Stop Paying the Rich – Increase Investments in Social Programmes!
Fight to Build a Society which Defends and Guarantees the Rights of All!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

May First, 2007, Day of Unity and Struggle
Stop Paying the Rich – Increase Investments in Social Programmes! Fight to Build a Society which Defends and Guarantees the Rights of All!

MAY DAY EVENTS 2007

On the occasion of May Day 2007, a salute to working people of all countries struggling against imperialist domination, slavery, wage slavery and for their emancipation and to affirm their right to be! The working class of England, Scotland and Wales salutes the workers of the United States, who are their fellow-fighters against Anglo-US imperialism. It salutes the workers of the countries of Latin America who are taking a stand against US domination and for progress. It salutes the workers of Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Laos and elsewhere who are defending their independence and sovereignty and strengthening the social system of their own making. It reaffirms its ties of proletarian internationalism with the working class and people throughout the world in struggle for their rights and for a socialist programme.

            May Day 2007 is an opportunity for the working class to analyse and sum up their experience of the ten years since New Labour came to power in an electoral coup. It is also an opportunity, based on an analysis of what the objective conditions are pointing towards, to reaffirm and reassess their political programme to take society out of its crisis, and to take a stand on what are the crucial issues to fight on at the present time.

            The past 10 years have confirmed that the system of “representative democracy” is an anachronism and is not suitable for representing the interests of the working class and people, but on the contrary keeps them excluded from the decision-making process. It has led to the crisis in working class representation that must be solved through democratic renewal of the political process and institutions. The past 10 years have confirmed that the working class has to take the lead in vesting sovereignty in the people and putting into practice a political programme that takes account of the general interests of society and builds a harmonious national economy and a political system where the people are sovereign.

            Workers must develop a political programme of fighting for an anti-war government, taking a stand against monopoly “right”, and for the dignity of labour. The principle on which the workers’ organisations have been built is that An Injury to One Is An Injury to All. Victimisation of an individual is an attack on the entire collective, an assault on the right of one section of the people is an attack on the entire working class and people. Today in this period of all-round retrogression, that principle has never been more important for the workers to fight for as the guiding principle for society as a whole. The financial oligarchy, the monopolies, the owners of capital and their political representatives aim to disunite the working people and make them compete with one another, to grasp “opportunities” as isolated individuals, to harm their own interests as both individuals and as collectives under the spurious signboard of “choice”. They also aim to divide the working people by incitement against immigrant workers, against the Muslim community, by spreading fear, hysteria and suspicion, and by instituting all kinds of arbitrary divisions under the spurious signboard of “integration”.

            In opposition to this ethos, the workers have to strengthen their own organisations, to fight against the anti-social offensive, against privatisation and cuts in social programmes, against warmongering and chauvinism, and for the rights of all. The necessity in order to safeguard these values representing the best traditions of the working class and people is for the working class to constitute itself as a class in itself and for itself; to take up social responsibility and demand that the claims of individuals on society be met. It is to oppose all modern relations of slavery, including those imposed on immigrants, refugees and migrant workers, according to the principle that No One Is Illegal. Such unity is based on the common cause of workers in opposing exploitation and oppression, and taking this unity forward to renew society to safeguard the future of humanity.

            This issue – that is, the whole issue of modern-day slavery which is based on the colonialist and imperialist logic that denies the humanity of all and their right to be – emphasises that it is important that a workers’ movement, a trade union movement, is built which opposes the blindness to social responsibility which has been the hallmark of New Labour and its government since 1997. This issue could also be said to include the dignity of labour as a whole. It is this which will strengthen the trade unions in their fight against capital, monopoly right and wage slavery. It is this quality of strengthening the trade unions as defence organisations of the working class and of workers selecting and electing their own representatives to parliament, that is crucial, with the watchword of all for one and one for all.

            Only the programme of the working class can solve the problems facing society. Only the programme of the working class can divert from the path of fascism and war, can lift society out of its crisis and open the door to a new and different world. This is the message of May Day. Characteristic of the outlook of the working class is the ending degradation, humiliation and of upholding the rights of all by virtue of the humanity of every single human person. It is on this basis that working people must fight, resisting the onslaught and backwardness of the self-seeking rich that knows no responsibility to society and aims to turn society backwards to bestiality and medievalism. It is on this basis that the working people must envision the new society, a socialist Britain, and along this line of march that they must advance.

            All the movements of the working class and people should be broadened and deepened into the movement for people's empowerment. The concrete way forward is to unite the people into such a movement through fighting for the political programme Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programmes! Fight for an Anti-War Government!

            This is the political programme that represents the workers taking responsibility for the fate of society, a programme based on carrying high the banner of the rights of all, and taking up the fight for a society which guarantees those rights. It is a programme which provides a voice for the voiceless, which allows to flourish as second to none all those marginalised by imperialism and the capitalist system. On this May Day 2007, let us reaffirm this programme. RCPB(ML) calls on the workers to do their proletarian internationalist duty and fight for and take up this political programme of the class, standing firm against neo-liberal privatisation and in support of the oppressed peoples of the world.

            Ten years of New Labour has taken Britain and the world further down the path of preparing for fascism and war. This programme must be defeated! Build resistance and plant the alternative!

Only the Working Class Can Save the Day!

Defend the Rights of All!

For An Anti-War Government!

Stop Paying the Rich – Increase Investments in Social Programmes!

Long Live May Day!

PCS

PCS has decided to take its second day of national strike action on May 1st involving up to 270,000 civil and public servants working across 200 plus government departments, agencies and non-departmental bodies to defend jobs, services, pay and conditions, and against privatisation. The TUC has now backed May 1 as a day of action in defence of public services and is calling on other trade unions to back protests on the day.

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Tuesday 1 May
May Day March & Rally
Assemble 12 noon, Clerkenwell Green, London EC1, move off 13.00 to Trafalgar Square
London May Day Organising Committee

Speakers include: Tony Benn; Alison Shepherd (Unison), TUC President; Jeremy Dear, General Secretary NUJ; Megan Dobney, Regional Secretary SERTUC; Speakers from Migrant Workers Organisations. Joint Chairs: Linda Kietz (GLATUC) and Anita Halpin (SERTUC).

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Tuesday 1st May
Protest Rally - 12 Noon
Grey's Monument Newcastle

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Organising for Fighting Unions
May Day Rally
1 May 2007, 6.30pm
Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London NW1

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To mark International Workers’ Day and the 35th anniversary of the Wages for Housework Campaign
Selma James speaks on: What the Marxists never told us about Marx
Tuesday 1 May, 7.30pm
Trinity United Reformed Church, Buck Street, London NW1

London Global Women’s strike – All welcome

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South Tyneside May Day Meeting & Celebration
Tuesday, May 1
Ex-Servicemen’s Club Concert Room, North Street, Jarrow
Doors Open 7.30pm, Speakers 8.00pm

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May 1
A benefit for migrants' and refugees rights, regularisation for all and an end to deportation and detention
At RAMPART, 5-7 Rampart St, off Commercial Rd, E1, 8pm- midnight. £5 waged /£3 unwaged (suggested donation)

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“Smash the Chains of Capitalism”
May Day Public Meeting organised by London District NCP
Speakers from: South Asia Forum, Nepali Society, Communist Workers and Peasants Party of Pakistan, Africa Liberation Support Committee, KKE (Greek Communist Party – local branch), RPCB(ML), NCP.
7pm, Thursday 3 May, Marx House, Clerkenwell Green, EC1

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Saturday 5 May
FIGHTING BACK
Tyne & Wear May Day march and rally
Newcastle upon Tyne
Assemble 11 am Times Square (Centre for Life)
March leaves 11.30 am for rally at Exhibition Park 12 noon

For a living pension for all
For decent jobs and pay
For defence of public services
For civil liberties and asylum rights
For a Trade Union Freedom Bill
For peace, trade justice and international solidarity

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The Right to Work for All, No One is Illegal!
Sunday 6th May, George Square 11 am, Glasgow
UNITY: Union of Asylum Seekers, Scotland

Support the rights of all workers

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Strangers into Citizens
March and Rally for Migrants' and Refugees' Rights
11 a.m. Assemble Westminster Cathedral Piazza near Victoria Station, London
  12:30 p.m. Rally Trafalgar Square
  7 May Bank Holiday