Join ISG at the following events on May 1st:
- Boston, MA: 2:30pm, Dewey Square and 4:30pm, Boston Common
- Worcester, MA: 4pm, City Hall
- New Bedford, MA: 4:30pm, Corner of State Highway 140 & Brownell Avenue
- Portland, ME: 3pm, Monument Square
May 1st, May Day, is International Workers Day. May Day rallies this year will include protests against the Trump regime, the cost-of-living crisis, attacks on immigrants, and the war against Iran. Calls for a general strike emerged in the Minneapolis anti-ICE protests in January. The Independent Socialist Group supports the call for “No Work, No School, No Shopping,” which came out of these Minneapolis mass protests. Many unions are joining protests this year to make May Day larger than usual. But without our unions leading members out on strike, these large protests won’t go far enough to stop Trump, the attacks on the working class, and the wars for oil and corporate profits. Unions need to help organize a real general strike. We need revolutionary socialist ideas to take on Trump and the corporate class.
An immediate campaign of actions starting with standouts, mass protests, and public meetings, leading up to a 24-hour general strike, should be organized by the AFL-CIO and individual unions, centered around key demands. Millions of working-class people can unite in a powerful mass movement to fight against Trump and the corporate class.
Trump continues to use ICE against the working class and his political opponents. ICE “surges,” violence, murder, and mass detainments have terrorized working-class communities. Arrests have nearly doubled in the last year to 1,100 per day. Since January, at least 17 people have died in ICE custody.
The U.S.-Israeli war is killing thousands in Iran and Lebanon and displacing millions. The genocidal war against Palestinians continues. The Democratic and Republican parties tail Trump into a war across the Middle East. The Strait of Hormuz blockade accelerates inflation, threatening a worldwide economic depression. Meanwhile, the U.S. imposes a brutal blockade on Cuba with threats to invade, causing an economic and social crisis. The Republican and Democratic parties agree to dump endless money into wars while cutting education and public services.
The Democratic Party offers no real opposition or solution to Trump’s rampaging forever-war policies, his anti-working-class economic agenda, and his racist attacks on immigrants. The Democratic Party has backed huge increases in war and ICE funds. Where the Democratic Party is in power, they’ve used police to suppress protests against the genocide in Gaza and ICE.
Revolutionary socialists have consistently raised the need for political independence. Across the world, unions and socialists collaborated to build independent, mass working-class socialist, communist, or labor parties to represent workers’ interests. We need to break from the capitalist Democratic and Republican parties, support independent left candidates, and build a party of our own – a workers’ party.
ISG stands for the following key demands:
- Stop the war on Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza! Working-class action to end this useless and costly war.
- Slash the military budget and tax the rich and corporations! Money for jobs programs, public housing, free education, and more.
- Abolish ICE! Stop the attacks and terror against immigrants and working-class communities.
- Overturn the Taft-Hartley Act, abolish Right-To-Work laws, pass the PRO Act, lift bans on the right to strike for public-sector workers. Restore union rights to federal workers.
- Raise the federal minimum wage to $30/hr and fight against inflation with price controls on necessities like groceries, healthcare, rents, and utilities.
- A workers’ party that can take on both the Democratic and Republican parties and unite working-class people against corporate interests.
- For revolutionary socialism, a world run democratically by the working class for our needs, not the profits of a few.
May Day has its origins in the U.S., born in the struggle for the 8-hour work day, the 1886 Haymarket Massacre, and the international socialist movement. At every point in the history of the labor movement, revolutionary socialists have been on the front lines of fighting for unions and the working class.
To end the billionaires’ exploitation of working-class people and our labor, we need to fight for revolutionary socialism. We need an economy under the democratic control of the working class, where we can decide how to use our labor to meet society’s needs. We need to unite in an international revolutionary socialist movement against oppression, capitalism, and imperialism.
Independent Socialist Group 