__By MAURICE RUSH

On May 1 working people of all
lands will mark the 90th an-
hiversary of labor’s international
Oliday. Born out of the struggle in
the United States for the eight hour
Y, labor’s day of international
j Solidarity has, from its earliest
€innings, been associated with
le demands for peace and
'Sarmament.

The tradition of May Day was
Started in 1886 when the workers of

lcago staged their historic
Meeting in Haymarket Square to
_“*Monstrate for the eight-hour day
and to protest police brutality
‘Bainst strikers. The police attack
the peaceful demonstrators and
subsequent frameup of the
faders of the eight hour day
feces and their imprisonment
‘ €xecution, inflamed workers’
Motions in every land. It led to
.4Y 1 being declared a day of
aetnational labor brotherhood
hd solidarity by the Paris

OMgress of the Second In-
Pe

May Day and fight

fo end arms race

ternational in 1889 at the request of
the American Federation of Labor.

The founding of May Day was a
new stage in the development of
the international working class
movement. It represented the
realization by workers of all lands,
colors, and tongues, that there
existed an international bond of
common interests between labor of
all countries. What was more
natural than that labor should
express its concern for the
preservation of world peace?
Working people everywhere saw
war and the vast waste on ar-
maments as a threat to their in-

End arm
scrap all weapons.

terests and security. Why should
workers of one land kill their
brothers of other lands in wars
which the workers paid for and in
which they died?

It was this realization that led
the Zurich Congress of the Second
International in 1893 — four years
after it declared May First an
international holiday — to make
this historic declaration:

“The demonstration on May
First for the eight hour day must
serve at the same time as a
demonstration of the determined
will of the working class to destroy
class distinctions through social
change and thus enter on the road
. .. leading to peace for all people,
to international peace.”’

Throughout the years the slogans
of peace, disarmament and
brotherhood have been to the
forefront as labor in all lands
demonstrated on May Day.

During the Thirties, when
fascism was threatening and
imperialist war loomed, May Day
demonstrations around the world,
in Canada, and at huge May Day
parades in Vancouver, saw
working people carrying banners
for peace, disarmament, collective
security and in support of peoples
struggling against imperialism.

In the years following World War
II, when imperialism sought to
regain its losses resulting from the
war, and launched the cold war
and with it a new wave of
militarization and aggression
against colonial peoples — this
time brandishing the threat of
nuclear war over the heads of
mankind — labor once again
returned to its demands for peace,
nuclear disarmament and ending
the arms race.

During the past 30 years May
Day demonstrations around the
world have served to mobilize
labor and its supporters to join
hands in the struggle for peace.

“Ban the bomb,’’ ‘‘Disarm
now,” “End the war in Vietnam,”’
became demands of labor in all
lands along with slogans such as,
“Higher wages now,” “Defend the
right to organize and bargain
collectively,’ “‘Halt repression,”’
“Shorter hours with the same take-
home pay,” etc. Working people
increasingly recognized that their
economic security and interests as
a class were closely linked with
preserving world peace and ending
the threat of nuclear war.

During the years of the
Stockholm Appeal in the 1950’s
when more than 500 million people
signed petitions demanding . the
banning of nuclear bombs and a
halt to nuclear testing, May Day

rallies became high points of the
campaign which stayed the hand of
the nuclear madmen and brought
about the first agreement to ban
testing in the atmosphere.

For more than 10 years, up to
May Day, 1975, when the people of
Vietnam won their liberation from
U.S. imperialism, support for the
peoples of Vietnam was one of the
highlights of May Day demon-
strations around the world.

This May Day will see the people
of Vietnam celebrating the
decision to reunify their country in
conditions of peace, partly thanks
to the support. given the Viet-
namese people by labor and peace-
loving people around the world.

Although the Vietnam war is
over, and progress toward detente
has opened the way to a world at
peace, a secure and lasting peace
is not yet with us as we celebrate
May Day, 1976. The arms race goes
on. Concrete steps toward general
and complete disarmament are
still lacking and are being blocked
by right-wing imperialist forces
(and China) who want to continue
the arms race and cold war.

Never has the burden of the arms
race been so heavy on the peoples
of the world, and especially the
working people, as it is this May
Day.

The Canadian government is
now spending $3 billion a year on
“‘defence”’ and present plans call
for boosting Canada’s arms bill to
$5 billion within a few years. Most
‘of this money is to purchase
military equipment from U.S.
corporations who make millions in
profit from arms sales, but provide
no jobs.

Canadians are asked to accept
lower wages, suffer unem-
ployment, see social programs cut
back, including hospitals, welfare,
unemployment insurance, and

education to pay for the huge
military budgets demanded by the
U.S. and NATO. The arms buildup
not only threatens the very
existence of our world. It robs
people; including Canadians, of the
right to jobs, homes, adequate
health care and education — and a
secure future for our children.

That is why on this May Day
working people around the world
will renew their demands for peace
by supporting the new Stockholm
Appeal and petition now being
distributed in all lands. Canadians
too, will add their names to the
demands to end the arms race, ban
all nuclear and other weapons of
mass destruction, and for general
and complete disarmament.

In British Columbia, the people
have an especially strong reason
for supporting the Stockholm
Appeal this May Day — the Trident
sub base which turns southwest
B.C. into a major nuclear target.
When working people attend the
May Day rally this Saturday at the
Vancouver Technical School they
will hear labor songs and speeches
from working class leaders. At
Bangor, Washington other sounds
will be heard this May Day — the
sounds of construction of the U.S.
missile base which will house the
most deadly strategic nuclear
weapons ever devised by man. It is
the doomsday weapon being built
by the Pentagon to give the U.S. a
“first strike’ advantage over all
other countries, and is certain to
spur a new escalation of the arms
race, more costly and deadly than
anything mankind has ever known
before.

The halting of the arms race and
banning of nuclear weapons by all
countries is the only guarantee for
world peace and security. It is the
only way to ensure that weapons
such as the Trident sub and its
MARV missiles are never com-
pleted or used. That is _why
everyone concerned about the
Trident sub base should sign the
Stockholm Appeal and petition.

This May Day support for the
New Stockholm Appeal and
petition is a vital part of the fight
for labor’s rights and needs —
against inflation for jobs, decent
wages, security and a peaceful
future for our children.

MAY DAY GREETINGS
FROM

Marineworkers’ and
Boilermakers’ Industrial
Union, Local 1

Join in the demonstration May 1 against
Bill C-73
Fight Wage Controls

» pp bi pi ppbhphrarpaninpiniiint

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 30, 1976—Page 9