Building for May Day Young and Old, Across All Borders

NEW JERSEY

We had a very international May Day dinner in New Jersey to raise funds for the Party’s big events to celebrate this working-class holiday. Twenty-six of us came — some immigrants from 11 different countries:  Jamaica, Peru, Italy, Hungary, Ecuador, the Philippines, Macedonia, Guatemala, Israel, Korea, Honduras and from Africa. There was fabulous Ethiopian and Guatemalan cooking, black-eyed pea fritters, with desserts of apple pie and brownies.
We heard stories of immigration, of untold expense and deadly injuries. Many undocumented immigrant pay smugglers (coyotes) $7,000 to $10,000 to come from Central America. There is no guarantee the immigrant will arrive safely to his/her destination and many have died either abandoned by the smugglers, crossing the desert, the river, or even asphyxiated piled up in cargo train cars, trucks, etc.

The Río Grande is cold and deep.  Many don’t survive the swim.  One man loaded his three children into an inflatable raft and swam with one arm, pushing the raft with the other.  Another woman spent one night with two other adults in the trunk of a car, almost dying of dehydration and suffocation.  Each had a story of having to leave individuals in the desert who could not walk or be carried.  Two people related how Mexican workers often carried other people, children or adults, to the border who would never have survived the journey without their help.

The message was stated throughout that an international Party, the PLP, is essential to get rid of borders forever.  With each horrific tale, it became more obvious that borders mean only separation of families, lowering wages, starvation and death for working people.  The clear communist solution has to include doing away with wage slavery, profits and the entire capitalist class of parasites who suck the blood from workers trapped by borders.  The working-class immigrants have already demonstrated the fortitude and courage necessary to win! J
NJ Red

NEW YORK CITY

A collective of young and veteran members of Progressive Labor Party is coordinating efforts for a large gathering to celebrate May Day in New York City. We’re developing both the program and our organizing around a central theme of increasing class struggle to build the Party.
Our program features young comrades, helping to develop their leadership abilities, which is already reflected in the struggle they’ve spearheaded against NYC’s Department of Education. (See CHALLENGE, 04/09/08.) The excitement generated around this struggle has increased CHALLENGE distribution and produced potential new recruits to PLP. The energy of students and teachers and their understanding of the class struggle sharpened during this fight, which should help make our celebration an exciting one.
We will also acknowledge the contributions of long-standing members as we build for the future. A veteran of many on-the-job struggles will stress the importance of communist organizing at the workplace, linking his experiences with a call for participation in a Summer Project at some of PLP’s industrial concentrations.
Finally, we plan to ask the audience four questions about communism that our friends frequently ask. We hope the May Day celebrators will participate via their answers.

May Day marks a review of the strength of our communist organizing. The efforts of comrades, young and old, will ensure it will be inspiring and successful.
NYC May Day Collective

Spain: PL’ers Defend Immigrant, Organize for May Day

SPAIN — We are celebrating May Day, the international working-class holiday, including distributing a leaflet outside Metro (subway) stations in a major city here. This occurs amid growing attacks by the regular and immigration cops.
A friend from Brazil was arrested at his job just for the “crime” of being an undocumented immigrant. From the U.S. to Spain, capitalism, to survive, needs repression and racism against workers by forcing immigrant workers to work for less and produce super-profits for the bosses.
A group of us went to the police station to support our fellow worker. He was lucky not to be beaten by the cops. We celebrated a small victory because he wasn’t deported, just given a letter of expulsion.
Communist ideas are being spread among workers in this and other struggles. Our May Day leaflet will bring these ideas to other workers who don’t know about PLP. Anarchist ideas are widespread here and there’s a fear about communism because anti-communist ideas are rampant. But now PLP’ers are working in many areas of the world with the aim of winning workers to understand what’s best for our class: communism. Long live May Day and the workers of the world! J
(For El Salvador PLP May Day Call, See PLP website –– www.plp.org)