The following is the opening speech delivered at a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) pre-May Day brunch in honor of the 114th celebration of International Working Women’s Day. 

Thank you all for joining us today at our annual May Day brunch. This event is a special celebration for many reasons. First and foremost, our pre-May Day gathering coincides with the 114th celebration of International Working Women's Day (IWWD), a day to honor the historical struggle of women against capitalist exploitation and sexist oppression.

This year, it's no accident that our celebration coincides with IWWD. Like May Day, International Working Women's Day is a communist holiday, born from workers’ labor movements. IWWD has its roots in three pivotal strikes. The first, in 1909, was the garment workers' uprising, where 20,000 women demanded better working conditions. By 1911, a million workers across the globe were celebrating the day. However, it wasn’t until later that IWWD became firmly tied to the revolutionary communist movement. On March 8, 1917, women workers in what would later become the Soviet Union organized a mass strike against Russia's involvement in World War I. This strike helped ignite the Bolshevik Revolution.

Today, we observe IWWD against the backdrop of a global capitalist crisis and intensifying imperialist wars. The U.S. ruling class’s competition with China and Russia, internal divisions, and their endless scramble for profits is further exposing the brutal reality of their system. For over a century, liberal rulers have dominated U.S. imperialism, paving the way for fascism and giving rise to a new breed of capitalist gangsters, led by Donald Trump. Under his rule, we’ve seen open racist and sexist attacks, especially targeting women and migrants.

Migrant workers, many of whom are women and children fleeing domestic and state violence, are scapegoated. Attacks on abortion rights, essential government programs for women, and workers' rights—including those of trans workers and youth—are intensifying. From Sudan to Gaza, women make up 40 percent of the casualties in ongoing genocides.

Women workers leadership key to communist revolution

Despite these grim realities, IWWD serves as a reminder of the resilience and fightback of the working women who came before us. As the revolutionary feminist Alexandra Kollontai once said, IWWD is part of the long chain of the women’s proletarian movement. We inherit that tradition today. Across the globe, we see remarkable anti-sexist resistance led by women—whether it’s fighting police brutality, striking nurses, Amazon workers, or standing up against fascist deportations, racist displacement, and genocide.

What is urgently needed is the development of a global communist movement under the banner of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). In contrast to the bosses’ whitewashed propaganda that celebrates bourgeois women like Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey, the fight against sexism is inherently tied to the broader struggle for class liberation. When women fight for abortion rights, against sexist violence, for childcare, and for higher wages, they are not only fighting for themselves but for all workers and the elimination of gender roles. This fight benefits our entire class.

Our Party views the struggle against sexism as inseparable from the fight against racism. Black women workers are central to the revolution. The bosses' propaganda aims to divide us—separating men and women—but as communists, we believe that to destroy sexism, we must unite men and women. Men too are harmed by sexism, just as white workers suffer from racism.

In spite of this (war and fascism) the women fight

This brings us to the third reason for this year’s May Day theme: “Raising the Red Flag Against Fascism.” Today, we will hear from women workers who continue the fight against imperialism and fascism, drawing inspiration from historical figures like the women who led the underground resistance against the Nazis during World War I, the communist led apartheid movement, and other pro-communist women led underground resistance. The words of Black anti-racist and anti-sexist fighter Williana Borroughs resonate now more than ever: “…the atrocities of war and fascism loom much nearer. The misery, suffering and degree of exploitation under capitalism and in the colonies is very great. In spite of this, the women fight.”

These lessons are crucial as we navigate our own struggles today. Instead of feeling discouraged, let us commemorate the lessons and sacrifices of the brave working women who came before us. From Harriet Tubman to Claudia Jones, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons to Alexandra Kollontai, from the women soldiers in the Haitian Revolution to those who fought in the Paris Commune, and the women who led the Chinese and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—women workers have always held up half the sky and raised the banner against fascism. No successful movement for liberation has ever been led without women workers at the forefront.

Together, we can forge another link in the strong chain of women fighters, working to liberate all of humanity. This May Day, let’s raise the red flag against fascism and fight for a communist world free from sexist and racist violence and exploitation.
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NEW YORK, Feb. 25—Tonight more than 100 union members and immigrant rights activists met to discuss how workers can combat President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations. The rulers are whipping up fascist anti-immigrant hysteria in preparation for wider wars and further attacks on citizens and immigrants alike. Building a fighting movement based on international solidarity, smashing all borders, and taking on local and federal police can build the base of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party on many levels. This was one of dozens of meetings taking place across the area as workers and youth organize to fight back. 

The head of the 28,000-member, mostly Muslim, NY Taxi Worker Alliance (NYTWA) opened the program describing how the migrant crisis has been caused by U.S. imperialism, through wars, poverty/sanctions, gangs and/or climate crisis. She described how NYTWA went on strike and shut down JFK International Airport during Trump’s first term when he announced his Muslim travel ban. More than 700 taxis refused to move, choking off the airport as thousands more activists rushed to JFK to oppose, and defeat the ban. 

A leader of the United Auto Workers (UAW) spoke next about how legal-aid attorneys and legal service workers walked out and shut down the court system to stop ICE agents from patrolling the hallways looking for immigrants who were there on official court business, also during Trump’s first term. These strikes succeeded in keeping ICE out of the courts. A Service Employees International Union (SEIU) member described how 30 percent of all healthcare workers and 20 percent of home healthcare workers are immigrants and how these threats will affect far more than the immigrant workers being targeted. 

The big contradiction here is that while many workers in many unions are open to defending immigrants and taking on Trump, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) leadership and most major unions are politically and financially tied to the Democratic Party that has paved the way for the fascist attacks on migrant workers. The big contradiction here is that while many workers in many unions are open to defending immigrants and taking on Trump, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) leadership and most major unions are politically and financially tied to the Democratic Party, which has paved the way for the attacks on migrant workers (see glossary on page 6). The Democrats built up the deportation apparatus that Trump used to deport our working-class siblings. Big liberal fascist President Barack Obama still holds the record for “deporter-in-chief.” 

UAW President Shawn Fein, who was praised as a militant reformer, is supporting Trump’s tariffs and wrote in the Washington Post of his willingness to work with the new Fuhrer. And despite numerous plane crashes and the firings of thousands of federal workers, the AFL-CIO leadership has yet to call a national action in response. They don’t want us in the streets, they want us trapped in the voting booths and keep this violent system intact. 

By taking this fight to our unions and mass organizations, on our jobs and in our schools and communities, we can help workers break away from this treacherous leadership and get on the road to revolution.

The bosses are delivering nothing but racist, sexist terror to millions of workers worldwide, through mass unemployment, governmental and gang fascism, and environmental change (in other words, another day at their murderous offices). These conditions are caused or worsened by the world’s main imperialist countries. Here in the U.S.,  immigrants face the daily threat of racist deportations. When immigrants seek asylum or government assistance they must often deal with a hostile climate like the failure to provide basic translation services. In New York City, racist Mayor Eric Adams has told city workers not to interfere with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from seizing immigrants.

Progressive Labor Party (PLP) struggles, with our friends and coworkers, to understand events that shape our world and resist the bosses’ plans so we can fight back against this racist murderous capitalist system. Writing for CHALLENGE and including the comments of coworkers is a big step to building interest in our organization. These are new folks who we can ask to come to May Day and other events. With this as a background, a group of city workers that are friendly to the Party recently discussed how they would provide services to immigrants who came to their office. This work, by itself, may not bring a communist revolution, but collectively, and with an international, multiracial  focus, it can help build the foundation to a working class world that expels all the bosses for good!

Antiracist city workers stand with immigrants

Worker 1) Servicing immigrants whether they are refugees, asylum seekers or migrants tends to be a hardship because at times there are language barriers or some do not know how to read and write.

When speaking and brainstorming in group discussions we may speak about a situation one of us encountered. We listen to how someone else would have handled the situation, then we use that as a stepping stone for the next client and how best to assist these clients. We help each other and try to help clients as best we can with their individual outcomes. We work together to help not only the client but each other. When a client comes for an appointment and doesn’t have adequate documentation, we try to help them retrieve documents from the proper agencies. 

Dealing with individuals from different parts of the world teaches you that not everyone has the same knowledge. You learn that not everyone can adjust, learn or even adapt to their new surroundings.

Worker 2) As a social service professional, I serve a variety of clients from different populations. I aim to provide the migrant clientele with the same level of professionalism that I give to all my other clients. To me there is no difference between them or anyone else.

Worker 3) My experience serving the migrants in my office is that there are many discussions among my coworkers. You have some workers who say, “Why are they coming here, taking services from individuals that were born in the USA?” I say that everyone is entitled to receive services, health care, food stamps, and shelter to live. I will not discriminate against individuals who need help as we all will be in need some day. So what if immigrants are of different races, speak different languages, believe in different religions or may have different sexual orientations? They are still people who need help. I am going to assist those individuals in a positive way. I will continue in these discussions to point out how we should open our eyes and hearts to people as we share many things in common, living and surviving in this world today.

Washington, DC, February 16—34 members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends met at a comrade’s home for our monthly political discussion. Our cadre was multiracial (Black, Latin, Asian, and white), multi-gendered, and intergenerational. Many comrades addressed and challenged valid fears and questions among our friends, while reinforcing that a bold communist collective is the ultimate force to arm our working class against Trump and the impending fascism of the capitalist class.

We began our program with a short speech given by one of our lead area comrades. Taking inspiration from a past CHALLENGE editorial (2/16), our comrade laid out the severe danger and fear that Trump and his administration will continue to submit workers to—while also reminding us that Trump’s current attacks are an expansion of the decades-worth of policies set in motion by the liberal wing of the ruling class, the finance capital Big Fascists (see glossary on page 6). For example, Trump’s racist calls to rebuild luxury resorts on the rubble of Gaza is only a possibility because Big Fascists Biden and Harris armed the Zionist fascists to the teeth in the first place, to carry out their genocidal war.

We grounded our conversation in concrete actions within our various communities and areas of struggle. Historically, DC has held strong ties with Metro workers for several decades, with many who are either Party members or friends of ours (we had at least six Metro-linked workers present!). During the capitalists’ ruthless targeting of immigrants, some comrades have also started linking their primary reform work to solidarity efforts with our at-risk base members—including participation in a rapid response network in Baltimore and community protection in Mount Rainier.

Our lead comrade also emphasized the need to build militancy among industrial workers to disrupt the flow of capitalist industries, both across the nation and internationally. It is our duty to lay the foundation of anti-capitalist worker solidarity so that we can move beyond the base layer of initial—yet important—conversations and reform actions to revolutionary fightback. Another comrade gave a rousing call to those of us who already won to  our Party’s line and communism: If you fully believe in revolution, when will you advocate and mobilize for it?

Fight for the greater good: communist revolution

Our conversation covered a variety of topics, largely thanks to our newer participants—some who interacted with the Party for the first time! As workers feel the force of rising fascism, many expressed a need for urgency in protecting our fellow workers and developing leadership.

One new participant proposed connecting with queer and imprisoned workers—who are already discarded to the fringes of capitalist society—as well as some correctional officers (COs) and police who seem sympathetic to the plight of workers. Two comrades gave respectful yet sharp critiques of collaboration with COs and cops, as they are enforcers of the capitalist state. Regardless of the individual, their role within this oppressive system overpowers any possibility of allegiance to the workers. A comrade drove the point home with the crucial point that historically, today’s contemporary cops descend from the slave patrols of 17th century colonial United States.

Another participant proposed worker cooperatives (co-ops) as another tactic for organizing our base. A worker co-op generally involves all workers collectively owning a business and everyone being involved in production decisions. Our attendee suggested this to cut through the unending bureaucracy and stonewalling by union representatives within our workplaces. Again, comrades countered, explaining that to an extent, co-ops must compete in markets against the already established capitalist businesses.

One veteran comrade directed our attention to current military catastrophes terrorizing our class siblings worldwide. From Congo, to Haiti, to Sudan, to Myanmar, to Gaza, and elsewhere, we in the United States have been witness to U.S.-backed fascism for decades. The tragic instability and horror confronting our fellow workers now is a preview for workers everywhere.

We ended on what many liberals are scared to critically address when working in reform movements: financial support for our political work. One comrade cleverly pointed out the open and tricky swindling done by capitalist businesses, celebrities, and politicians in the name of “the greater good.” As communists, we fight for a world where money won’t decide our fate! We need to prove to our working-class family that the only “greater good” is the destruction of these blood-sucking predators and their racist profit system. Only we, the workers of the world, keep us safe!