Before
When an economic depression hit the United States from the years of 1873-79, US rapidly expand its’ industrial production, particularly in Chicago. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been hired, mostly Germans and Bohemians who earned roughly $1.50 a day, working on over 60 hours a week. Due to harsh living conditions, Chicago was met with various attempts of protests and strikes to demand better economic conditions. Their employers answered them with strikebreakers, goons or thugs, police forces, racism and discrimination and even live bullets. News agencies of those times supported the businessmen and repressed any attempts of the migrants for foreign language newspaper.
By May 1, 1886, two years after the convention held by the Federation of Trades and Labour Unions decided for the standardization of 8 hour work day, the workers went on strike. 100,000 workers across the United States joined the protests demanding a no cut in pay 8 hour work day. In Chicago alone, 30,000 to 40,000 workers joined the said strike. On May 4, around10:30 pm of the same year, just when Samuel Fielden was finishing his speech before at least 3,000 crowds, the police forces demanded the protest be dispersed, Fielden then said that the strike was peaceful. A home-made dynamite was defused and thrown to the direction of the police by an unknown person. The explosion killed seven police officers. Immediately gunshots were exchanged, killing four workers and wounding 70 more. The history will remember this event as Haymarket affair.
About forty years after the first May 1 protest, the Union Obrero Demoratica Filipinas (Filipino Democratic Labour Union) held a protest in front of the Malacañang Palace- Philippine Presidents’ office and residence- on May 1, 1903. The protest had an attendance of 100,000 people, demanding economic rights and genuine independence from the American colonialists. A year later during the 1904 sixth conference of the Second International held in Amsterdam, they called for “all trade unions and Social Democratic Parties of all countries to demonstrate for workers demands and universal peace.”
After
To talk about the struggle of the workers during the 19th century is to talk about the economic policy that they fought against: liberalism, economic policy that campaigns for a free market economy or laissez-faire, encourages free trade and open competition amongst capitalists, in other words, the capital and means of production belongs to private companies, to the hands of the few. In this policy, the capitalists are untouchable and the workers suffer. Two hundred years after the very first May 1 protest in Chicago, United States, the workers of the 21st century fell into the same fate as their ancestors, much worse even is that these attack on workers and people are being legalized by lawmakers and capitalists themselves. Under Free Trade Agreements (FTA) or TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and other agreements that only the monopoly capitalists enjoy while the workers suffer. These unequal agreements will not be successful without the help of the governments, international institutions such as International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Organization (WBO) who plays the role of Messiah, acting as if they are here to save the underdeveloped countries only to push them into deeper poverty by creating more debts after more debts. This legalization of exploitation and slavery goes by the name Neoliberalism: the resurgence of the 19th-century liberalism, a policy that attacks the workers and the people through creating unemployment, cheap labour, contractualization or no permanent contract. That privatized industries, pushes for austerity measures and free trades. The very policy that caused the ethnic tension between the migrant workers to create gaps between the nationalities. This very policy in fact never left us, it only hides behind the laws and treaties written not for our benefit but for the benefit of those who monopolize the capital and the industries.
Today is just like yesterday, the workers are going to the streets not only during labour day but frequently, to demand better economic conditions. Just like the 19th century, the workers are demanding for liberation, for independence from the new form of colonialism that infests our nations; from plundering our natural resources and causing brain drain to hiring mass migrant workers. The 19th century plague never left us, it is visible in underdeveloped countries such as the Philippines where the laws are written to attract foreign investors and mining companies who goes on staycation in order steal the lands of the farmers, to convert it into either mining sites or large plantations dedicated for exportation. The farmers will then work under the big-landowners through wages, they will start renting their lands so they can continue farming. Their crops will go directly to the landowners. The farmers earn so little that they will be forced to be debt with an extremely high interest, most of them spent the rest of their lives paying for it. Thus naturally, they will move to the cities where they can work as domestic helpers or drivers or service crews, but only to find out that the industries that hire them [and the city itself] are owned by the foreign investors. Not only the workers in the cities are being challenged by unemployment, contractualization and low paid jobs, they are also subject to an inhuman working environment to which some resulted in factory fires that kill hundreds of workers.
Workers in underdeveloped countries like the Philippines are hired to work abroad en masse. Slightly over 6, 000 Filipinos leave the country every day to work abroad, needless to say, 6,000 families are being broken by poverty on daily basis. The Philippines alone has 10% of its’ population abroad in over 100 countries. This diaspora of the Filipinos is supported by its’ own government through Labour Export Policy or LEP- a policy born from neoliberalism. Just like any underdeveloped nation’s citizens, the migrant workers are being paid lower than the citizens of the first world nations and yet they take over the jobs that the first world nation citizens do not want to take. Works such as construction and carpentry, domestic work or housekeeping and other so-called ‘low paid’ or ‘dirty jobs’ are usually given to migrant workers for low wages. Meanwhile, while doing all these jobs, the migrant workers are vulnerable to physical, verbal and even sexual abuses. The migrant workers are vulnerable to racism and discrimination in and out of the work floor, slavery and ultimately they are vulnerable to being undocumented and then deportation.
What is to be done?
We live in a century where we still practice the inhuman treatment to workers and people of the aforementioned century. We live in a century where we make use of the same chants and slogans 200 years ago. We live in a century where we are a disgrace to the martyrs of the working class for in some countries, like the Netherlands, the International Workers’ Day is a day of festivity, the demands of the workers could not be heard and the ethnic tension that has been created two-hundred years ago, to divide the working class is still being practice today.
Today, we march to pay the highest tribute to all the migrant workers and refugees who have been forced to leave their countries due to war and poverty created by the neoliberal policy, a policy that attacks the people and the workers. Today, we call on all the working class, to the working class of the first world nation not to be blinded by hate towards the migrant workers. We the migrant workers do not steal your jobs, we the migrant workers are not the problem of this society. We are not the ones creating poverty and unemployment, we are not the ones causing crime. If the government is creating more jobs and allotting enough funds for education instead of creating and funding wars, there wouldn’t be competition amongst the working class, there wouldn’t be a crime committed by the poor to put food on their table. Racism and discrimination have been created by this system to draw a huge gap between the working class and oppressed people and nation so that they can further hide the atrocities committed behind the name of capital, so they can cause hate and division between the oppressed peoples. This racism and discrimination are initiated by the system to divert our attention from the real enemies: the capitalists, to divert our attention from the real problem: the capital. Racism and discrimination have been created to make us all forget that we, the migrant workers and refugees are in your country because the monopoly capitalists and its’ ally national governments plundered our nation, installed their puppet regime to repress our own nations and causes poverty. The migrants are in your country because we are being treated as a commodity, being imported into the First World countries to do the dirty jobs for low wages. Treated as slaves, ripped off of our dignity and self-respect. The migrant workers are not the enemies of working class, we are part of the working class, we face the same enemy as the working class in our host country. Our struggle as migrants and refugees is the struggle of the entire working people and oppressed nations. We struggle for a better economic condition, we struggle for higher wages, for permanent contracts and social services. We struggle for liberation from the colonialists whose bases have been installed in our countries, installed behind foreign investments and mining companies. Our struggle is the struggle of the entire working class, our victory is the victory of the entire working class, but we will not win this fight if we stand alone, therefore we call the unity of all the workers and oppressed people and nations of the world to stand against the monopoly capitalists, unite against the ruling class that causes more division in this society. Unite against the class that exploits the workers.
We call on the youth to conduct alternative studies of the concrete situation of our society. We call on all the youth to resist the neoliberalism found in their textbooks and educational institutions, hence we encourage the youth to join the struggle of the working class as part of the broader masses, to see themselves as part of the working class, as part the most advanced class in the era of capitalist. Dedicate all your talent into serving the people and overthrowing the system that is killing your dreams, of killing who you want to be. We call on all the youth to join the fight against the neoliberal attack on workers and people!
Working men of all countries, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Long Live International Solidarity!
Resist Imperialism!