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BROOKLYN MAY DAY: Who's day? Workers' day!

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18 May 2022 103 hits

April 30, Brooklyn— A stream of red Progressive Labor Party (PLP) flags flowed down Flatbush Avenue once again to celebrate this year’s May Day and the millions of workers worldwide that led the working class fightback for the 8-hour workday. In Chicago in 1886, 350,000 workers took to the streets to resist the ruling class’ demands for the "sunup to sundown" workday and demanded an end to worker’s lethal working conditions. The Chicago workers’ fight against capitalist exploitation sparked an uprising in Haymarket Square, during which cops murdered four workers and wounded hundreds more.
In 1889, the International Workers Association demanded the eight-hour  workday across borders. This push for internationalism aligns with our Party’s line. One class. The international working class. The Progressive Labor Party proudly carried the torch, marching in Brooklyn, New York, with bold, communist fightback, carrying the words written on the Haymarket  Monument in our hearts: THE DAY WILL COME WHEN OUR SILENCE WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE VOICES YOU ARE THROTTLING TODAY.
Fannng flames of revolution with class rage and optimism
Our class rage fueled our march, from the ruling classes’ callous acceptance of mass COVID deaths to reckless U.S. and Russian imperialists’ flirtation with nuclear war in Ukraine. In the year since our last May Day march, the ruling class worldwide continues to cheapen and destroy working class lives internationally. Nevertheless, our march was fueled by revolutionary optimism. While the ruling class ramps up its preparation for World War III, using Ukraine as a pawn in their inter-imperialist rivalry, dozens of workers boldly took over the streets, proclaiming we will smash racist borders and imperialist war with communist revolution.  
As we passed the Kings Theater marquee that advertised his foul name, we chanted, “Eric Adams, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” denouncing the lies and deceptions he recently spewed there regarding his first 100 days in office.  Recently, Adams  gamed workers that lost family members to gun violence on stage and vowed to ‘fight crime by unleashing his racist kkkops.As the crisis of capitalism deepens and the splits between the Big Fascist capitalists, fronted by Biden, and the Small Fascist America First capitalists, once represented by Donald Trump, intensifies the bosses will continue to intensify their attacks on workers.
For the Big Fascists, the main finance capital wing, the current play is to appoint members of historically oppressed groups to manage our class’s oppression. Black liberal misleaders Adams are managing local New York bosses’ fascist housing and wage theft crisis by criminalizing workers. His answer to making streets safe is  to ramp up racist policing and broken windows policies to crack down on Black and Latin youth,and homeless workers on trains and pitting Asian workers against Black workers.
With Adam’s plan for terror, we are witnessing the fascist disciplining of our class in real time. PLP’s response to this volatile system is to unite with workers and families in antiracist struggles and build a communist movement that smash the fascist bosses once and for all.
Honoring May Day with international worker solidarity
The entire day was a celebration of international working class unity through our collective struggles to overthrow the capitalist dictatorship. Hundreds of multiracial, multi-gendered, intergenerational workers combined forces for an international celebration of working class power. Our speeches presented political clarity on why workers fight for communism. “The working class will determine society’s future. Our Black, Latin, Asian, white and immigrant sisters and brothers will rise to end imperialist wars that send our youth to kill their class brothers and sisters worldwide, all for the bosses’ profits.”
Messages of solidarity sprouted from comrades in Haiti: “We face a government that cannot govern. We have a working class that cannot live as it once did: see the strikes and demonstrations of tens of thousands of workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage (despite the threat of police and gangs). The only thing we lack is a revolutionary party with a deep base within the working class: this is the task of Progressive Labor Party in Haiti today and tomorrow. We are ready to accept it.”
We heard messages from Colombia and Mexico: ”This capitalist democracy does not work for the benefit of the working class and cannot be reformed. It must be destroyed by workers' power,” further fueling an already energized working class crowd in Brooklyn. Provisions were made for translation of all proceedings into Spanish, and chants resonated in English, Spanish, and Haitian Kreyol.
In an inspiring moment of solidarity, construction workers interrupted their toil to hail our march. Amidst the foundation of yet another residential tower sure to contribute to racist gentrification, they held CHALLENGE newspaper high and offered a phone number to remain in touch with the communists marching by their job site.
Marching alongside PLP were transit workers, immigrants’ rights organizations, organizers struggling against displacement and police terror, and anti-racist young people from teacher education programs. All of these attendees represent  working-class potential. Under communist leadership, workers will run all aspects of society. We need these workers and many more, as well as students and youth, to join our movement. On May Day our objective is clear. We fight for workers' power through communism.  Join us!