The communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in Mexico participated in the May Day march organized by the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) in Mexico City and Oaxaca. Around 40 members and supporters marched with our red flags, chanted communist slogans and songs, and distributed approximately 3,000 leaflets

In Oaxaca, our group of 12 comrades joined the massive march in which thousands of teachers took part. We carried a banner with the slogans: “DESTROY CAPITALISM AND ITS OFFSPRING, NAZI-FASCISM!” and “END IMPERIALIST WARS WITH THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION!” We carried the red flags of the International Communist PLP, distributed 500 leaflets, chanted revolutionary slogans, and later held a follow-up assembly. A number of our teacher-comrades marched with their union contingents, where they also helped distribute leaflets.

In Mexico City, we marched alongside representatives from the CNTE from different states across the country, primarily from Oaxaca. Our contingent consisted of 27 supporters and organizers who carried a banner calling for the CRUSHING OF THE IMPERIALIST WAR FOR PROFIT WITH THE POWER OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS AND COMMUNIST REVOLUTION! Another banner called for the fight for communism and for meeting workers’ basic needs — including access to water, which employers have turned into a commodity accessible only to those who can afford it. We distributed 1,500 leaflets against imperialist war and in favor of communist revolution.

In the days leading up to the march, we held three organizing meetings with our members and organizers. At these meetings, we emphasized the importance of organizing within a revolutionary communist party like the PLP to confront the current period of crisis, the rise of fascism, and imperialist war. The majority of our invited contacts joined us on May Day.

We are now preparing to support the day of action planned by the teachers of the CNTE, which includes a National Strike and a boycott of the World Cup of Plunder.

Salvador, Brazil— This May Day, in the face of attacks on the working class and the sell out politics from the socialists shilling to get current President Lula re-elected, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members in Brazil brought communist politics to the May Day march. 

Every May 1st, it seems to be a tradition for workers’ unions and the mayor’s office to unite to organize large parades instead of militant demonstrations to highlight workers’ protests against the system. But this year, the mayor refused to give the unions access to the usual locations, arguing that the city was losing money by blocking off the waterfront, a major tourist attraction. City Hall organized a “fair” instead. This was a real slap in the face for even the yellow sellout unions who support the government.

However, groups of students from several public universities, community organizers and some workers disregarded the mayor’s decision and, early in the morning of May 1, took to the streets to demand that the State, as a “socialist” state, change course. How can it accept that on May Day, workers are in capitalist enterprises giving their blood to enrich the bosses’ profit system?

Re-electing Lula won’t win the fight

The workers’ demands, since last year, remain the reduction of the work week from 6 days (what they call the ‘6x1” scale) to 5 days (the “5x2” scale). However, when you ask the workers what they want, they say clearly that they want a 36-hour work week, not just fewer days. During the demonstration, government supporters tried to spread propaganda for President Lula, saying that if the workers want the six-day work scale to end, they must vote for Lula this year. Others followed with the same tired old speeches, adding that only socialism can save the workers and rid the country of capitalism. 

When a student and Progressive Labor Party (PLP) representative in the march was given the microphone, he made two sharp points about the current situation: first, the struggle is really about reducing the number of hours per week—with no loss in pay—to fight unemployment as well as improve the lives of workers. 

Secondly, and more importantly, on the question of socialism: socialism maintains the inequalities of capitalism—racism, sexism, exploitation, and the overall immiseration of the entire working class. While fighting for a shorter work week  can unite our class, it will, in the short or long run, be turned into its opposite as the capitalist system sinks further into decline. No where in the world has the so-called two-stage theory led from socialism to communism, the only system that serves the best interests of the international working class. If we want to win as a class, we need to have our eyes now on the goal of real workers’ power. That is what PLP fights for, on this May Day and every day.

One flag and one struggle

In this sense, we tried to demonstrate that only the unity of workers worldwide can consolidate the struggle of our class, and that the struggle doesn’t need multiple flags nor certainly not the support of politicians. The struggle here in Brazil needs an ideological framework to move beyond the discourse on socialism centered on Lula’s election. During the march, we distributed the newspaper “El Defisur” (The Challenge), specifically the April 26th editorial, to highlight that it is the power of workers, not elections, that will change things.

The PLP has a great deal of ground to cover in order to win workers and students to join the struggle for communism. We encourage you to join the PLP.

May 2, 2026, Hyattsville, Maryland -  “Las luchas obreras, no tienen fronteras” and “Workers united, will never be defeated” rang out as 45 friends and members of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) picketed in a  May Day celebration. This rally was an advance for our work in the region as we publicly raised the red flag outside a building where ICE seeks to enlarge its footprint in the town. For weeks there have been weekly protests with PLP and other groups at this location calling for “ICE OUT OF HYATTSVILLE”. Today Party members and local organizers joined together to attack capitalism and racism and celebrate workers’ power. Transit and postal workers, students from Howard University, organizers from the Greenbelt Resistance Network (CHALLENGE, 4/22), neighbors from nearby towns and newer Party members from Baltimore and Virginia joined the rally. 

Smash ICE on May Day

Our May Day leaflet in English and Spanish called upon workers, students and soldiers to organize against war and fascism. As the war in Iran continues we know that it is necessary to organize strategically – in the military, in transportation and industry. Building multiracial unity is critical to this effort and we reached 150 residents with flyers and CHALLENGE. The building where ICE wants to expand is home to students from the community college, English learners, and SNAP users and sits next to a largely Black and Latin shopping center. It is also two blocks away from the Immigration Court where immigrants are often denied asylum appeals and can be easily detained by ICE. A broad coalition of immigrant rights groups have held vigils at this location and we chanted here as well “The Cops, The Courts, The Ku Klux Klan, All are Part of the Bosses Plan.” ICE and KKK are all the same and racist terror is the name of their game.” This message resonated with newer folks who were horrified to see the close connection between ICE expansion and the Immigration Court. We ended with “Fight for Communism, Power to the Workers” and a speech calling on everyone to join PLP and grow the revolutionary struggle exponentially. 

After the rally we gathered in a local church for food and comradeship as speakers told why they joined PLP (see letters). We sang The Internationale. Our  grassroots struggles and mutual aid activities have helped us build a base in the multiracial working class. Now the increased confidence in our ability to raise the Party’s ideas will help us as we struggle with our friends for communism and revolution.

The Progressive Labor Party (PLP)-led contingent of transit workers from ATU Local 689 electrified the May Day rally at the AFL-CIO headquarters in D.C. This group of industrial workers was the only significant contingent of such key workers at the rally, showing the absolute necessity for the PLP to deepen its work to bring more industrial workers into the struggle for communism. The AFL-CIO has no intention of doing this, or even militantly fighting back. But at the rally, a member of PLP gave a stirring speech attacking capitalism and calling for international unity of the working class in the fight against racism, sexism, imperialism, and war. 

Here is a slightly revised version of her speech:

Today we are celebrating May Day, the international working class holiday. All around the world workers are marching today to intensify the fight against capitalism and to remind us that unions are for resistance and not just an arm of capital.

May Day has a long history honoring the struggles of the  working class.

We march today to honor those who fought at Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886 to fight for the eight hour working day.

We march to honor those who organized against the First World War, like William Z. Foster and Eugene Debs.

We march to support those who fought and marched on May Day in the 1930s to free the Scottsboro Boys from the racist injustice system in the southern United States.

We march to honor those who organized to fight the rise of fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany in the 1930’s.

We march to honor the soldiers of the Red Army, who raised the red flag over the Reichstag in Berlin to signify the defeat of Nazi Germany on May Day 1945.

We march to honor the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement who waged a massive struggle against racism in the 1960’s.

We honor the massive May Day marches in South Africa in the late 1980s as part of the fight against apartheid.

As a member of ATU Local 689, we honor those who led and participated in the 1978 Metro transit strike to protect our wage and benefit package by closing down the entire city of D.C. for over a week. We honor the Metro workers at Cinderbed Road who went on a wildcat strike in 2019 for 85 days to fight privatization. We honor the few but growing number of operators who refuse to drive buses wrapped with recruitment ads for the racist Border Patrol.

The lesson we learn from these actions is that when workers stand up and fight back, we can win.

The labor movement has been under attack since its inception. Our numbers in the U.S. have shrunk dramatically. To reverse this trend, we must spread class consciousness and awareness of our strength to millions more.  Our labor runs the system.  If Metro’s General Manager doesn’t come to work, no one notices. But if Local 689 doesn’t go to work, the whole world notices.  

The politicians -- both Republicans and Democrats -- make promises but they both serve the capitalist class. The whims of corporate controlled politicians may be in our favor one moment and against us in the next, depending on what will advance their goals. Never forget that when the nation-wide rail workers unions voted to strike in 2024, both Republicans and Democrats broke the strike effort with Joe Biden signing off on the union-busting legislation. This shows how much the capitalists need us and will stop at nothing to continue to exploit us even when all we want is sick days!

The drive for profit mandated by the capitalist system is responsible for genocide in Gaza, the war on Iran, murder in the Congo, the conflict in Ukraine, and a changing climate that threatens our very existence. Capitalism needs racism to divide us, poverty to threaten us, and police and ICE to murder us. The capitalists try to get us to embrace nationalism, to fly flags, and to fight each other in wars for the benefit of the bosses.

For these reasons we do not fight capitalism hoping for a nicer capitalism, a minority-owned capitalism, or a female-empowered capitalism. Scandinavia’s wealth is propped up by African children mining metals for their cell phones and Asian children sewing their clothes in sweatshops. 

No, we fight all forms of capitalism and we fight with workers’ power. We need international solidarity to advance our cause. Ending capitalism and fighting for workers’ power is what May Day is about.

Right now, our city is occupied by thousands of National Guard soldiers. We should be organizing them to march off our streets. They are mostly workers like ourselves who need a second source of income to survive, but they do not need to do so in DC, heavily armed and representing the racism inherent in capitalism.

On this May Day let us commit to organizing the unorganized, ending the strategy of supporting politicians, and building a mass movement to bring down capitalism and establish workers power.

The bosses can’t profit when the workers strike, shut it down and shut it tight.