MAY DAY, 1975

“A major milestone in history’ |

By NIGEL MORGAN

On May First the working people of all countries demonstrate their international solidarity; renew the sacred pledge to help each other in the class struggle; confront the war-makers, oppressors and ex- ploiters with the mighty power of world-wide unity of all who toil; and proclaim their dedication to a new world of peace, freedom and social advance.

May Day was born on the North American continent out of the struggle of workers of the United States and Canada for the eight- hour work day. The ‘‘Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada”’ (forerunner of the AFL- CIO) set May 1, 1886 as the day for | united effort to bring an end to’ excessive hours of toil.

Hundreds of thousands came out _ on strike and gathered in meetings and demonstrations in the main industrial centres across the continent to establish their right to limit the hours of work to eight hours per day.

The bosses. countered by unleashing brutal police violence, winding up with the exploitation of a terrorist act, (widely believed to have been a provocation of the police themselves), to hang the workers’ leadership in the Mc- Cormack-Harvester strike meeting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square.

“There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices which you are strangling today,”’ were the defiant words the Haymarket martyrs — Parsons, Fischer, Spies and Engel — carried on their lips as they were led to the gallows. From that day in 1886 May Day was destined to - become a symbol of struggle, of hard-won victories, and of a world to win. The founding congress of the Second (Socialist and Labor) International in 1889 set May Day as a day for a_ world-wide

HAYMARKET MASSACRE! An artist's view of the attack by police ona peaceable labor meeting held May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. The meeting-was called to pro- test police brutality and the murder of six locked-out workers at the McCormick Harvester _ Works. The rally was attacked by 180 police. A bomb suddenly exploded. Police fired wild- ly. Several civilians and police were killed and injured. Leaders of the eight-hour movement

demonstration with the workers of North America.

* * *

May Day, 1975 will break on a world that has undergone tremendous changes, and in which even bigger changes are on the agenda around the globe. One-third of the human race are already living in countries where the rule of capital has been replaced by the power of the working class, and where a new way of life is being ‘built. Working people of all nations have good reason to be proud of the tremendous achievements of the new Socialist world system, led by the Soviet Union — first and most advanced ot the Socialist countries — which on-May 9 will com- memorate the 30th anniversary of the heroic, unmatched contribution its people made to victory over fascism.

This year, May Day sees the forces of national and social liberation literally handcuffing the warmakers; calling the im- perialist enslavers and foreign exploiters to account in country after country. The past year has seen the most signal advance in the international situation since the years immediately following the victory over fascism. The difficult years of cold war have given way to a new era of detente. This has been the most distinctive feature of the recent period — a reflection of

the new balance of forces in the’

world today. The first and most. decisive factor in this new balance is the accelerating advance in the relative strength and constructive role of socialism in which the Soviet Union is in the forefront of the Socialist nations.

May Day, 1975 will record a year of brilliant successes. With the help of the socialist states, the newly- liberated countries, and the workers and progressive people of the world, the heroic people of Indochina’ have routed U.S. aggression and their puppet Lon Nol and Thieu regimes.

After centuries of enslavement and degradation at the hands of

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B.C. Communist Party leader Nigel Morgan points to the vast changes which have taken place in the world and the new challenges facing B.C. labor this May Day.

successive imperialist plunderers the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have driven the most powerful of all imperialist powers, the U.S.A., out of Southeast Asia and have begun rebuilding their war-torn country and a new life.

New victories for democracy and national liberation have been won in a wide series of countries from Portugal and Greece _ to Madagascar.

The victory of the Portuguese people’s liberation struggle against half a century of fascist repression is bound up with a far wider~ range of liberation movements in the gigantic areas of the Portuguese colonies in Africa. The downfall of the Portuguese colonial empire in Africa has Sounded a warning note of the bankruptcy and impending death knell of the old racialist regimes based on apartheid and _ special privileged positions of colonialist settlers, which have denied the right of the overwhelming black majority to vote in all national, state or municipal elections and

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This is the international situation

in which the advances toward .

detente (which it would be dangerous, however, to take for granted) is of paramount im- portance. The world is changing; and at jet speed!

* * *

The general crisis of im- perialism is deepening and becoming more chronic throughout the capitalist world. In Canada we have crisis upon crisis — an in- flationary crisis; an energy crisis; a monetary crisis; a markets crisis; an unemployment crisis; a farm crisis; an ecological crisis; a moral crisis, etc. You name it. We’ve got it. Even though the techniques of exploitation have been made more sophisticated, unconscionable profiteering, galloping inflation and mass layoffs are driving home the fact that the end results are the same — legalized robbery and plunder of the people.

In marked contrast to the Socialist world system, where jobs are still looking for people (instead of people looking for jobs); where there is no inflation; no energy crisis; and no markets crisis. State monopoly capitalism has demonstrated its inability to assure full employment, stable prices, rising standards and equal opportunities for all.

Inflation is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Our living standards are being steadily eroded, yet profits like prices are at an all-time high. This is the way in which wage cuts are being imposed on the working people and pensioners, while guaranteeing profits for the monopolies and big foreign multi- national corporations. Never have so many been rooked by so few!

Federal, _ provincial and municipal budgets, which it is claimed are aimed at lessening

inflation and preventing recession,

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were arrested and later executed. These events were closely connected with the founding of

May Ist as labor's international day.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1975—Page 4

MENT FOR A SHORTER DAY. 3 se ireds of S es, in which Near- ee se Two Millions of Workingmen ere = the Participators. ‘ork pee,

_and pensioner standards; to get 4

are doing neither. Parliamenl while calling on working people ‘ exercise ‘‘moderate restraint, and now threatens an ‘incomes | policy” to restrict wage increas®: | is voting itself a 33 per cent hike. © | fine example of “restraint,” a

What restraint do they expe workers to exercise with infla | tion continuing at 12 per cent aly | predicted to going up at an evel | higher rate this coming he What restraint do they want old | age pensioners and those depen® | ent on welfare allowances to exel | cise? Just what restraint c@l | B.C.’s thousands of unemploy® loggers, miners, millworket;_ plant, office and service person 4 exercise in places of work th@ | have laid off, or shut down com \ pletely?

* * *

The attack on working people’ | living standards, while profits miS° | higher’ and higher, finds furthel | reflection in monopoly-inspil@" | attacks on the right to strike 7 through compulsory arbitratiol | While the focal point of the atta a today is the West Coas } longshoremen, and provincially : the public service sector, we wouX | be naive to think they intend to stoP there. Their real aim is to cripple | the right to strike in industry, be it public or private; undermine freé collective bargaining, and maké labor organization ineffective.

In this way trade unions can a integrated into the mechanism an state monopoly capitalism am transformed into pliable pawns 0 class collaboration in conditions "| sharpening competition in thé) shrinking capitalist world market The working class and their trade unions need to go all out in unit battle to defeat these reactionary aims, aimed at shifting the ful burden of the developing crisi& § onto their shoulders. :

The challenge before B.C. labot this May Day is to provide) dynamic leadership, to curb) monopoly power by economic an united political action anchore?” firmly to a class approach; to rais© | the purchasing power of the people through higher wages while cuttin8 . the hours of work to provide en! ployment for the jobless; to compe a shift in the growing tax burden® from people to the highly | profitable industries, and to ¢% | pand the public sector of the | economy to provide a sound basis for full employment and _risiné standards of living by endiné monopoly rip-offs.

; * * *

Big business in B.C. is engaged in a powerful offensive to block an | disrupt necessary democrati€ reforms and regain control of thé | provincial government. We havé | seen a well-orchestrate progaganda barrage; phoney strikes by the insurance companies and landlords; and mining com pany-inspired demonstrations against the government. Bié business is pressing hard to force the government to abandon its program of reforms. ‘They ar uniting around a refurbished an well-financed Socred Party: | Widespread appeals for a wal | chest for the Socreds are cil culating in business circles.

It would be a serious mistake t underestimate the extent of this ultra-conservative, anti-labor, anti-peoples gang-up. The monopolists are infuriated becaus® the NDP government has done | much to improve welfare, health,

See MAY DAY, pg. 15