MAY DAY: HAITI

The working class needs a revolutionary communist leadership. Members and friends of PLP participated in a May Day demonstration. We distributed 250 copies of DEFI (Creole edition of CHALLENGE), calling for workers in the factories, fields and public sector, and students to build a mass PLP and end the misery of capitalism and imperialism.
We passed out 600 flers exposing the role of union hacks, reformists pseudo leftists in trying to deliver workers and their unions in Haiti to the local and international bosses. Increasingly, PLP is giving revolutionary leadership to the workers’ struggles here.
Nearly 300 workers and trade unionists took to the streets today. But without red flags, demands, slogans or political leadership, there was a carnival-like atmosphere at the Damien Industrial Park, where the bosses like to organize festivals.
But even this scared the bosses. Police blocked the protesters from the start, preventing us from marching to the Ministry of Agriculture where the bosses had organized a May Day “fair” to demean the struggles of the working class. Of course, workers couldn’t afford the price of admission to the fair! The police barricaded the marchers while the band of criminals in the presidential motorcade were passed through. The opportunist union leaders used the march to make their usual press appearances, just like the factory bosses.
The two union federations organized separate activities, but the common thread was passivity and lack of struggle. Workers in Haiti face the most vicious exploitation by the international capitalists: crushing unemployment and poverty, overcrowded and insufficient schools, no health care system and a cholera epidemic brought by UN troops which continues to kill daily.
Without revolutionary leadership inside the unions, the sellout leaders will reap their perks as they mis-lead workers into the arms of the bosses. It’s our job to build a base inside the workers’ movement and transform the fight for our daily needs into the fight for communist revolution. This is the leadership the international working class needs against the bloodsucking bosses.
Our experience this May Day gives our comrades and friends confidence that the working class is open to revolutionary communist leadership. By participating in these actions and fighting for our outlook with our revolutionary literature, we can move masses in this direction.
After the march, we gathered to discuss our experiences in union struggles and the need to make building PLP the main goal of every fight. It’s important for us to participate in these struggles and give more direction on the ground. We seek new ways to create confidence in PLP among the masses. We grow stronger each time we participate and give leadership to workers’ struggles.
DEFI must look deeper into the problems and obstacles faced by the working class, explain clearly why they exist and how they can be solved by getting rid of this rotten, racist, sexist system of exploitation once and for all.
Victory for the working class, led by the revolutionary communist PLP. Workers of the world, unite! Fight for communism!