From Mexico to Haiti, Workers celebrate May Day

Mexico, May 1–This May Day, just over thirty enthusiastic friends and members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) commemorated this international working class holiday with two marches, one in Mexico City and another in Oaxaca. We distributed 4,500 Challenge fliers, chanted slogans and sang communist songs. The presence of our modest contingents represents a small flame that, with dedication and work in organizing our class, will eventually become a conflagration that will reduce inequality, racism, sexism, exploitation, fascism and nationalism to ashes.
The working class must understand the real meaning of the Fourth Transformation (4T) that the current government is carrying out. It is really just another deceptive trick of the capitalist system. For centuries, capitalism has generated huge profits for the bosses at the cost of exploitation, misery and death for workers all over the world. The working class does not need more capitalism, what it needs is a system of social equality like communism.
Behind Andres Manuel López Obrador’s rhetoric, under the 4T’s plans the profit system remains intact, as well as the theft of the impoverished majority by the billionaire minority. For proof all we need to do is review the main policies that it promotes.
The labor law reforms that will take shape in the Senate in the coming days, tackle three main issues. For starters, it attacks the union structure. Even though this structure has not been the most revolutionary, it has been used by workers as a vehicle for class struggle. The reforms are also trying to impose direct voting for the union leaders, regulate their decision making process and make their pay more transparent. Under the pretext of eliminating the union leaders’ power, an important worker defense mechanism is being weakened.
Another proposal is to improve the mechanisms of labor flexibility, which will not reverse the weakening of labor contracts with subcontracting as its maximum expression. The bosses want to force women and young people to join the labor market with "training contracts."
A similar situation can be observed with the approval of education reform, which maintains its punitive and repressive character against teachers and opens the doors to the privatization of public education, so desired by the bourgeoisie.
Criminal violence continues to increase, the alternative of providing economic support for the vulnerable population will only serve to promote political and electoral patronage. Even worse, the approval of the so-called National Guard, will increase the police and military presence that will mainly ensure the realization of national and global capitalist projects such as the interoceanic corridor, the Mayan train, the Dos Bocas refinery, mining, oil, water and biodiversity exploitation.
These projects will face working class resistance, as is currently happening in several parts of the country. Workers have organized against mining projects, mainly, but also against the airport in Texcoco. In addition to the media and political coverage used to achieve these plans through rigged consultations, the presidency will use the discrediting of opponents as radicalized minorities, as it has done with teachers in Michoacán and Oaxaca, or with opponents of the thermoelectric plant in Puebla, which ended in the murder of one of its leaders.
After the "democratic" simulation and discrediting of opponents, the use of state violence through the National Guard and the army will be justified, to enforce the "rule of law" and the will of the majority. The projects of the 4T are the same as those of big local capitalists and the global imperialists.
At a global level capitalism is in crisis, the threat of a war between the main imperialists is increasing. Millions of workers have to migrate from their places of origin to escape violence and poverty; migration is growing rapidly in Mexico and Central America. Contrary to the promises made in the campaign, the current government has adopted a policy of control, repression and criminalization of migrants.
The working class in Mexico has been one of the most oppressed in the world in the last decade. It receives one of the lowest salaries, with fewer and fewer labor rights, with the longest working hours, it is disorganized and depoliticized and is facing levels of violence similar to a country at war.
For the ruling class it was fundamental that a politician like López Obrador came to power, to give an appearance of change and democracy. The new government has given a respite to the political and capitalist class in Mexico and the world, to realize their plans for exploitation and to advance fascism.
Faced with this panorama, the working class must have its own plans, to reorganize, to politicize, and to resist and fight to change the unequal capitalist system for a communist system of social equality. That is the plan of the Progressive Labor Party.
This May Day, we raise the flags of the international unity of the working class, we defend the struggle of the workers for our liberation from the yoke of capital through a communist revolution, we reject the electoral farce and we call on workers to organize themselves in action-study collectives to understand the capitalist reality and eventually change it.
Members and friends of PLP believe that changing the capitalist system will take several generations, but we are confident that our class historically has achieved the greatest social, cultural, political, technological, and scientific advances as occurred during the Russian and Chinese revolution and during all class struggle around the world.

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Haiti, May 27—“We have to destroy capitalism to make room for communism.” This was the most memorable sentence at the Progressive Labor Party’s May Day activities. To mark the International Workers’ Day, PLP participated in a number of militant activities in several locations.
Red discussions
One event was organized in a community of agricultural workers and their families where PLP has been active for a long time. A discussion was held under the Mapou tree on May 1 about the history and importance of May Day as a worldwide workers’ celebration of fights against the capitalism. “Today is really not a fête,” said one of our comrades. “It is a moment of reflection about how to organize ourselves noting the difference between May Day as a day of commemoration of struggle and not just the celebration of ‘agriculture and work’ as the Haitian capitalist class would have us believe.”
These ideas were greeted with smiles and applause. The comrade noted that Haitian workers and students have contributed to this worldwide movement in their fight against corruption, unemployment and all the misery that capitalism brings to workers and their families.
Mass mobilizations
In the capital city, Port-au-Prince, several participated in mass mobilizations of thousands of workers and students. They continue to build confidence inside the working class about the necessity to fight back under the communist leadership of the PLP. The current period is favorable to these ideas because there is a real lack of leadership among those engaged in spontaneous mobilizations against the Haitian and international bourgeoisie.  
The current economic, social and political context is an objective condition for the class struggle. The PLP takes the opportunity to raise awareness and organize masses for the class struggle.
Destroy this rotten system
On May 5, in the provincial town, we organized a full day of activities. A militant anti-capitalist professor and a PLP comrade hosted a talk about the ruling class’s mafia-like strategies. Workers, employed and unemployed, high school and university students all had the opportunity to struggle, with much animation, over the ideas about revolutionary communism. One of them underscored the conclusion: “We have to build the Party to destroy this rotten system, capitalism!”
A PL’er spoke about why May Day calls for ongoing reflection and organization. “Thanks to struggles of workers under communist leadership for almost two centuries, the working class has had many victories. Yet many of those victories have been reversed, such as the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. Unless we permanently bury the capitalists, they will always find a way back.”
The comrade used the labor code as an example of a legal maneuver used by the capitalist state to guarantee their rule. “Labor regulations are designed by the bosses and voted into law by their valets, the bought-and-paid-for politicians. A portion of the labor code states workers’ strikes must be announced in advance and cannot go on for more than two days! At this, one worker exclaimed, “We must put an end to all this, the politicians are not in favor of the masses, we must no longer vote!”
For his part, the professor criticized the imperialists’ savage exploitation of the natural resources and the labor force of the working class, particularly here. He highlighted the lies concocted by the rulers and their stooges to make workers believe that the investments made by the bourgeoisie will change their lives so that they passively accept the bondage imposed on them.
At the end of the day, we shared some tasty food prepared by the organizing collective, while the participants took the opportunity to express their satisfaction and confidence in our line. Indeed, our Party is getting stronger day by day.