A symbolic event: 1st May in USA

As we have already seen, 1^st May, as a day of workers’ struggles, was born in USA in 1886 with the demonstration for an eight-hour labour day summoned by a trade union known as Gentlemen of Labour. Consequently, several leaders were jailed, tried and executed and became history as the Chicago Martyrs.

Ever since then, American bourgeoisie has been trying by hook or by crook to erase these facts from the memory of the workers of the country and so separate them from their brother in the rest of the world. No memorial of the confrontations between workers and policemen remains on the Chicago Haymarket Square. A monument honouring the Chicago Martyrs, placed after the execution, was withdrawn by authorities. As a counter position, a bust of a dead policeman was anonymously destroyed.

The 1^st of May, day of workers’ struggles, became a mystifying May Day and simultaneously, a Labor day was decreed to be commemorated on each first Monday of September, a date with no historic reference.

Last year

But not even the most powerful bourgeoisie in the world can conceal the historic truth for ever or avoid class struggle. Increasingly, the 1^st of May becomes a day of struggle in the USA once more, brought back by immigrant workers, especially Latin American, carriers of the tradition of their countries.

After massive demonstration held on 9^th and 10^th April 2006 demanding the right to live and work legally in the USA, organisations summoned for the 1^st of May lat year for a day of struggle for the demand “a day without immigrants”. Actually it was all about a general strike of workers of foreign origin to prove how important they were for the industry of the country. It was not an easy measure to take, in the USA, on a common labour day. They had risk being dismissed, losing their green cards or – in the case of the illegal immigrants – deportation not to mention the threats from fascist groups or various organisations and leaders.

But it was a great success. Hundreds of thousands left their jobs and once more filled the streets of the great cities in the country, such as New Cork, Los Angeles or Chicago and also in the all the smaller ones. Even at Anchorage (Alaska) several dozen demonstrators challenged the freezing cold of the city.

In many cases, they marched in their working clothes or with small posters saying “We are not criminals; we are workers” or grouped behind the banners of their organisations, such as the National Network of Day Workers (Mexican farmhands) and their demand: “We do not want to be anybody’s slaves”. In this way, in spite of over a century-long effort made by American bourgeoisie, 1^st of May once more was the day of workers’ struggle.

The importance

The massive nature of last year strike and demonstrations was not a trifle to be sneezed at. About 35% of American working class is American, especially Latin American. It is enough to visit any American city to see that in shops, hotels, restaurants, in the building activity or repairing streets.

There can be no doubt that, on a 1^st May, thousands of workers should once more march along the streets of American cities has a momentous symbolic meaning. It is also a very important fact for all the peoples of the world: these are the most exploited and marginal sectors of American working class that are now joining in the battle and beginning to shake the foundations of the entire society. Only future can tell whether these events are not the bridge the will connect the revolutionary processes of Latin America with the beginning of the socialist revolution in the USA.