May Day
By Southeast Asian left organisations
Long live May Day! Workers of the world unite!
May Day message from the Socialist Alliance, Australia
May 1, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- As workers around the world take to the streets to celebrate May Day, we are sharply aware that the capitalist system has reached a point of development where it threatens the habitability of the planet on which we all live.
Last month, for the first time in 3 million years, the carbon concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere reached 399.7 parts per million (ppm) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. In several other parts of the world that day, the reading exceeded 400 ppm.
When CO2 concentrations were last above 400 ppm it was the Pliocene era, when temperatures were 3-4 degrees Celsius and sea levels were 5-40 metres higher than they are today. Capitalism is throwing our planet into dangerous climate change.
Sadly this is no surprise. Capitalism has already devastated the lives of billions of people through exploitation, war and poverty.
Venezuela's labour movement at the crossroads; Stalin Borges Perez on May Day
See http://www.links.org.au/node/388#comment-527 for a report on the Caracas May Day March.
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Venezuela's labour movement at the crossroads
By Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes
Militants mark May Day in Timor Leste, Pakistan and Malaysia (video)
Timor Leste: Workers and students rally for May Day in Dili
By Mericio Akara
Indonesia: Call for Venezuela-style oil nationalisations; Papernas May Day statement
April 29, 2008 -- About
1000 workers, students and urban poor held a pre-May Day demonstration
outside GKBI Towers in Jakarta, a flashy skyscraper that is the
Indonesian headquarters of companies like ExxonMobil, ANZ Bank, Cable
& Wireless, Credit Lyonnais Capital, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical,
France Telecom, KPMG, McKinsey & Company, OCBC Bank and the Swiss Bank.
Michael A. Lebowitz: May Day -- The capitalist workday, the socialist workday
By Michael A. Lebowitz
April 24, 2008 -- As May Day approaches, there are four things that are worth remembering:
1. For workers, May Day does not celebrate a state holiday or gifts from the state but commemorates the struggle of workers from below.
2. The initial focus of May Day was a struggle for the shorter workday.
3. The struggle for the shorter workday is not an isolated struggle but is the struggle against capitalist exploitation.