Do people know that the May 1 international labor day came about after a bloody demonstration in Chicago in 1886? That in memory of the massacre, leaders of workers’ parties from different countries formed an International and made it a day of workers’ struggles and solidarity across borders?
Every May 1, all the workers around the world were called on to strike and demonstrate with a common demand: the eight-hour workday, so that “the worker ceases to be a mere instrument of labor and begins to become a man.”
For decades, May 1 was a day on which to defy employer repression and police mobilization. It still is in many countries. In France, the reactionary Vichy regime, led by Pétain, stripped the day of its combative nature by changing what was a day of struggles into an innocent Labor Day. Since then, May 1 has become a paid public holiday.
That’s why May 1 demonstrations in France haven’t worried the bourgeoisie or politicians for years. And that’s the problem! Because there are no struggles and no organizations that deserve to be called worker organizations, capitalists and the government do as they please.
French capitalists make meticulous attacks on our working and living conditions. This week, Arcelor Mittal, despite more than a billion euros in profits and 300 million euros in state aid, is firing 600 more people. Meanwhile, the government is fine-tuning a new 40-billion euro attack.
While the government increases deficits, showering billions in tax relief on the bourgeoisie and big business, it swears that the debt is unsustainable and that it is urgent to cut public spending that is useful to the population. Despite millions of us working our fingers to the bone, the government obviously thinks we’re still not working hard enough!
On an international scale, the bourgeoisie’s leaders are even more cynical. After having us believe that the US would help Ukraine free itself, Trump is cozying up with Putin to share out the main resources of the country. He isn’t hiding his imperialist aims for Greenland and Canada, nor his preparation for war with China. He’s allowing Netanyahu to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza and he plans on building a resort there.
Just as the capitalists do, Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping and Macron know that, in order to dominate, they have to crush workers and trample on peoples. And they know that they can only rule by setting oppressed peoples against one another, dividing them through racism and nationalism.
As long as we allow them to lead us and give us orders, we’ll see inequality, extreme poverty, division, hatred and barbarity grow. We will be condemned to serve as profit- and cannon-fodder.
There is another way: international solidarity between workers and their struggle for power!
The strength of the capitalist class lies in our lack of combativeness and conscience. We are allowing ourselves to be led by a group of vultures that can’t even make society function by themselves. We are bowing to the diktat of a class of parasites that can’t produce their profits and capital without us. They can’t even take care of their own children, cook or travel without a whole army of servants!
Let’s become conscious of the collective power that we have in our hands! Not only to defend ourselves and to gain respect but also to make society function, to organize it and run it ourselves.
May 1 used to express that same conscience. The workers asserted the need to put an end to “the exploitation of man by man”, i.e. capitalism. They asserted themselves as a social class that was fighting against the power of the bourgeoisie so that socialism could be built on an international scale.
In an age when the bourgeoisie is ruining millions of lives, destroying the planet and driving us towards a third world war, we must revive and spread that conscience. Lutte ouvrière will be present on Thursday, May 1 with that aim. So, let’s gather in force.
Nathalie Arthaud