May Day 2002: Reclaimed by workers and youth
5 May 2002

In 2002 the bosses media just couldnât hide the fact that it was May Day. For days before the press and the broadcast media predicted mayhem and militancy around the . Obviously their fascination centred on France where the biggest demonstration for decades was expected because of Le Penâs victory over Lionel Jospin and the Socialist Party in round one of the presidential elections. Dark warnings were issues of the danger of clashes between the racists and anti-racists. Huge mobilisations of police were resorted too.

Our masters just hate it when people take politics - especially class politics - onto the streets. In fact in many countries mobilisations this year were much bigger, fuelled by the USA and its allies war drive, by the murderous Zionist persecution of the Palestinians, by the rise of the racist right and by right-wing governments trying to demolish workers gains or solve crises at their expense.

Below we print reports from the sections and members of the LRCI.

Britain

For the first time in years, Mayday was celebrated by over 10,000 workers representing unions from the Fire Brigade to the Transport and General Workers, from Amicus to the Communications Workers. It was a glorious day and for once the weather was with us!

Revolution, the socialist youth organisation, toured its sound system past SOAS university to pick up Revolution members there on our way to meet other students who were participating in a students' strike meeting up at Kings Cross. About 60 of us took the road and walked along Farringdon, past the Mount Pleasant sorting office where many workers were getting ready to join the demonstration down at Clerkenwell Green.

Joining over 10,000 trade unionists and anti-capitalists, Turkish and Kurdish exiles and other community and political groups at Clerkenwell Green, we started to move towards Trafalgar Square. There was a festive and militant atmosphere as we chanted anti-war and anti-capitalist slogans. The police were omnipresent but did not interfere with the demonstration.

Another highlight of the day was the Sex Workers Soho Carnival Parade. We made our way up to Soho by 5pm and the Rhythms of Resistance samba band was already in full swing. We samba-ed around Soho for about an hour before the cops started blocking us off.

At the supposed "hotspot" there were only cops and cameramen, no protesters. It looked like a media stunt to justify the £4 million being spent on the police operation. The Police used this opportunity to shut down the party in Soho and Section 60 anyone that was left in the vicinity.

The demo and carnival were fantastic examples of how to bring anti-capitalist youth and trade unionists together. It is something we must build on in the months ahead and not just each Mayday.

France

Across France over one million people demonstrated on May Day. The massive anti-Le Pen rallies dwarfed the turnout of between 10,000 and 15,000 far-rightists who turned out for the fascist demagogue.

In addition to the Paris demonstrations, some 400 regional protests were staged, the largest in Lyon (50,000), Bordeaux, Toulouse and Grenoble (40,000), Marseille, Lille and Nantes (30,000) and Strasbourg (15,000). Even smaller cities , such as Saint-Nazaire (14,000) and Rouen (13,000),witnessed sizeable mobilisations.

In Paris there were four separate anti-Le Pen marches but the main one was organised by the major trade unions and supported by dozens of left-wing, immigrant and anti-racists organisations. It took hours to pass along the wide boulevard from the Place de la RŽpublique to the Place de la Nation. The crowd was so vast that police had to open other streets for the marchers. Many were still marching into the evening.

The crowd was representative of the French working population and the unemployed,: trade unionists, sans papiers, people from the Arab and African Vietnamese and Turkish communities. Above all young peopleÑ who have been the backbone of the daily protests since April 21. They came in vast numbers : students from schools, colleges and universities,

Members of Pouvoir Ouvier gave out a statement calling for resistance to Le Pen on the streets and in the workplaces but for no vote to Chirac. This took some determination and was hard going - in the face of considerable hostility from many who thought the only way to stop Le Pen was to vote Chirac.

Italy

In Italy, where unions are in struggle against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's attempt to make it easier for employers to sack workers by altering article 18 of the Labour Statute- half a million people rallied in various demonstrations

The biggest march, 130,000 strong , was in Bologna. In Milan the demonstration was about 30,000 and in Naples (20,000). A big union-organised pop concert in Rome attracted 500,000 youth.

Unfortunately the anti capitalist movement demonstrated separately from main unions, but in also defence of workers' rights, in support of the Palestinians and, a position superior to that of the main union federations, for the extension of Article 18 to cover everyone. Of course these demonstrations could not match the recent.

GERMANY:

500.000 workers participated in the May Day demonstrations of the DGB (German trade union council). The demonstrations and rallies in about 500 towns and cities were larger and more lively compared to previous years.

The reason behind this is simple. IG Metall has called for a strike. The building workers union is on strike as well and in Berlin, the workers in the Kindergartens may go on strike. Of course, the decisive force is the metal workers unions, the heavy battalions of the German working class.

The ballot in Baden-WŸrttemberg and Berlin-Brandenburg, the two districts the IG Metall leadership called for a vote, voted for strike action with overwhelming majority, 86% (Berlin-Brandenburg) and 90% (Baden-WŸrttemberg) respectively.

Workers of many companies had delegations with their own banners and slogans at the demonstration, an old tradition which became rare over the last years.

Comrades of the Gruppe Arbeitermacht and REVOLUTION participated on the demonstrations nationally. In our may-day leaflet, we called for all out strike action, the extension of the strike nationally, its linking with the struggles of the building workers and the public sector. We put to the foreground the need for rank and file control over the strike, its goal, its tactics.

As if to prove our case for the urgent need of this, of strike committees elected by the workers, recallable and replaceable by them, the demand that no agreement must be struck behind the backs of the union members, IG Metall chairman Klaus Zwickel addressed the DGB-rally in Berlin agitating for the new tactic of the bureaucracy, called "flexi (flexible) strike".

What does this mean? The bureaucracy wants to call out workers only for one day, than they shall go back to work and another company shall take over. In this way, the bureaucracy wants to avoid lockouts and claims that more workers from different shops can be brought into the struggle.

The real reason for this "flexible" tactic is different. The IG Metall leaders want to have their hands free, be flexible enough for a "rapid agreement" and not be under too much pressure from striking workers who have gained confidence and the strength of living solidarity of a long all out strike.

The bureaucracy tells the workers that lockouts cannot be fought against and have to be avoided at all cost. But this is a lie. They can be fought by extending the action, by occupying the companies who lockout workers. Indeed this is an issue which can turn the wage dispute into a direct political struggle against all laws who inhibit strike action.

It is exactly this - the extension and generalisation of the struggle - Zwickel and the other union leaders want to avoid by maintaining their control of the strike.

The reason for this is simple. They donât a long militant strike putting to much pressure on the SPD and the government. They want a rapid compromise with the bosses which allows the bureaucracy to maintain its credibility and at the same time turn to campaign for the SPD in the incoming general elections.

But there are two important obstacles in Sickles way. Firstly, the capitalists who themselves donât want IG Metall unionists to signal to other workers that strike action is the way to win. Even a modest success of the strike would just remind the German bourgeoisie that all its imperialist ambitions may be shake by "its" working class. However, it may be the case, the capitalist again underestimated the fighting capacity of the working class, thinking that the rotten bureaucratic leaders are a true expression of the union members. The bosses had miscalculated that in Kohl are already, when they had to retreat rapidly against the strike to defend the sick pay leave. It may be again that this time the "intransigent" capitalists will hang out for a deal with the union leaders to avoid the worst.

The second obstacle to the bureaucrats game plan is the workers. The longer the strike goes on, the more bitter and decisive the struggle will become, the more difficult it will be for the unions leaders to get away with a shoddy deal.

But to challenge the tactic of the bureaucracy, we cannot and must not wait for events. Rank and file activists, Vertrauensleute (shop stewards), strike leaders have to come together now! That is why we call for a delegate conference of strike leaderships and shop stewards to discuses the strike tactic and to replace the "flexi-strike" with an all out mobilisation! The network of oppositional activists in the IG Metall and other unions has to become a rallying point for the rank and file to make the strike solid and to challenge the leader of the bureaucrats.

Members and supporters of the Gruppe Arbeitermacht are involved in strike leaderships in Stuttgart and Berlin. Together with the GAM, REVOLUTION is going to organise a "flying solidarity committee" with the strike amongst youth - students, school students, young workers. We see this as a practical step to bring anti-capitalists and the working class together in struggle.

In Berlin we also had our own contingent in the union march and at one of the three revolutionary May Day demonstration in the afternoon in Kreuzberg.

It had about 10.000 on the march and was more political this year, also stressing the struggle against social cuts, militarisation, solidarity with Palestine and preparation for the anti-Bush actions on 21.-23. May against the US-presidents visit.

Another one of the "revolutionary" May Day was a Maoist zombie march organised by the Senderistas, the other one, called by anti-fascist action actually was a reactionary one under the banner "Solidarity with Israel! For communism!" (No joke!)

In the evening there were some clashes with the police, which again had 7.000 cops concentrated in Berlin (and this was called a "de-escalating tactic") and patrolled through Kreuzberg - a massive provocation of the youth, working and immigrant population of one of the poorest districts of Berlin.

The burning of cars etc. was quite distant from the political demonstrations this year and actually was not part of a political action. It was rather the result of frustration, anger and the provocation by the cops. Our task is to give this unfocused anger a conscious political goal. One solution - revolution!

May Day in Vienna

In Vienna a usual there have been three separated demonstrations. The first and largest - organised by the Social Democracy and the Austrian TUC (…GB) - had more than 100.000 workers and youth marching from the workers districts to the city hall. As usual too it was concluded by speeches from the party leaders with fine words but no calls for any action against the BlueÐBlack coalition government.

The second demonstration - organised by the radical left, including ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt - Austrian section of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI)Ðhad about 3.000 participants. It was much stronger politically and some layers of the anti-capitalist youth and immigrant organisations took part. ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt and the youth group Revolution formed a loud and militant contingent: singing workers songs and chanting loud und militant slogans. We were warmly welcomed by trade unionists and even by long standing social democratic militants. We got a good hearing for our political message which was reflected on the financial front: making 260 euro on our bookstall.

This year we had to focus on three topics: the ongoing fight against the right wing government in Austria and the racist Haider party, the movement against imperialism and its war drive and the struggle against fascism here and abroad. The reasons for the last issue are a planned march of fascists in Vienna on May 8th., encouraged by the success of Le Pen in the first round of the presidential elections in France.

The third demonstration was organised by the Turkish Stalinist left and a little bit weaker than in the years before with some 2.500 participants. There have been two central weaknesses of May Day. The first of them is that there wee three not one united demonstration. The second is the fact that there still is no unification of the anti-capitalist movement and the workers movement here in Austria. All the three marches were dominated by organised workers with far too few young people participating.

One of the strong points is the fact that at least on the two smaller demonstrations national and international political questions were on the fore, thereby transcending the typical nationalism of the Austrian labour movement.

Australia - May Day in Melbourne

10000 unionists marched through central city Melbourne today in a show of considerable industrial force.

May Day began at 7am at the Department of Indigenous and Migrants Affairs. The building, symbolic for many of the Howard governments racist immigration policies, was blockaded by around 400 refugee rights and other activists.

The building, which contains many other government offices had been closed by the day and all workers told to stay at home on full pay - a victory before the blockade even began.

The blockade was a little more low key than last years blockade of the Australian Stock Exchange but by 11am it was joined by a huge union contingent - at that point about 3 - 4000 workers, led by a fleet of construction vehicles.

This May day the issues of war and refugees were clearly on the agenda - issues supported by the leaderships of the most militant unions in Victoria. Speeches at the blockade made it clear that the issue of refugees was an important one for the whole working class, especially on a day of international solidarity.

The next stop was that symbol of exploitation - NIKE. There the rally meet with many thousands more workers from the CFMEU (construction industry) and continued to the building where the Royal Commission into the building industry has been taking place.

This emphasised the other important aspect of May day - the fact that militant unions are under attack directly from the government - the CFMEU fears imminent deregistration as a result of the Commission.

In the afternoon a much smaller but nonetheless militant rally, met at Melbourneâs refugee detention centre, Maribrynong. Demonstrators pulled down an outside fence and marched round the side of the detention centre beside the huge security fences topped with rolls of barbed wire.

There was something almost surreal about the scene of a regiment of cops marching out of the suburban landscape to attack demonstrators at a concentration camp, set in the same quiet suburbia.

Police attempted to arrest a few demonstrators and were met with resistance. There was a brief scuffle and demonstrators succeeded in freeing the one person who cops were holding.

Later demonstrators gained access to much further inside the centre and were able to speak through a fence to detainees before being surrounded by police and eventually bundled out.

For Melbourne itâs a real step forward for unions to come out officially on May day and to do so in a distinctly political way over issues that go much further than just wages and conditions for their members.

Czech Republic

Despite (or because of?) the pre-election period May Day was poorer in the Czech Republic than in last years. The traditional rally of the KSCM (Communist Party) in Prague was attended only by some 10,000 with long and boring speeches of party leaders - all directed to the issue of June general elections - and core attendees looked even older than years before.

The Social democrats (CSSD) attracted some 1,500-2,000 people for what was rather than May Day rally a pre-election show-piece. The anarchist march was better attended than we expected after years of decline and attractiveness of anarchist demos. More than 300 marched in Prague -unfortunately not under any meaningful slogans or anything like that.

More action was seen in Brno, the second largest town in the Czech Republic, where about 400 Nazis marched while about the same number of anti-fascists tried to confront them but were easily stopped by the police armed to the teeth with riot gear, obviously getting in some training in preparation for protests against the NATO summit in November 2002 in Prague.

All around the country were smaller rallies of KSCM and in some cases of CSSD. The KSCM leadership claims that all in all 150,000 people participated in their rallies. Hmm!

Ukraine

Dear comrades,

Today, 1 May RV- Ukraine section of the LRCI- and members of the youth organisation REVO took part in the May Day demo and the meetings, which took place at Bessarbskaya Square in Kiev. About 1500 persons were present at the meeting, amongst which it was about 400 OROs members and supporters, including Stalinists from CPWP. We distributed our materials, including the information about the activity of different sections of LRCI and REVO. Both RV and REVO had our own banners. We estimate the action as a success.

The CP demo and meeting took place at Europeyskaya square and was attended by about 5000 persons, mainly CP members from all over Ukraine.

We received the telephone information that our intervention in other cities and regions was good and effective; We will have the details later. This year neither the police nor racist skinheads tried to attack the participants in the demonstration.

RV and REVO would like to send best wishes to all LRCI and Revolution comrades on May Day!

Argentina

This year May Day in Argentina was different to Europe. While it is a public holiday the big unions did not mobilise for mass demonstrations. The two factions of the CGT didn't do anything. The official faction under the leadership of Rodolfo Daer limited its May Day "activities" to having a dinner with President Eduardo Duhalde! After that Daer announced that the President "left a door open for wage hikes". Well done, Mister union leader!

The leader of the "dissident" CGT, Hugo Moyano, refused to attend this embarrassing dinner with the extremely unpopular Duhalde. He certainly recognises that Duhalde is a living corpse whose time is running out soon. So he stated this years May Day was "full of anguish" due to the governmentâs decision to "deepen an unjust economic model". However, as is typical for bureaucrats, words are not followed by deeds.

In opposite to them the CTA organised a May Day rally in front of the Congresso the parliament building. The CTA union federation is mainly based in the public sector workers and the piqueteros the unemployed movement in which also the Maoist-led CCC plays an important albeit completely reformist role.

While the leadership of the CTA can be described as social-democratic it is less integrated into the political regime than the Peronist CGTs and it is at the moment under more pressure from the rank &file since in the last 2 weeks there has been a massive upsurge of public sector workers class struggles.

However the bureaucracy did not seriously mobilise for this event. It was therefore attended by only 3-5.000 people. The speeches of the CTA leaders were glaring examples of the contradictory nature of reformism. They were full of denunciations against the IMF, imperialism, solidarity with Cuba, the Palestinian people, for peace and so on. They also rejected the "Third Way" of Tony Blair and argued why they were not attending the "round table" talks with the president anymore.

However on the question of strategy the audience received no answers. Finally one leader announced at least one concrete action but even the way he did this was symptomatic. He said that the CTA will call an one-day general strike "in the last week of October", he than stumbled and corrected himself "No, I mean in the last week of May"!

Nevertheless this announcement reflects the growing anger of the Argentine working class. Indeed there is a real chance that the wave of public sector strikes and occupation of municipal government buildings can spill over into a new revolutionary upsurge.

The left was unfortunately divided at the May Day. The MST a right- centrist group in the tradition of Morenoism which has been in an alliance with the reformist Communist Party for more than a decade ö made their own demonstration at the Obelisk with around 2.000 people.

The comrades of the PTS initiated a rally in front of the occupied Brukman factory together with a delegation of the Zanon workers and then marched to the Plaza de Mayo. Raul Godoy, the leader of the Zanon striking workers and a member of the PTS explained in his speech the important example which the occupied factories of Zanon, Brukman, Panificadora, etc are setting - 5 of which are now producing under workers control. They show that workers have the power and the ability to run the economy and the country.

Jose Montes a well-known leader of the shipyard workers in La Plata and the PTS candidate at the last national elections stressed the actuality of international solidarity against the background of the world-wide offensive of imperialism and the numerous examples of resistance.

After the rally the PTS contingent which had nearly 1.000 participants and several workers delegations marched to the Plaza de Mayo where several left wing organisations like the Partido Obreo and several piquetero organisations organised a rally. The demonstration at the Plaza de Mayo was attended by around 5.000 people.

Compared with May Day in other countries the demonstrations in Argentina where not so big in numbers. This reflects the central problem of the Argentine revolution: that the mass of workers movement is still controlled by the bureaucratic union apparatus and this apparatus fears the radicalisation of their rank &file. The vanguard of the workers movement is still too weak to challenge the leadership of the unions. However for the last two weeks a wave of strikes has erupted in several provinces against wage arrears which could open a new chapter in the revolutionary process.

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