Workers march worldwide on May Day

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5) Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay, and cut the retirement age to 55. Provide unemployment and retirement payments at We propose an EMERGENCY CONGRESS OF LABOR to discuss and 6) To combat inflation: A sliding scale of wages and pensions that match­ 1) Bail out the people, not the bankers! Open the account books of the es the rises in comsumer prices. To combat high medical costs: A free, banks to full public inspection. Nationalize the banks to be supervised by 7) Immediate citizenship for all undocumented workers. No job discrimi­ 2) No foreclosures! No forced evictions! Cancel usurious debt payments, nation; equal pay for equal work — regardless of gender, sexual orienta­ and reduce mortgage payments in proportion to their capitalist-caused 8) Nationalize manufacturing, big agribusiness, energy, and transporta­ 3) Full employment at union wages! An emergency public works program tion corporations and place them under the control of elected committees to employ all jobless workers and youth! Employ people to build what we need — low-cost quality housing, efficient mass transportation, cheap and 9) To mobilize support for the demands it adopts, the EMERGENCY renewable sources of power, schools, clinics — and to conserve our water, CONGRESS should organize ACTION COMMITTEES in every workplace and neighborhood threatened by the crisis. These committees can draw up 4) Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries from Iraq & Afghanistan! No war on Iran! Close all U.S. bases abroad! No money for 10) To put all these measures into effect, we need a LABOR PARTY — the military — use funds instead for public works! Convert the war indus­ based on a fighting union movement and all people who are oppressed tries to making products for people’s needs and to combat global warming.

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May 1, celebrated around the world as International Workers’

Day, celebrates the anniversary of the Haymarket riots in Chi­ cago. When workers struck for an eight-hour day in 1886, an unknown person (likely a po­ lice provocateur) threw a bomb into the peaceful crowd, killing several people and provoking a riot. Over 100 years later, with austerity measures and attacks on workers on the rise around the globe, the significance and impact of May 1 becomes even more relevant.

This year, thousands of work­ ers demonstrated in the streets around the world. Unions in Greece called a strike, bringing ferry and train ser­ vices to a halt while people demonstrated peacefully in Athens. In Istanbul, Turkey, clashes occurred when police tried to stop protesters from demonstrating in Taksim Square. In France protesters demonstrated against President Francois Hollande and his govern­ ment’s fiscal plans, calling him “the president of the rich.”

Over 100,000 people poured into the streets in Spain, demonstrating against austerity and an unem­ ployment rate that has reached 27%, while another 400,000 marched in Germany. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, workers protested the deaths of hundreds of garment workers when a factory collapsed. One worker shout­ ed from the back of a truck, “My brother has died. My sister has died. Their blood will not be valueless.”

Tens of thousands of workers in Indonesia, Cam­ Editor: Michael Schreiber Canada Editor: Barry Weisleder designed, and laid out entirely by volunteer labor.

­— $37 for two years Name Address City State Phone E-mail bodia, and Taiwan demanded higher pay and better working conditions, and protested pension cuts. In Mexico, public school teachers peacefully marched in Mexico City and Chilpancingo, hoping to blocking education reforms that would hurt unions. Tens of thousands marched in Havana, Cuba, in a demonstra­ tion dedicated to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

Here in the United States, the majority of the May 1 marches called for the passage of a new immigra­ tion reform that would benefit the some 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. With a new bill now being discussed in the Senate, thousands of immigrants marched in the streets on May 1 in cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Salem, Oregon, with numbers slightly up from last year. Smaller-scale marches were also held in cities such as Minneapolis and San Francisco.

However, despite a strong sentiment for a general Zip • Ashland, Ore.: [email protected] • Boston: [email protected] (781) 630-0250 • Carrboro, N.C.: (919) 967-2866, [email protected] • Chicago: P.O. Box 578428 Chicago, IL 60657, [email protected] • Connecticut: (860) 478-5300 • Duluth, Minn.: [email protected]. www.thenorthernworker.blogspot.com • Kansas City: [email protected] (816) 221-3638 • LOUISVILLE, KY.: [email protected], (502) 451-2193 • Madison, Wis.:

[email protected] • Mankato, Minn.:

[email protected] • Minneapolis/St. Paul: (612) 802-1482, [email protected] • New York City: (212) 781-5157 legalization within the immigrant community, many of the marches were organized by re­ formist forces that support the Senate Gang of Eight’s draconian proposal for immigration reform. The White House-approved immigra­ tion reform bill proposes an overhaul of the current immigration system that includes plans for a beefed-up border patrol, an ex­ panded guest worker system, and a long and arduous “pathway” to citizenship (lasting 13 years and costing each immigrant thousands of dollars).

Even major unions such as the SEIU and the AFL-CIO are supporting the bill.

Many of the May Day marches this year featured as speakers politicians supporting the immigration reform bill instead of local organizers, and focused on local campaigns like driver’s license bills, instead of calling for unconditional legalization for all. This sucked much of the potential power out of the immi­ grant rights movement and instead diverted attention onto weak reforms.

Despite the watered-down nature of many of the May Day marches in the United States this year, we must not lose sight of the potential of the work­ ing class to fight back. The immigrant community has proven in the past that they have the ability to turn hundreds of thousands of workers into the streets at a moment’s notice when they are threatened by a draconian legislation and discriminatory laws.

And the impressive turnout from workers in coun­ tries around the world this year on May 1 shows that the working class is not defeated by any means. Al­ though we have a long struggle ahead of us, the fight is just beginning. n (Photo) Close to 2000 workers, including domestic workers and sugarcane cutters from Haiti, participated in the annual May Day march in Santo Domingo.

• Philadelphia: [email protected] • Portland, Ore.: (503) 233-1629 [email protected] • Providence: [email protected] (401) 592-5385 • Salem, Ore.: [email protected] • San Francisco Bay Area:

P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, Ca 94610 (510) 268-9429, [email protected] • WASHINGTON, DC: [email protected], (202) 286-5493 National Office

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Armed to the teeth with a scalding re­ port prepared by researchers of the U.S. Senate Permanent Committee on Inves­

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