May Day: Los Angeles Dinner

LOS ANGELES, April 28 — “This was the best May Day in 30 years!” exclaimed a veteran comrade at the end of the Los Angeles May Day dinner.  Over 100 people — workers, students, unemployed and retirees — came to Progressive Labor Party’s celebration of the international workers’ day. This great turnout reflected months of visiting students and workers in their homes and workplaces and involving them in class struggle. 

The evening began with a comrade reviewing the history of May Day.  She explained not just the beginnings of our workers’ holiday, but also how she became involved in PLP when a contingent of hundreds of janitors joined our May Day March in 2000. They were disillusioned in the sellout  “Justice for Janitors” campaign by the Service Employees International Union. This point was especially significant, since the SEIU is once again mobilizing and misleading thousands of local janitors into campaigning for the Democratic Party in this year’s elections. 

Following this inspirational speech came amazing original poetry, beautiful singing and speeches from workers involved in a variety of struggles. A bus system worker spoke alongside a student about fighting back against racist attacks on transit workers and riders. 

Campus workers and students stood side-by-side while speaking of their struggle to end contracted work, or “in-sourcing,” and how they fought against the overt racism of union and campus misleaders. These workers, who are mainly Latina, have shown the determination of the working class and the power of unity and a fighting attitude, even though we understand that any reform victories will be yanked away as soon as the bosses have an opening. 

An original poem explored the current world situation and the working class’s need for a new movement based on class consciousness and revolutionary communism. The world-situation speech reiterated these points, pointing out the continuing war in the Middle East as a product of capitalism. The speaker noted that the racist budget cuts in the L.A. school system have eliminated early childhood and adult education programs, and related them to the austerity measures destroying the lives of workers across Europe.

She condemned the racist killings of Trayvon Martin in Florida and Kendrake McDade by cops in Pasadena, California, along with the murder of an Iraqi woman in El Cajon, California, by unknown Nazi types.  These killings reflect the capitalist system’s need for racism and brutality to divide and intimidate workers. The speech ended by contrasting the disempowering pseudo-democracy of capitalist elections with the empowering fight for communist revolution.

Our night ended with a rousing call for participation with the PLP May Day contingent in the May 1st Occupy March and the singing of the Internationale. A young participant stated that May Day was “pretty cool” and that the speakers “have a strong point that they want to get across to the world, and I would want to be a part of that.” 

The May Day dinner was a huge success. The participation of these workers represents great potential for growth of our Party. Now comes the hard part: the long-term political work. By making communist politics primary in all of our struggles, we can convert this potential into new PL’ers and new communist leaders for the working class.