From the editors: On this May Day, May 1, the International Labor Day, Journal of People, Peasants and Workers greets its readers and well-wishers. Journal of People was initiated on this day also. On its founding anniversary JoP thanks its readers and well-wishers for the support they have extended.

May 1st: The Sun of Tomorrow

by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

New Masses, May 6, 1941

Source: Yukon Federation of Labour

“Primo Maggio, il sole dell’ Avvenire” – May First, the sun of tomorrow! as our Italian comrades so beautifully it, is here again. It links ancient traditions, these modern times, and the future. Always a people’s natural holiday, since time immemorial it was the occasion for the gathering of the poor and lowly for one gala day of festivity. For the last fifty-five years it has been universally recognized and cherished by workers around the world as an International Labor Holiday. It is actually the only holiday celebrated internationally. It obliterates all differences of race, creed, color, and nationality. It celebrates the brotherhood of all workers everywhere. It crosses all national boundaries, it transcends all language barriers, it ignores all religious differences. It makes sharp and clear, around the world, the impassable chasm between all workers and all exploiters. It is the day when the class struggle in its most militant significance is reaffirmed by every conscious worker.

May Day 2017: Trample All Forms Of Sectarianism

by Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents.org | April 30, 2017

One hundred years ago, the proletariat in Petrograd celebrated the historic May Day in jubilation and honor. “Thousands of people turned out for the 1917 May Day parade. They carried […] banners and posters, which became the main elements of the decorations in Petrograd.” (Natalia Murray, “Feast in a time of plague, May Day celebrations of 1917-1918”, Baltic Worlds, vol. VI, no. 1, April 2013, Sodertorn University, Sweden)

“One of the leading artists of the World of Art movement, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, wrote, ‘[W]e have witnessed the birth of a new era: on the First of May we artists finally took our revolutionary banners out onto the streets […]!’” (Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, “Bomba ili khlopushka: Razgovor mezhdu dvumia khudozhnikami”, “A bomb or a firecracker: a conversation between two artists”, Novaia Zhizn, no. 83, 1918-05-04, quoted in Murray, op. cit.)

Into the Streets May First

by Alfred Hayes

New Masses, May 1934

Into the streets May First!
Into the roaring Square!
Shake the midtown towers!
Shatter the downtown air!
Come with a storm of banners,
Come with an earthquake tread,
Bells, hurl out of your belfries,
Red flag, leap out your red!
Out of the shops and factories,
Up with the sickle and hammer,
Comrades, these are our tools,
A song and a banner!
Roll song, from the sea of our hearts,
Banner, leap and be free;
Song and banner together,
Down with the bourgeoisie!
Sweep the big city, march forward,
The day is a barricade;
We hurl the bright bomb of the sun,
The moon like a hand grenade.
Pour forth like a second flood!
Thunder the alps of the air!
Subways are roaring our millions –
Comrades, into the square!

[THIS ARTICLE IS POSTED HERE FOR NON-PROFIT, NON-COMMERCIAL, EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE.]

 

From: Report of the Second Annual Session of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada

Held in Cleveland, Ohio

November 21, 22, 23, 24, 1882

Third Day – Afternoon Session

Eight-Hour Work Day

The eight-hour declaration of the Chicago Trades Assembly being next in order that document was read by the Secretary as follows:

Resisters fight for $15 at Illinois state capital

by EARCHIEL JOHNSON

People’s World | April 28, 2017

Earchiel Johnson/PW

SPRINGFIELD, Il. – On Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for a rally at the state capital to lobby the Illinois House of Representatives to raise the minimum wage to $15. The action was led by a multi-generational coalition consisting of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans(IL-ARA), Steel Workers Organizing Active Retirees, Nabisco 600 and many others.

Raising the minimum wage would impact the wages of a diverse swath of industries including fast food and home care workers.  In Chicago, the current minimum wage is $10.50 and will steadily increase until 2019 until it reaches $13 an hour. However, the rest of the state’s workers labor under a minimum wage of only $8.25 an hour.

North Carolina measure aims to get rid of unions

by LARRY RUBIN AND MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | April 28, 2014

Darron Cummings/AP

The right wingers who have captured North Carolina’s legislature are pushing to make the state’s anti-union, so-called “right to work” (RTW), law a part of the state constitution, which would make it more difficult to get rid of in the future.

North Carolina is just 3 percent unionized, the second lowest union density state in the nation. The state with the lowest percentage of union workers is South Carolina.

Can humanity survive Trump’s scorched-earth climate policies?

by JUAN LOPEZ

People’s World | April 28, 2017

People’s Climate March. | AP

Oakland, Calif. – Election night November 6 at approximately three hours past midnight the unexpected news that Donald Trump had secured the presidency left me dumb struck. Numb from head to toe.

Humanity and the planet had just crossed the point of no return. The death knell had just struck…or so it felt. Come to find out I was not alone in feeling that sense of gloom and doom.

In Photos: Peoples Climate March Draws ‘One Hell of A Lot of People’

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

Common Dreams | April 29, 2017

“Indigenous people are leading the Peoples Climate March to send one clear message to Trump: keep your fossil fuels in the ground,” said Dallas Goldtooth, campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network, ahead of the action. (Photo: Eman Mohammed/Survival Media Agency)

From coast to coast and across continents, people marched for environmental justice on Saturday, sending a clear message to the climate-denying Trump administration: we’ll fight your fossil fuel-soaked agenda every step of the way.

Organizers said that an estimated 200,000 participated in the flagship Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., while tens of thousands more demonstrated at more than 350 solidarity events in cities across the United States as well as in Asia and Europe.

Venezuela: MEPs Back Regime Change In Caracas

by James Tweedie

Morning Star | April 28, 2017

EURO-MPs backed regime change riots in Venezuela yesterday, a day after Caracas quit the “interventionist” Organisation of American States (OAS).

The European Parliament passed a resolution that “strongly condemns the brutal repression exercised by the Venezuelan security forces, as well as irregular armed groups, against the peaceful protests.”

That came as the death toll in violent anti-government protests since the start of the month hit 29, with only four known to be caused by security forces and those responsible arrested.

At least five have been confirmed killed by supporters of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mud) coalition, five by unknown assailants and nine as a result of their own actions.