08) MAY DAY RALLIES DRAW MILLIONS INTO THE STREETS

PV Vancouver Bureau

            This year's May First actions brought millions of working people into the streets, at rallies large and small across the planet.

            As always, one of the biggest demonstrations was in Havana, the capital city of socialist Cuba. An estimated one million Cubans and foreign guests took part in the annual rally at Che Guevara Square, showing their support for the country's revolutionary alternative to capitalism.

            It was a far different scene in Istanbul, Turkey, where police used water cannons and tear gas against thousands of protesters who sought to march in Taksim Square. The square was the focal point of weeks of protests last summer, in defiance of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his administration.

            After lifting a 32‑year ban on May Day celebrations in Taksim Square in 2010, the Turkish government reinstituted the ban last year. Erdogan had warned that he wouldn't allow protesters in the square. The prime minister has cast both last summer's street protests and a corruption scandal dogging his government since December as part of a plot to undermine him. The demonstrators in Istanbul were met by about 40,000 police officers, who blocked roads, fired tear gas canisters and used water cannons in an attempt to prevent access to the square. Some 40 people were hospitalized and around 160 detained, according to the Progressive Lawyers Association.

            Meanwhile, Cambodian protesters also clashed with police in Pnomh Penh, in defiance of a ban on demonstrations that has been in place since January. In Rostock, Germany, riot police had to forcibly remove sitting protesters, who were blocking the streets.

            But in most countries, authorities allowed protests and demonstrations to take place without direct police brutality.

            About 100,000 workers paraded on Moscow's iconic Red Square. The largest May Day demonstration in recent years in the Russian capital had a strong anti‑fascist flavour, as participants condemned the recent wave of far right violence in Ukraine. May Day was a key date in the Soviet calendar, but in recent years, the annual demonstrations have been relegated to a city highway. Trade union leaders said about two million people had turned up for May Day rallies across Russia.

            Protesters were out in force in many European countries including France, Italy and Greece, marching against unemployment and austerity policies. In Greece, thousands rallied in the two main cities of Athens and Salonika against an austerity drive following a disastrous debt crisis that led to mass lay‑offs.

            In Italy's Turin, scuffles broke out between police and hundreds of protesters. Activists lobbed smoke bombs after police charged demonstrators in the northern industrial city, which has been badly hit by a painful two‑year recession.

            Thousands marched in France, with the biggest rallies in Paris and other major cities such as Bordeaux and Toulouse targeting the Socialist government's budget cuts to rein in the deficit.

            Rallies also took place across Asia, including in Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Taipei.

            In Indonesia, protestors carrying portraits of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and the country's first president Sukarno, marched to the state palace in Jakarta. Some sang and danced as others carried a three‑metre‑long toy octopus wearing a red hat with the words "Capitalist Octopus, Sucking the Blood of Workers."

            More than 1,000 protesters gathered in Hong Kong's landmark Victoria Park to walk towards the government headquarters waving colourful flags and placards, while singing a Chinese version of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the musical Les Miserables, while calling for better working conditions and wages. Domestic helper rights groups, which made up a large portion of the rally, wore masks with a picture of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, an Indonesian maid who was allegedly abused by her employer for months, while shouting: "We are workers, we are not slaves".

            Malaysian workers celebrated the first of May in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, reminding employers and the government of the need for better pay and working benefits. Tens of thousands flocked to a massive protest around Dataran Merdeka, the original planned venue, which was cordoned off. They were rallying against the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which will be implemented in April 2015. Malaysians are worried that the GST will be an added burden, particularly for the working class and the poor, who are already reeling from an inflationary onslaught.

            The huge public response to the May Day rally in Kuala Lumpur prompted the government to warn that civil servants found participating in anti‑GST protests would face stern action, including sacking. One government adviser insisted that university students involved in the rally should be punished, and religious leaders called on Muslims to support the GST. These warnings, however, were widely seen by critics as a mere bullying tactic.

            More than 10,000 workers marched to the labour ministry in Taiwan's capital Taipei demanding wage hikes and a ban on companies hiring cheap temporary or part‑time workers.

            In Singapore, a rally of around 400 protestors chanting slogans calling for the long‑ruling People's Action Party to step down.

            in South Korea, around 5,000 workers rallied outside Seoul railway station, but the traditional May Day trade union gathering was overshadowed by the ferry disaster that claimed the lives of hundreds of people, many of them schoolchildren. The workers marched to City Hall to pay their respects to the victims of the April 16 tragedy at a temporary memorial.

            May Day events were generally smaller in North America, but took place in dozens of cities across the U.S. and Canada.

            Thousands joined New York City's leading labour unions, and immigrant and community organizations for a massive rally in lower Manhattan. Sponsored by the Labor Rights, Immigrant Rights, and Jobs for All Coalition, the rally demanded an increase in the minimum wage; fair contracts for city employees; putting a halt to unjust deportations and enacting national immigration reform and the New York State DREAM Act; and building all construction projects with union labor and preserving the state's "scaffolding law," while also calling for universal pre‑kindergarten and raising taxes on Wall Street and the richest 1%. The rally began with speeches and live music at City Hall Park and culminated with a march to Wall Street.

            "May Day is about all workers," said Vincent Alvarez, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL‑CIO. "The city's labor movement is a microcosm of our larger society, representing workers from all cultures and economic backgrounds, who are standing up for the issues that affect all of us. The fight for better wages isn't just for low‑wage workers, just like the fight for a path to citizenship doesn't only concern immigrant workers. On May Day and every day, we must band together for justice for all working men and women."

            Thousands of people arrived in downtown Los Angeles to support immigrant rights. Themed "Keeping families together," the march emphasized the goal of ending deportations that split parents from their children. Other issues brought forward included increasing the federal minimum wage and immigrant worker rights.

            "It's the day that we remind the American public and the government that there's a great debt to our community," said Angelica Salas, executive director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "We work hard in every single industry, yet we don't have the recognition or the respect that we deserve."

            May Day marches took place in a number of Canadian cities, including along Vancouver's Commercial Drive, where hundreds took part in the annual event sponsored by the Vancouver and District Labour Council.

            Thousands took the streets of Toronto to celebrate May Day and to fight poverty and capitalism.The 9th annual "May Day of Action" was Coordinated by a coalition of community groups including No One Is Illegal ‑ Toronto, May 1st Movement and Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

            In Venezuela, a familiar sea of red shirts, large banners and a revolutionary sing‑along soundtrack marked International Workers Day in Merida City, part of Caracas. The celebratory atmosphere was due in part to the April 30 announcement by President Nicolas Maduro a 30% increase in the national minimum wage. The higher turnout came as local activists reacted to the lifting of three months of blockades, violent attacks and assassinations by anti‑government groups representing the interests of the wealthy class.

(The above article is from the May 16-31, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)