by Farooque Chowdhury. Professor Michael Yates, whose academic fields are labor economics and the relationship between[Read More…]
Lal Bahadur Shastri had given the slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ (Hail the Soldier, Hail the Farmer). This was in recognition of their contribution for national security and food security in the country. The point that was however missed out was the issue of ‘Jai Samman’. Being a part of the working class working towards protecting national territory or providing[Read More…]
When I first came to Russia I was thrilled by any artifact of the Soviet Union, by every Red Star I saw atop a building, by every hammer and sickle bas relief. The statues of Marx across from the Bolshoi, of Engles standing tall in the small park across from Kropotkinskaya Metro sent shivers up my spine. But I will[Read More…]
Every year, the world commemorates the victims of Haymarket affair that took place on Tuesday, May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, by observing May 1st as International Workers’ Day in their memory; albeit in Canada & US, 1st September is chosen as Workers’ Day. On that fateful day, the workers had gathered peacefully to demonstrate & advocate for better[Read More…]
Interview of Monthly Review analysts In view of the historic May Day, May 1st, analysts from Monthly Review, the famous independent socialist magazine, identify tasks the working classes should press with. In the following interviews, conducted in early-April, John Bellamy Foster, Professor and Editor of Monthly Review; Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus, and one of Monthly Review’s closest associates; and Michael[Read More…]
Co-authored by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese Seventy years of attacks on the right to unionize have left the union movement representing only 10 percent of workers. The investor class has concentrated its power and uses its power in an abusive way, not only against unions but also to create economic insecurity for workers. At the same time, workers, both[Read More…]
A Forbes article entitled, “On May Day, Communism Is A Much-Closeted Joke” proclaimed the triumph of neoliberalism and the end of celebrating workers as follows: “Once its biggest self-celebration, May Day now signals Mayday for global communism. Just a half century ago, it seemed irrepressible, now communism is just reprehensible, with the relevance of a renaissance festival. Ironically, it is[Read More…]
Yes! There are atrocities Rapes Murders Lynchings ….. But Also there are protests Agitations Strikes Struggles …. Egging on the masses For future peaceful lives Though the ‘ opium’ of religion Is engulfing the world over People are coming out of intoxication To challenge the fanatic power The legacy of Marx Unites the workers To observe May day With[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
