For
the first time in 130 years workers will
not be for the most part filling the
streets worldwide for International
Labor Day. As much as unions, labor militants, socialists,
Communists, and anarchists want
to display their solidarity and flex their muscles on May Day most are loath to risk their supporters’ health and lives
and breach a broader solidarity with society
by assembling during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Others
have not been so responsible. In the
United States Trump supporters are
trying to usurp the labor celebration
with several planned Make America Great
Again (MAGA) rallies that will echo
the Cheeto-in-charge’s call to “Liberate!” states and cities that
insist on enforcing closing orders and
social distancing. Some of these events, like the siege yesterday at the Michigan capitol in Lansing will include heavily armed neo-fascists. Imagine what would happen if true labor demonstrators or outraged Blacks made such a
showing.
Poland, the birthplace of the Solidarity
union uprising against the repressive Soviet
dominated Communist regime that inspired workers’ power movements around the world has fallen so deeply into
overt fascism that state sanctioned May Day marches today
will call for draconian suppression
of LGBTQ rights and criminalization of individuals, suppression of women’s organizations that blocked
plans to re-criminalize abortion,
attack mostly Muslim refugees, and revive
official anti-Semitism. Other right-wing
regimes will likewise coopt May Day.
Old
fashion repression is the order of the day elsewhere. In Turkey
where the oppressive government as
violently attacked May Day marches
for the last three years acted preemptively
to arrest the entire leadership
of one major union federation and
probably others. India has made similar threats.
There
will be strike actions in the U.S.
today. Meat cutters and packers in
Nebraska and elsewhere are on strike
to protest back to work orders in
Coronavirus hot spots by Donald Trump’s proclamation that meat
and poultry plants are “essential.” Lack of protective
equipment and safety precautions
has also been marked by several walk-out and demonstrations by front line health care workers.
Most
ambitiously food chain workers at Whole Foods, Target, and Instacart as
well as warehouse and delivery personnel at Amazon have announced a May Day General
strike and consumer boycott. While that effort will be far from universal it is a sign that a militant labor movement is growing even
under the current adverse conditions.
Most
major American cities are having virtual May Day events which you can easily
find in a Google search. In Chicago that includes the Laying of Roses
at the Haymarket Martyrs Memorial at
Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park from 11 am-Noon Central
Daylight Time sponsored by the Greater Chicago IWW: Virtual May Day from
3-4 pm cosponsored by the Illinois Labor
History Society and the Chicago Federation
of Labor; and Mother Jones We Shall
Rise Party from 4:30 to 9 pm sponsored by Mother Jones Lives.
We
will close today with a poem that was inspired by a huge Chicago May Day march
in 2017.
It Ain’t May I Day
May 1, 2017
It ain’t May I Day, Bub!
No, siree.
It’s get the hell out of our way
May Day,
beg no damn pardon
May Day,
get your paws off of her
May Day,
leave those kids alone
May Day,
all hands on deck
May Day,
we and us and ours
May Day,
five finger fist
May Day,
We win,
May Day
Venceremos,
May Day,
Get it now?
—Patrick
Murfin
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