MAY DAY PEACE SOLIDARITY MAY DAY 1985 This message was issued for May 1 by the Communist Party of Canada. n this 99th anniversary of International O wees Day, the Central Executive Com- mittee of the Communist Party of Canada ex- tends its warmest May Day greetings to the working people of Canada. 1985 will be remembered as a year of tough ques- tions for the working class. Will more people be added to the more than two million already on the jobless rolls? Will food banks, bread and soup lines become a permanent mass feature of Canadian society? Will the unemployed be used as a battering ram against trade union rights and conditions? Will transnational corporations be allowed to con- tinue to shut down Canadian plants in answer to worker militancy, or because they deem operations not to be profitable enough? Will banks continue to foreclose on Canadian homes to swell their already swollen ledger sheets? Will corporation profits in 1985 increase by more than 45 per cent (which they did in 1984) while workers’ real earnings decline? Will the hard-fought gains of the Canadian people for pensions, family allowances, unemployment in- surance, education, worker compensation, health care, and welfare benefits be gutted to satisfy the insatiable greed of monopoly capital and the progress of their right-wing governments? Will the condition of women and young people continue to deteriorate? All these questions, and more, confront Canadian workers in the deepest economic crisis since the Dirty Thirties. But May Day 1985 occurs at a time when the work- ing class is increasingly demonstrating its pre- paredness to fight back against the savage attacks of monopoly capital, and to seek new forms of struggle in order to do so. : Mobilize the People! The election of the Mulroney government has not produced the promised ‘‘jobs, jobs, jobs,”’ but rather the prospects of more plant closures, more jobless- ness, and deepening economic crisis. The change which the new prime minister promised has turned out to be a change for the worse. The prime minister’s seductive overtures to join with him in placing the burden of the crisis on the backs of the Canadian people, through class collaboration, tri-partism and social contract is being rejected by Canada’s working people. Canadian labor must now turn its attention to mobilizing the Canadian people to defeat the Tories’ plans. Properly mobilized, the labor movement, with its own alternative economic program, can provide the point around which all democratic Canadians can rally to block the erosion of our economic and poli- tical gains and for a real recovery. What is needed in the current situation is a people’s majority outside parliament to counter the Tory majority inside. The Mulroney Tory strategy is to solve the eco- nomic crisis in the interests of monopoly capital by tying Canada ever more closely to the United States, a path fraught with danger, not just for the working class, but for the very survival of Canada. In this drive to continental integration, Mulroney comes head-to- head with every patriotically minded Canadian, a situation where an aroused labor movement, heading up the fight for the national interests of Canada, can derail Mulroney’s treachery. Sell-Out Costs Jobs The cornerstone of Mulroney’s sell-out is his slavish support of U.S. foreign policy, and particu- larly the Reagan administration’s plan to militarize space. Canada should join the majority of nations in condemning Star Wars and reject any participation in this insane project. No to Star Wars — No to Cana- dian Participation! Canada’s rejection of Star Wars would not only add mightily to the global fight for peace, it would herald a shift in Canada’s foreign policy in the direction of peace and independence. It would also be part and parcel of a new made-in-Canada economic policy tor real recovery. Unite to Stop U.S. imperialism — for Peace, Jobs and Canadian Independence — Put Canada First! It was the movement for the shorter work week, culminating in Chicago’s Haymarket massacre, which gave birth to May Day. Now, 100 years later, the issue of shorter work time with no loss in take- home pay again stands out as the premier demand of the labor movement, an issue which must form the foundation of any progress for real recovery, for full employment and against the adverse consequences of technological change. Party of the Workers On this May Day, as it did 100 years ago, the organization of the unorganized remains a cardinal ‘task of labor. The Communist Party hails the struggle - of the Eaton’s workers, 80 per cent of whom are women. Their fight is our fight, for the organization of Eaton’s opens the door to the organization of the remaining 60 per cent of the work force in Canada still not organized, the majority of whom are women and immigrants. As well, the Communist Party of Canada sends its warmest May Day greetings to the heroic peoples of Nicaragua, South Africa, and elsewhere, who are in the front lines of the struggle against imperialism and reaction, our common enemies. * * 2 The Communist Party is confident that the working class is more than equal to the challenge of a very complex struggle. By its decision to fight back on its own behalf, labor steps into the forefront of the fight of all others oppressed by monopoly capital. We are confident that labor will move to the front of the battle to preserve peace and Canadian in- dependence. In facing these questions the working class can continue to count on the unswerving support of its own party — the Communist Party of Canada. Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! MAY DAY GREETINGS to all members, friends and supporters Communist Party of Canada Bill Bennett Club Burnaby Club Campbell River Club Coquitlam Club Kamloops Club Kingsway Club Maple Ridge Club Nanaimo Club Nigel Morgan Club Niilo Makela Club 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 1, 1985 Olgin Club Penticton Club Richmond Club Sunshine Coast Club’ Surrey Club Vancouver East Club Vancouver Fish Club Vernon Club Westside Club Fraser Valley Region GREETINGS ON MAY DAY Peace and Jobs not Star Wars and Insecurity Vancouver Island Regional Committee Communist Party of Canada