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1977, Celebrations and Demonstrations: May Day Is Workers Day

By VVAW

May Day, 1977, Demonstrations and celebrations around the world. Millions of workers from the US to China marked the International Workers Day with bright banners, marches, parties, festivals and militant speeches celebrating the victories of the working class during the past year and expressing the determination to build the struggle against all exploitation and oppression in the year to come.

In 25 cities around the country May Day demonstrations were held. In New York City 450 people marched behind a huge float with a large May Day symbol on it, depicting the unity and strength of workers. They rallied at Union Square, the traditional cite of large May Day rallies in the past. In Chicago over 200 people marched and rallied in the city's south side. In San Francisco over 500 people came together to celebrate International Workers Day. In Birmingham, Atlanta, Boston and other cities workers and others came together bringing with them the spirit of working people standing up.

Banners proudly proclaimed the slogans of this year's May Day: Fight Don't Starve, Fight the Rich-Not Their Wars, Workers United To Lead the Fight Against All Oppression, and Down With the System of Wage Slavery. All these slogans point to the directions that the working class struggle is taking.

In many cities VVAW marched in separate contingents. In Los Angeles 25 vets marched with the workers. In New York City VVAW marched behind a "Fight the Rich-Not Their Wars" and in Chicago vets led the May Day march. In Minneapolis VVAW and the Revolutionary Student Brigade organized a May Day celebration.

While May Day is working class holiday, veterans have a special interest in taking part in these activities as most of us are sons of the working class and in the class ourselves. Having served in the imperialist military many vets have seen the way they are used to fight in the interests of the ruling class only to come home and fight the ruling class everywhere--on the job and in the communities we live in in order to survive in a system that cares only for their own gold-lined pockets and use working people like slaves chained to the mines, mills, factories and plants.

One of the vets in a May day speech put it out there clear as to what vets thinking, "We vets were used to fight for the rich, but not anymore. Look where we are today. It's International Workers Day and we're fighting along with the right side--the winning side in the battle--and that's the working class side. To Hell with the rich. Fight the rich, not their wars!"

This May day, as was true of the workers holiday in the past few years, workers are gaining strength and power and organization--seeing that there is an alternative to laying down and taking things as if that's the natural order of things. This May Day a special slogan was put forward--Seize the time in '77, Build a National Workers Organization. This organization will be formed in Chicago on Labor Day this year and was a part of the tasks laid out for the working class for the upcoming year.

As the May day celebration in Chicago one worker summed up what this organization will do. He said, "this organization must be rooted in the plants and industries based against speedup, wage cuts and attacks on our living standards. But it also must be at all times a vehicle to rally the ranks of the working class inside and outside the unions to deal with the burning questions that face us; the threat of war, unemployment, discrimination and countless attacks."

In all the cities worker after worker stood up and told of how they are fighting against attacks. In Philadelphia a transit worker talked about the long strike they waged recently. In New York hospital workers carried a banner stating ?We're proud to march with our fellow workers on May Day."

The spirit of May Day can best be summed up by a speaker from the Revolutionary Communist Party who state, "The road forward is the road of hard struggle, and only through struggle comes progress. Out of all the battles that rage wherever there are oppressors and oppressed will be forged step by step the unity and understanding to wage and win the decisive battle, to tear down the capitalist prison-house and then continue the struggle until mankind has been freed from all forms of slavery. The future belongs to the working class--We must dare to make it."