During a time of sky-high living costs, AI job-takeovers, and mass layoffs, it is concievable that the masses feel discouraged and resort to hedonistic escapism. It is then the duty of the revolutionary to be a beacon of revolutionary optimism, to serve reminders to the masses that there is a bigger fight at hand, and there are existing organizations ready to welcome their commitment to the struggle. In hopes of fulfilling these duties, PAIA, RAN, and RSF-Beaverton held a May Day Red Bloc on May 1st and a mass meeting on May 4th, for community members to learn about International Worker’s Day. Invitations were extended publically online, through flyers, and during the rally. PAIA members gathered at Pio Pio Park to present on the significance of May Day, worker power, and revolutionary unionism. The presentation aimed to deepend the people’s knowledge on working class and revolutionary victories and stategies. Partipants discussed their workplace grievances and strategized their first steps of organizing.
The speakers began with a brief mention of the historical significance of May Day before it came to be known as International Workers’ Day. The violent struggle to win the eight-hour work day was discussed in the history of the Haymarket Affair (or Haymarket Riots). This day became a day of international worker solidarity that memorizalized the martyred striking workers. In contrast, Labor Day came about with unhonorable intentions of washing over disgraced President Grover Cleveland’s violence towards workers. Cleveland unleashed state violence to quell the Pullman strikes — ending with 30 worker deaths— and quickly declared the first Monday of every September as Labor Day soon after as an empty gesture to ‘honor’ workers.
The speakers discussed strikes as a strategy against imperialist aggression, such as a recent general strike in Italy in support of occupied Palestine, or the student strikes in the USA in 1970 to protest the Vietnam war. They also discussed areas that could be potential targets for organizing workers to serve in the antiimperialist fight. Rent strikes (& tenant organizing as a whole) can help grow class consciousness as well as achieve material change, with the LA Tenants Union (LATU) as a recent example. A Renters Action Network (RAN) organizer discussed local action.
State unionism and its shortfalls were discussed. Some unions betrayed the people by working on behalf of the employer or the state, such as through no-strike clauses, refusal to raise or disperse strike finds, or limiting what issues can officially be struck over. Unions can co-opt workers’ genuine revolutionary energy and funnel it back into a system that is designed to exploit them. This can lead to workers being disillusioned with unions all-together.
Though unions can be used in the fight to liberate the people when brought under the leadership of the revolutionary party. India and Nepal have gleaming examples of revolutionary unionism. Maoist organizations in these countries used unions to organize workers in the struggle to form a united front with the women’s liberation movement, peasants, and the land rights movement. Unions served as grounds for recruitment to political organizations and an opportunity to raise the political consciousness of workers. When the labor unions organized strikes and had their demands met, these victories emboldened them, which allowed them to grow in confidence and legitimacy. These labor unions were able to grow their political power and expanded to local committees that fought for power over local resources and redistributed land to peasant farmers.
They were eventually able to establish ‘People’s Governments’ which operated in many districts of the country. These alternative government structures helped facilitate the fall of the monarchy in Nepal. This victory is one the speakers hope to draw inspiration from. There were calls of encouragement to use the workplace as grounds for recruitment and an opportunity to raise political consciousness of coworkers
The presentation closed with a stark reminder that the people of the global south continue to suffer the consequences of the inaction of the American working class. It is our duty as those who live in the belly of the beast to put an end to its imperalist reaping of the world.
GLORY TO THE WORKING CLASS, DEATH TO IMPERALISM!
FREE PALESTINE! GLORY TO THE AXIS OF RESISTANCE!
HAIL. MAY DAY!
RECONSTITUTE THE COMMUNIST PARTY USA!
