May Day 2016: International Working-Class Unity – for Jobs, Peace, Environment – Genuine Socialism!

But why should blue- and white-collar workers restrict themselves to chasing after rising prices and taxes with their wage struggles? The slogan coined by Karl Marx, “Abolition of the wages system”, aims at the workers not subjugating themselves to the capitalist logic of the exploitation of labor power! The working-class movement has to think beyond the limits of capitalism! In a socialist society the fruits of labor and nature benefit the broad masses of people and the future of the children and youth.

Isn't it outrageous that a Daimler boss like Zetsche earns 6,000 euros an hour while the employers' associations reject trade-union demands as “exorbitant”?

Our enemies are not the workers laboring in the Chinese, Indian or US-American factories. Our common enemy is today's worldwide solely ruling international finance capital with its governments and international forms of organization such as IMF, World Bank and UN. The ruling powers stop at nothing to guarantee maximum profits, raw materials and spheres of influence, even by means of war. They willfully risk the very foundations of human life.

It was recently officially confirmed what the MLPD has been making public for years, together with the militant miners' movement, and for which miners have even been defamed as liars and disciplined: The drinking water supply of the Ruhr area is massively endangered by PCB and 1.6 million tons of toxic wastes stored underground by the coal company Ruhrkohle AG and by its plans to flood the shafts. For an immediate stop to mine closures and to the flooding of the mines that have been shut down! Retrieval of the toxic wastes and accumulated underground PCB wastes at the expense of the RAG!

The VW crisis shows that the auto monopolies with the help of the state have reaped billions in profits at the cost of humans and nature with highly criminal wheelings and dealings. In spite of increasing droughts, floods and regional climate catastrophes, the Paris UN summit ended with free tickets for the companies to further emit unlimited amounts of CO₂.

Capitalism's lack of perspective can be seen especially in the more than 60 million people who are fleeing from war and hunger in the entire world. The European Union with Chancellor Merkel is fighting against the refugees and not against the causes of flight. With barbed wire fences and massive police operations, hundreds of thousands are being forced into inhuman conditions. Racist and fascist arsonists are made socially acceptable and promoted and encouraged by the state by means of reactionary smear propaganda against refugees. Contrary to the portrayal in much of the bourgeois media, the trend to the left is especially noticeable among the youth. Antifascist activities and internationalist consciousness are growing clearly. The year 2015 experienced the biggest rise in trade-union strikes in Germany in over 25 years. Nine million people alone are active in refugee aid. At the same time, racist and fascist slander and actions must be opposed with determination. Our trump card is international working-class unity.

A positive sign for the future is that ICOR, the international organization of revolutionary parties and organizations in which the MLPD is a member, is growing and becoming more widely known in the entire world. With its presently 49 organizations from 39 countries it has committed itself to the international coordination of struggles and the mutual support of liberation struggles.

On May Day the MLPD supports joint demonstrations and rallies, shoulder-to-shoulder, with equal rights and beyond differences of world outlook, on an antifascist basis. The MLPD proposes the following demands and slogans:

Forward to the working-class offensive!

For higher wages and salaries!

30-hour workweek with full wage compensation!

For a 10% quota of trainees in big industry!

Regular jobs for all former trainees commensurate with their training!

For a full legal right to strike in all matters!

For the liberation of women!

Save the environment from the capitalist profit economy!

Against imperialist aggression and wars!

Ban all fascist organizations and their propaganda!

Solidarity with the Kurdish liberation struggle!

For a future for the youth – for genuine socialism!

Don't give anticommunism a chance!

Workers regardless of nationality – one class, one enemy, one struggle!

Workers of all countries, unite!

Workers of all countries and all oppressed, unite!