May Day (May 1st) is the working-class’s international holiday celebrated by tens of millions of workers worldwide. It was born out of — and honors — the Chicago workers’ historic struggle for the 8-hour day on May 1, 1886, a general strike that spread to workers nation-wide. It’s a day when workers around the globe march for their common demands, signifying international working-class solidarity.

It’s the day when the world’s working class “holds a review of its forces, mobilized for the first time as One army, [under] One flag...[to] make the capitalists and landowners of all lands realize that today the proletarians of all lands are, in very truth, united.”

Ever since, with communist leadership, it has symbolized workers’ demands and class interests, united in the fight against capitalism. But by the 1950’s, most “communist” parties had abandoned these principles. Union leaders became lieutenants of the bosses, and either renounced May Day or stripped it of its revolutionary character.

In 1971, the Progressive Labor Party picked up the red banners of May Day in the U.S. It has organized May Day marches and activities in many countries for 38 years, to unite workers around their universal demands, regardless of capitalist-created borders. These include opposing imperialist war, racism, the special oppression of women, wage slavery and fascist police terror while championing unity of immigrant and citizen workers and the only solution to all these attacks facing the international working class — communist revolution.

Assemble:

N.Y.- May 2, 11 am at Linden Blvd. & Flatbush Ave.

L.A.- May 1, 11 am at Olympic & Broadway