Let’s March this May Day for Communism
“The janitors are very resentful and angry at the leadership of our union, SEIU Local 1877,” said a janitor to Red Flag.
“The union is useless. The top leadership, the local leadership and union reps are not doing their job of representing and defending the membership,” said another janitor.
“We organized the union to fight for our needs. We thought it was going to be our salvation. But, that was not the case,” interjected another janitor.
“No, only communism can meet the needs of the working class,” said our comrade.
“Yes, trade unionism is not a revolutionary theory,” added another janitor.
“It’s not enough to blame the union for all the evils of capitalism” said the comrade. “Trade unionism does not seek to end capitalism’s wage slavery, the cause of our exploitation and oppression. That’s why, no matter who leads the unions, in the long run they end up betraying the workers and doing what the capitalists want. That is why we need a communist revolution. In communism there will be no money to corrupt anyone.
“Your efforts and sacrifices in organizing the union energized the US and Canada labor movement. Your treacherous union leaders cynically used this movement to unionize more than 200,000 janitors in the US and Canada. They take in a huge amount of money in monthly union dues.”
“Those dues are wrenched out of our sweat. Full timers pay $57 monthly. Temporary workers are supposed to pay their dues on a daily basis. The union, however, takes the dues out of their first day of work even if that’s all they work in the month. We work all night so they can drive luxurious cars. They live well without doing anything.”
“Rather,” corrected another janitor, “they work –but not for us– for the companies that exploit us. Our problems are many and every day they get worse, for example:
* The companies often steal our money, paying us for fewer hours than we worked, or for fewer days of our vacations. The union only files our complaints without doing anything about it. A temporary worker did not receive her wage increase for a whole year.
* The companies have increased the floors that we clean from two to three floors and some places even more, or from 50 thousand square feet to 100 thousand and more square feet for one shift. Many people have accidents or are quitting because of overwork.
* We have so much work that we can’t finish it in the 8-hour shift. Many janitors only take 15 minutes to eat instead of the stipulated 30 minutes.”
Trade Unionism: A Dead End Street. Communism: Only Solution For Workers.
Creative work is a human need. It should be a source of life and advancement for everyone. But wage slavery—the only jobs that we can get under capitalism—is humiliating, exploitative and murderous. It destroys our lives in exchange for a miserable wage that barely gives us enough to live. Our retirement is not, nor will be, very different.
That’s why after more than 26 years of fighting, although at first things improved some for the janitors, things are now going from bad to worse. Capitalism’s logic is to increase our super-exploitation in order to squeeze more profits from our labor.
In times of economic crisis like today, they need to super-exploit us even more. They force us to pay for their imperialist wars so that they may super-exploit the workers and plunder the natural resources of other countries. That is why Trump is increasing the military budget while cutting programs that benefit workers.
His racist and fascist campaign against Muslims and undocumented workers is to divide our class to exploit us all even more. His motto “America First” is to blind us with patriotism so that we willingly fight, kill and die for the profits and empire of the US capitalists.
Our answer should be to organize a communist revolution. We want and need a world without borders or nations, without racism, sexism or xenophobia. A world where no one is the boss or servant of others. A world where everyone, especially leaders, does manual work, such as cleaning and farming, and also intellectual work like that done by agronomists, doctors and scientists. A world where our main concern will be to improve and advance the well-being of humanity and the planet.
If this is the world you want for yourself, your family and friends, join ICWP, help distribute Red Flag and recruit others to do the same. March with our contingent in this year’s May Day March. We will be marching under the red flags of communist revolution.
LOS ANGELES, USA – Trade unions and other groups tied to the Democratic Party are calling for a massive May Day march.
They hope to surpass the “Day Without an Immigrant” march that shut down much of the city in 2006. May Day 2017 could become, in effect, a political strike against anti-immigrant policies and legislation.
Such a reformist political strike would try to channel mass anger into elections. The working class actually needs communist political strikes to build toward insurrections. But when hundreds of thousands are in the streets, we can’t act as though it’s “business as usual.”
More of us must find ways to take May Day off from work or school so we can mobilize for communism at the march. More must organize groups of friends and co-workers who will bring communism into the streets as well as the shops, barracks and classrooms. More must seize the future by joining the International Communist Workers’ Party!
