A call for Calan Mai 2009
Calan Mai is the 1st May – On this day Mayday rallies, marches & cultural events happen all around the world, there is scarcely a capital city in Europe without a MayDay parade, Cardiff is notable for not holding a regular event. Indeed there has not been a proper marking of Mayday in Wales since Social Forum Cymru 06 in Aberystwyth.
May Day is International Workers’ Day, a day that should recognise that the working class is an international class; that the oppressed and exploited throughout the world have everything in common with each other and nothing in common with ‘their’ nation, ‘their’ government and ‘their’ bosses. So migrants, refugees, those deemed ‘illegal immigrants’ by the State,those facing deportation, people in detention, should be at the center of what May Day is all about.
Across Europe many cities organise protests and rallys as part of EuroMayday - a process by which actions and demands are put forward to fight the widespread precarization of youth and the discrimination of migrants in Europe and beyond: no borders, no workfare, no precarity!
The demands surrounding the protests for EuroMayDay 008 are:
- full legalization for all persecuted migrants
- self-organizing and unionizing rights freed from state repression
- unconditional basic income
- a european living wage
- free access to culture, knowledge, and skills
- the right to cheap housing
May 5, 2008 at 5:43 am
I think immigration is bad for both domestic workers and immigrant workers. Immigration is an anti-working class bourgeois strategy to swell the labour pool and drive down wages.
Cheers,
May 5, 2008 at 9:25 am
No precarity – yeah, that’s what it’s all about!
Seriously – there’s nothing wrong with putting migrants at the centre of Mayday but it’s for all workers. Migrants include Roman Abramovich and other multi-millionaires – are we defending them?
A bit more class analysis and relevance to Wales rather than cutting and pasting some godawful translation might help.
May 5, 2008 at 10:46 am
Roman Abramovich and other multi-millionaires do not suffer as a result of UK border controls. It is only those without money who are under threat.
The working class is an international class, those who would seek to divide workers on the lines of domestic or immigrant are pandering to racism. Such BNP style analysis of the movement of people does nothing to help the working class.
Migration is the natural result of the legacy of western colonialism, it has nothing to do with any sort of ‘bourgeois strategy’.
The industrial working class of south Wales was forged in the melting pot of migration., between 1851 and 1911, it is estimated that over 366,000 people moved into South Wales.
May 5, 2008 at 10:58 am
Our modern celebration of Mayday as a working class holiday evolved from the struggle for the eight hour work day in 1886. May 1, 1886 saw national strikes in the United States and Canada for an eight hour work day called by the Knights of Labour. (This was in response to people working manual labour for 10, 12, 14 hours a day or more…like modern day sweat shops).
In Chicago police attacked striking workers killing six. The next day at a demonstration in Haymarket Square to protest the police brutality a bomb exploded in the middle of a crowd of police killing and injuring some of them. The police arrested eight anarchist trade unionists claiming they threw the bombs.
To this day the subject is still one of controversy. The question remains whether the bomb was thrown by the workers at the police or whether one of the police’s own agent provocateurs dropped it in their haste to retreat from charging workers.
The Police fired back on the crowd, killing and injuring protestors and then began a campaign against the active Left, raiding unions, organizations and arresting activists.
In what was to become one of the most infamous show trials in America in the 19th century, but certainly not to be the last of such trials against radical workers, the State of Illinois tried the anarchist workingmen for fighting for their rights – being agitators and encouraging revolution) as much as being the actual bomb throwers.
Only one of those arrested was even at the demonstration — and he was on the speakers’ podium. Albert Parsons, August Spies, George Engle and Adolph Fischer were found guilty and executed by the State of Illinois. In Paris in 1889 the International Working Men’s Association (the First International) declared May 1st an international working class holiday in commemoration of the Haymarket Martyrs.
International Workers Day is just that, a day for workers wherever in the world they come from, it’s not British workers day or white workers day. Moves by the BNP and their front ‘trade union’ to claim Mayday as such is sickening and an insult to the memory of those brave comrades who died.
May 5, 2008 at 9:33 pm
not sure how the comments thread got hijacked into a conversation on immigration. sure rich people promote and encourage immigration to drive down wages, but that doesn’t meant that we should allow things like immigration status to divide our movement. solidarity is our best weapon and that means all working-class people everywhere – without regard to borders, race, nationality, ethnicity, or legal status. so cheers to keeping solidarity front and center. showing solidarity with immigrants and migrants is not the same as encouraging mass migration that uproots communities and forces people to flee far from friends and families in search of work, but these are our brothers and sisters and we owe it to them and to ourselves to stand up for them and for ourselves.
basically, i think you’re both right. as noborderswales said “Migration is the natural result of the legacy of western colonialism”, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t figure into bourgeoisie strategies. and solidarity is our best weapon to derail those strategies.
just my 2 cents.
May 6, 2008 at 4:54 pm
The rich don’t benefit from migration? Check your facts again, mate.
Saying immigration is a natural result of imperialism is irrelevant. If I beat my wife I’d say it was a natural result of capitalism and hierarchy or some such shite. Fact is, people got to stay put and fight for what they got, not leg it over seas like what the ruling class want.
NBW: “The industrial working class of south Wales was forged in the melting pot of migration., between 1851 and 1911, it is estimated that over 366,000 people moved into South Wales.”
That’s kind of my point. Was it a picnic? Was it fun and games and high-wages and good living-conditions? I think not, eh? And it probably also destroyed much rich cultural heritage and led to social nihilism and fragmentation. Like I said, a ruling class strategy.
Lynx: “showing solidarity with immigrants and migrants is not the same as encouraging mass migration that uproots communities and forces people to flee far from friends and families in search of work”
Totally agree. I support immigrants, and I oppose immigration. Immigrants are victims, same as domestic workers.
Cheers and solidarity,
May 6, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Incidentally, the demand for “an unconditional basic income” is reactionary and I do not support it at all.
May 9, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I totally support the need for a mayday call out for 2009.
It’s interesting to note the tone of the dialogue on this website. This issue needs to be raised in the public domain as often as possible because there is so much scaremongering about immigration. Precarity is really what its all about in terms of the situation of workers in the 21st century, but its not a term that anyone can connect with.
For myself, I see the economic system collapsing well before the century is out so its less about rights for ‘workers’ and more about solidarity with people enduring suffering, upheaval and inequality. I dislike the class war terminology of people as workers as we are all just human beings trying to make ends meet. We need to regain a sense of what’s important – food, clothes, shelter, sleep, water, fun, family, community. The capitalist system dictates that we are workers and it tells us what to do with our wages. Its a self-perpetuating feedback loop. This culture steals our lives and our freedom of thought.
We are all just life forms on planet earth, part of the ecosystem and part of the species called homo sapiens. We are pretty clever, given all the crazy gadgets we have made, but we’re pretty stupid too. We’re so much like children, sometimes, speaking as a mum, it seems uncanny. We don’t know how to get what we want so we shout at each other and wind each other up, bully each other and beat each other up. I don’t think any of us can say that we are entirely above all this malarkey.
Convincing other people to agree with your point of view is impossible when they are firmly entrenched in an entirely opposing belief system. Showing them that it makes more sense, so that they can base their understanding on personal experience and an emotional connection with an idea (in the same way that some people hold racist views until they actually get to know someone from a different ethnic background), is the only way for a person to change unless they have a massive shock to their system. Humans resist change, we are pretty adaptable, but we have to want to change. Having said that it’s really important to show solidarity and particularly that humans should care for all humans regardless of colour, origin or belief system. We gain strength from unity and co-operation.
There are two sides to this battle: fighting against oppression
building an alternative way of life free from oppression and helping others to do likewise.
*The egotistical is the least developed ethic: good is what benefits me
*The tribal ethic divides humanity into an in-group and an out-group: good is what benefits my in-group, my family or tribe. Racism, slavery, war, adversarial politics and competitive sports are based to varying degrees on this ethic.
*The humanitarian ethic gives equal worth to all humans: good is what benefits the most people most of the time. This is allegedly the dominant ethic in the world at the moment, at least in theory.
*The ecological ethic embraces humans, other sentient beings and the health of the planet as a whole: good is what benefits the whole earth. To embrace this ethic is the next neccessary step in the evolution of human culture. Without this ethic we will surely perish.
from Patrick Whitefield’s ‘Earth Care Manual’ a standard permaculture text
May 16, 2008 at 11:24 pm
fancy that a party in cairdiiff on the beltane, sounds like a good one, but can we have some talks and perhaps a film showing too, book the chapter for some rare imported beijing opera from the 60’s?
May 16, 2008 at 11:57 pm
iesu, where do you start with this one?
daniel as many other have alluded, your brand of ‘english socialism’, which sounds very similar to another form of nationally focused socialism that springs to mind is (as anarchol points out) so laden with BNP style assumptions its not true. you might as well give em the ammunition and line up all the outsiders yourself. (btw, anyone who want to know what wise old daniel thinks in a little more detail, check his wordpress page out ‘english socialism)
you say ‘I think immigration is bad for both domestic workers and immigrant workers. Immigration is an anti-working class bourgeois strategy to swell the labour pool and drive down wages’
if this is true then the strategies not working. There are labour shortages in many of the spheres that migrants are employed to fill at present – care work being a major case in point. Granted wages are low as it was but this isnt caused by migrants.
The ‘look after our own rhetoric’ that permeates your text (especially on your blog) speaks for itself. I just cant get my head around how anyone thinks that building up the borders and repatriating anyone who tries to come in is a stategy that is ever going to work. How would it be enforced? What level of coercion would be used to deport migrants who didnt, for whatever reason, want to go? Do we take migrants to mean those that are coming from NOW, 10 yrs ago… how on earth do you envisage this being implemented in anything that resembles a humanitarian way, I have NO idea. Dim syniad o gwbl!
my god you could waste your life on thinking through all the permutation of putting such a madness into practice. What about someone who just wanted to pass through for a few month? No, yes… who decides?
Is ‘ours’ based on birth place, blood, how far back do you go?
The more I think about it… this is more impossible to bring about in any way that wouldnt intensify existing divisions. I cant in anyway see how this would lead to anything i’d call solidarity?
expecting ‘them’ to stay in their own countries and fight for a better world just encourages parochialism. Stay of my land. Mind your own business. This is ‘our’ struggle you deal with ‘your’. Segmentation, fragmentation…
Btw – painting migrants and ourselves in terms of victims is far too crude for my liking. Yes they’re exploited just like the rest of us but they’re also highly creative in finding ways out of the poverty they find themselves in. The most obvious being what you’re trying to block them doing, i.e. to move, find work, send money back to their families so they can live build better lives for themselves etc etc. asking, no forcing, people to stay away and sending them back is NO way of showing solidarity and it’ll get us nowhere. The time of nationally focused struggles is over. Its dead in the water…
you could pick this post to pieces forever…
…but ive got better things to be doing… one final thing though. in terms of your disagreement of ‘an unconditional minimum wage’ bit, im kinda with you on that in that i’m not sure i would like to see it implemented but just calling it reactionary doesnt really get us anywhere now does it? i reckon its more fruitful to see it, not as a goal to be attained, but rather as a strategic demand designed to get people thinking about the value we attach to certain activities and about the boundaries between work and non-work. So for me (much like the ‘wages for housework’ campaigns of the 1960s) it gets me thinking about the issue of how more and more of our time is being spent onn work activities. How many of the more undervalued task performed, particularly by women, are not economically remunerated but are key to the reproduction of social life. How capitalist relations depend on value being attached in such ways and made to seem natural and hence inevitable. Overall, imo its a useful device for thinking with and building solidarity. Its an interesting attempt at getting people to think about why certain jobs make people rich while others dont even get remunerated at all…
im glad you state that you support immigrants but please wake up, realise you were wrong and start thinking in terms of strategies that might actually lead to changes that could do us all some good instead of this twisted mix!
im ready to move on to actually discussing how we can concretely make calan mai something worth celebrating in 2009.
nos da
noah