May Day The Condition of Working Class and it’s

May Day is the day of historic event when the working class had declared a uncompromising war against capitalist exploitation and oppression. May Day is a mile stone in the world-wide struggle of the working class for socialism. To Com. Lenin, May Day symbolized the political struggle for freedom which must be continuous. Further to him, May Day signified the advance of proletariat as a class which must culminate in the struggle for and ultimate triumph of socialism.

For all these 126 years May-Day has been an inspiration for the working class around the world, in its struggles against capitalist exploitation and for establishment socialism. May Day continues to inspire the working-class as long as there are exploiters who rule the majority, the exploited. With the inspiration taken from the May-Day, the working-class in some countries has led its struggles as a class in itself and for itself and was able to establish the rule of ‘proletarian dictatorship’ proving the historical fact that the exploiter capitalism can be routed out from the face of earth. But owing to some intrinsic weaknesses in the working-class movement, the achievements of the victorious struggles are nullified giving an upper hand to the capitalism and its domination on the world.

Presently the capitalism is dominating the world by imposing its aggressive neo-liberal policies of super exploitation and the appropriation of all resources including human resources to satisfy its avarice of gaining super-profits.

In this un-encouraging world situation, May-day gives much more inspiration to the working-class to strengthen its resolve to wage a relentless struggle against capitalism even in its latest avatar -imperialist neo-liberalism.

Thus May-day became not only a day for celebration to the working class, but also a day of retrospection of its conditions and to take pledge to take up the historical task destined to the working class, with a firmer resolve.

Today the neo-liberal exploitation and plunder is continuing in various forms throughout the world. The neo-liberal capitalism under the leadership of US imperialism in its pursuit of super profits is adopting various methods of ruthless exploitation. It has been spreading poverty, social inequalities and misery throughout the world. The neo-liberal capitalism arrogated itself as the ruler of the world and making the false proclaim that there is no alternative to capitalism, is reeling under constant economic crisis, economic depressions and economic recessions unable to maintain its economic balance and steadiness due to the very inherent and natural causes of that very system. The bourgeois classes are making every effort to survive by throwing the burden of the crises on the shoulders of workers and toiling masses at the same time appropriating the possible profits for themselves.

With this the maladies of unemployment, poverty and corruption are pervading the world unhindered.

The unemployment problem is not only increasing in the under developed and developing countries but also in the developed capitalist world.

In USA, the ‘land of plenty’, unemployment has constantly been raising. As per a recent estimate there are about 2,70,00,00 unemployed labourers in America, besides millions of partially employed. In the name of cutting-costs, the jobs in the public as well in the private sector are being continuously laid-off in large numbers leading to further unemployment. The spending cuts imposed on the public and government expenditure has become a source leading to unemployment. Using this unemployment as an opportunity the big US Corporations like ford, General Motors, AT & T, General Electric etc and some retail giants are forcing their workers to agree to wage cuts and cuts in their other benefits. Due to this unemployment problem the wages in USA have been declined by 13.6%. Besides this wage and benefit cuts, the big corporate are increasing the work-load of industrial workers in the name of facing the competition. Workers of the black races and migrant workers are the worst hit due to the massive job cuts and are the victims of unemployment in USA. The union aristocrat leaderships of the big capital unions in USA like UAW, CWA who have collabo-rated with the big-capital and Obama administration are on little help to the workers under the deathly attacks of the big capital.

In another highly developed country Japan, job cuts have become the order of the day. Unemployment is acute. Very recently the biggest Japan corporation Sony announced its decision to axe 16,000 jobs, to avoid its business losses and to trimming the costs.

In the developed European Union countries, unemployment is rampant. In Spain the un-employment rate has increased to the abnormal rate of 23.6%. In the debt ridden EU countries like Greece, Ireland, Rumania, Spain, England, Italy, Netherland, France due to implementation of ‘Austirity measures’, unemployment and poverty are ever increasing.

In Germany full-time jobs have reduced from 29.3 to 23.9 millions. Part time jobs increased from 5.7 to 7.8 million within an year. The number of part time workers who get the work only for 20 hours in a week is the largest in these 7.8 million of part time workers. The wages of workers in Germany have decreased by 4.5% for the last 10 years. There are 7.9 million of full time workers whose wage is lower than the official wage.

In UK recession has been hitting the employment of people, particularly of the black race with the austerity measures taken by the government. 2.7 lakhs of jobs were laid off in public sector and government under takings. The living standards of workers is degenerating. People became highly indebted and are suffering with the problem of payment interests. Inequalities are intensi-fying among people.

Raising prices, low wages and worsening working conditions has become the norm in EU countries.
The worst impact of austerity measures and economic reforms in Italy is the emergence of child labour system. The poverty has goaded the parents to send their children below 13 yrs to work instead to schools. Even the children below 10yrs are being made to work from 10-12 hrs daily.

In the debt ridden Canada, with the implementation of austerity measures, there were a number of job cuts in the public sector and govt. employment. The retirement age is enhanced from 65 to 67 yrs in a bid to delay the retirement payments.

Nokia Company which has already closed its plants in Germany, Hungary and Rumania is now closing its assembly plant in Finland and shifting the jobs to Asia in name of cutting costs.

The worsening debt crises in the European Union countries is leading to the migration of workers from their home-lands to Australia, US and Angola. Tens of thousands of workers from Portugal, Greece, and Ireland to foreign countries. And Greece has become the destination of emigrants from Albania, Bulgaria, Romania & Georgia. With the ever increasing of illegal migrations, an inhuman and ruthless exploitation methods are on the rise. Besides racial conflicts, racial intolerances among the workers are being stoked.

In China the country considered to be a model for achieving economic growth through foreign investments, the living and working conditions of the workers are pathetic. In order to make cheap labour available to the mega transnational companies that have started their manu-facturing and assembling plants in China, hundreds of thousands of workers have been encouraged to migrate to those manufacturing regions/zones. In heir breasts. Workers producing garments for all the 3 brands had to work illegally long hours for less than minimum wages. Such has been the working condition of the female workers in Asian countries in general.
In India where ‘development’ is showcased in the form of employment in IT and BPO industry, the working conditions of these ‘highly paid’ employees is horrible. In the name of H.R.practices they are reduced in to intellectual slaves. They are made to work with ever increa-sing targets, always kept in perpetual tension by the sword of ‘termination’ hung on their necks unceasingly. Often these employees are distracted by the managements from thinking about the real causes for their misery of tension, and to solve it protest and resistance but prompting them to submit to the managements remaining subdued always without questioning their so called prerogatives. Very often these employees are forced to see ‘psychiatrist’ due to the perpetual mental stress they have to face. With this IT technology, the western culture of mega shopping malls, star hotels, costly pubs came in to existence drawing the IT employed in to these perverse cultural activities. Even women employees are also being drawn into this net, resulting in lack of any protection to these women employees who are being subjected to sexual harassments and rapes in public. In the IT hub of Gurgao of Haryana more than 30,000 women are working. Many of these women are becoming vulnerable to rapes and brutal murders.

The IT managements in work for excessive hours in day without any additional payment. Harassment by the supervisors disallowing the workers even to go to toilets, and not giving sufficient rest time within the shift-hours. It has become a norm that almost all managements deny and violate the labour laws and regulations. Managements are adamantly disallowing the workers to unite, organize and form their unions. Using various tactics and trick they are thwarting the workers to organic in to unions. Or they are brutally busting the unions formed by workers, through victimi-zation, force including police force as has been recently seen in case of Maruti, Manesar plant workers union and Regency Ceramics workers union in Yanam. Such cases have become a common phenomena in Nodia, Gurgao and Sriperambatur of TN manu-facturing zones.

The malady of child-labour is even increasing. Migration of workers from other countries, as well as migration of numerous unskilled and semi-skilled workers in numerous numbers is increasing day by day. They are forced to work for low wages and in dangerous working conditions. All these migrated workers are exploited horribly. All of them are living as homeless, without access to the meagre social welfare benefits like ration cards, access to government hospitals etc. The women workers are the worst-suffering and exploited lot. They are not being paid equally on par with their male counter-parts. They are made to work daily from 10 to 12 hours. The exploitation of women employees in garment industry is more horrible. With schemes likes the name of H.R are practising unethical and unfair labour practices. Even reputed companies like Infosys, TCS are not an exception to such practices. They deduct the PF, ESI, retirement etc; contributions payable by the managements also from the employer’s wages along with the employee’s contributions. Though medical facility benefit to the employee and his family members are given, various restrictions are being imposed on them making it highly difficult to the employers to use such benefits. Group discussions and meetings are the sources to mentally harass and insult the employees among their colleagues. Such has been the working conditions of ‘elite’ employees in India.

The conditions of industrial workers, other type of skilled workers and of the semi-skilled, unskilled workers are far more worse. 97% of the total work force in India is working in informal and unorganized sector. Most of them are employed only as contract workers through a middle man or out sourcing workers from a contractor company that took the contract of the work-out sourcing. With such an intermediate tire from the principal employer and worker all these workers are denied the statutory benefits like PF, ESI, retirement benefit, workman’s compensation, benefits in case of work place accident or becoming sick due to the occupational hazards of health etc. Even the pay is often lesser than the minimum wages prescribed by the government. Ever increasing work load is another form. It is imposed either in the form of ever increasing production targets or making to In China the country considered to be a model for achieving economic growth through foreign investments, the living and working conditions of the workers are pathetic. In order to make cheap labour available to the mega transnational companies that have started their manu-facturing and assembling plants in China, hundreds of thousands of workers have been encouraged to migrate to those manufacturing regions/zones. In the last 2 decades more than 200 million workers have migrated to manu- facturing cities, towns like Geong Dong province in China. While many of these workers are employed in one plant or other, some people are making their livelihood as street sellers etc. These workers are not absorbed by these cities, but treat them as aliens. They are totally neglected by the administration. These workers are treated as cheap laboures. Internationally reputed transnational companies like Apple, Dell, Hewlett & Packard, IBM, Foxconn, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, and Toshiba have their manufacturing and assembling plants in these manufacturing regions of China. Besides these electronic and IT manufacturing industries, there are various reputed branded garment factories, chemical factories, auto manu-facturers etc. Almost all these reputed transnational companies hire the workers on contract basis from outsourcing middle men companies, making the workers to work in appalling sweat-shop conditions. The workers are being made to work in harsh and deadly conditions without any safety from hazards or industrial accidents which often occur killing and injuring more and more workers. In chemical and other such industries that pollute the environ-ment with toxic substances are causing dangerous sickness to the workers. For eg: in the past 2 ½ years thousands of workers, villagers and children at least 9 of mainland China’s 31 province level regions have been found to be suffering from toxic levels of lead exposure mostly caused by pollution from battery factories and metal smelters. Government neglect is common. The workers toiling for the manufacturing and assembly plants of trans-national electronic and IT manu-facturing industry live in crowded dormitories. Those workers are made to work for exclusive O.T work, working on all the 7 days of a week. All most all the duty hours in the day they have to work standing near assembly lines often their feet swelling with unbearable pain. Some workers have to work sitting on backless chairs (stools) all along the duty hours. Their health is neglected. Recently in an Apple supplying company 137 workers are injured when they are made to use poisonous chemicals to clean I-phone screens. Recently chemical explosions killed 4 workers. They are not given sufficient rest time. Due to these miserable working conditions many workers belonging to Foxconn company committed suicides by jumping from their several story dor-mitories in a bid of protest to their miserable working conditions. Many companies often fall due of wages to workers and shift their manufacturing activities to distant regions evading the payment of their due wages. Manhandling of workers by the supervisor in the factories is reported often. Harassment of workers and firing away the workers from employ-ment is a common phenomena here. There is no protection from the administration against this in- human exploitation of manage-ments. Very often in the name of accruing losses several industries lay off workers, change shifts and working hours even without paying the due wages to workers or wages are decreased. Benefits like bonus etc are cutoff. Extra workload is imposed. In one word the workers are being reduced in to ‘modern slaves’ and are subjected to inhuman exploitation reminding the medieval times of slavery.

Almost all these very harsh and inhuman working and living conditions are existing in Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Srilanka and Pakistan where most of the garment production is conducted. Young women workers are made to work in multi-storied closed buildings without proper venti-lation and means of escape from fire accidents etc. They are paid with lowest wages and made to work from 10 to 12hrs a day. They are denied with proper rest time and are even disallowed to go to toilets. They are forced to work even on the days of men-struation with abnormal pain or bleeding. They are verbally and physically abused to increase their productivity of ever increasing work targets. They are even sexually abused. Recently in the name of recession and slowing down of business, they are pending the wages payable to workers due.A recent news report in the “Observer” discloses about the factual working conditions of workers in reputed international brand companies producing their goods in the Asian countries. Puma, Nike and Adidas the sport wear producing companies are the sponsors of the Olympic Games in London. Workers are producing garments for all these 3 brands in Bangladesh. In a supplier to Puma the workers are beaten, slapped, pushed or had their hair pulled. Many female workers in a factory supplying Adidas were made to remove the ‘dupattas’ that cover.

In the garment industry of Italy, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, women workers are valiantly fighting for the improvement of their working conditions, living conditions, work-place safety and against harassment and work-loads. They are demanding the payments of due wages, bonus etc. They are braving the police, army and management thugs. Blockading the national highways and factory and government building premises is the form of the numerous agitations being conducted by them.

In African countries the copper, diamond, gold mines are conducting massive strikes demanding wage hikes, bonus hikes and mine safety. They are protesting against wage cuts, benefit cuts, shifting of mines and job cuts.

In China the migrant workers are conducting massive strikes, protest demonstrations, agitation in tens of thousands of factories every day against job cuts, ill treatment, wages and bonus evasions, shifting the plants, sweat-shop working conditions, polluted environment, heavy work load, braving police and army. Hundreds of thousands of workers are participating in these struggles.

In India too workers in manufacturing regions like Nodia, Gurgao-Mansear belt, Sriparam-battur manufacturing of T.Nadu, Big reputed industrial companies in Bangalore, various small and medium factories throughout the country, in various industrial areas are protesting, agitating, striking and conducting various forms of struggles to a) enhancing their wages and benefits b) to organize, unite and form their pursuing the class collaborationist policies of class amity are forsaken by the working class once for all, and adopt the path of working-class politics and build a movement on those lines, working-class cannot shed-away the numerous eternal and dogging problems faced by it. Then only it can really fulfill its destined historical task of building socialism, as being inspired by the May-Day.

However the task will be arduous demanding utmost sacrifices.
To achieve this goal, in the present situation, the genuine and sincere working-class leaderships shall:
- Promote unity of workers on the basis of class politics.
- Provide class consciousness and orientation to the workers regularly.
- The working class shall be made to come away from its narrow frame work of craft interests
- Shall give all round unstinted support especially to the spontaneous and strike movement.
- Shall rouse, educate and organize workers through this struggle and provide confidence to the workers and make them the real leaders of proletariat who could take up the historically destined task to them.

union c) betterment of working conditions d) against excessive work loads e)against harassment during work f) to achieve social like EPF, ESI benefits & retirement benefit and bonus etc g) universal minimum statutory wages. They too are braving attacks of private goondas and police and various attacks of victimization made on them.

This is an encouraging trend. However the present state of workers movement as on present day is not satisfactory and not at all equal in strength capable to resist the various attack made by the big capital. The workers movement has to achieve a real unity basing on the class-interests and class political orientation and out-look, to emancipate itself and the other sections of toiling masses along with it, overthrowing the system of capitalist exploition and oppression and to establish socialism. This is the destined duty of working-class throughout the world.

‘Labour aristocrat’ worker’s leaders and ‘bourgeois labour representatives’ have been reign-ing the worker’s movement in USA and economically developed EU and other developed countries. In the developing and under developed countries the beaucratic leadership, reformist leaderships and the ruling class TUs are coming in the way of a real working class movement and struggles to continue it against the present exploitative and oppressing systems.

Abandoning class politics or pursuing politics of class collaboration and class amity has been hindering the working class movement throughout all the countries in the world.

Unless this deadly weakness of abandoning class politics and Sumangala’ in TN the young girls are being virtually made slaves, chained within the premises of their factories. The condition of women working in SEZ is similar to that of the women workers in garment industry. Physical harassment, sexual harassment of these woman workers become a common feature. Women working as domestic or house-hold servants are the worst hit. The governments too are horribly exploiting the women workers, using them as for name sake ‘part-time workers’, in various depart-ments under different schemes, but making them to work full time, but not paying them full time wages on the pretext that they are “guest workers”, or “activists” or “social activists” or “friends” , and denying them the social benefits.
Work place accidents in construction activities, chemical plants, factories hazardous industries, in municipal sewage workers killing workers like flies has also become a common matter in our country. These unfortunate workers killed or seriously injured and disabled are not paid with any statutory compensation. The managements often violate or neglect the safety norms and arrangement to be made to avoid work place accidents to cut their operational costs and thus giving every scope for work place accidents, killing and injuring more and more workers making them common fodder to the profit avarice of the managements.
Inhuman and heinous manual scavenging is still continuing robbing the dignity of these scavenging workers.
In the name of providing social welfare schemes to the workers in informal, unorganized sector and self employed including rag pickers, it is mooted to amass the contributions from these oppressed workers and made them available to the capitalists and stock market speculation activity, rather than really providing any benefit to the concerned workers. Already the huge amounts collected in the name of cess for the workers welfare from work contracts etc are never spent for the declared purpose but are being mis-appropriated by those in power and authority. While the accumulated PF funds and retirement benefit funds saved by the employees and workers are being made available for inventing in stock market, the interest payable on these saving is being cut year by year to the benefit of the sections borrowing from those EPF and retirement funds.

The plight of the workers migrated to Gulf countries is particularly pathetic. They are working there as virtual slaves and being treated like dogs. Very often they are being the victims to the deceit of employment agents and brokers. Thousands of these migrant workers are made illegal migrants due to the deceptions of illegal employment agents and are being incarcerated in those countries without any hope.

Due to forcible land acquisition for mega projects and industries, the agricultural labours are losing their livelihood and are forced to roam throughout the country seeking jobs. The plight of hand-loom workers is more pitying. Unable to eke out even a marginal livelihood, they are being forced to commit suicides.

A national minimum wages for workers of this country is a far cry.

While this has been the conditions of working class throughout the world, the workers are inevitably revolting against these pathetic and inhuman conditions. Spontaneous struggles are flaring.

All the Europe is boiling like a cauldron with the worker’s protests, agitations and struggles. Particularly they are fighting against unemployment, poverty and declining living standards. They are protesting against austerity measures implemented as recommended by IMF.

In US the workers are agitating for more jobs, against job cuts and cuts in public spending. They are fighting against racial discrimination among workers.

So let us pledge on this
May-Day to work among workers under these lines!
Long Live May Day!
Workers of All Countries Unite-Unite!!
You have nothing to lose except the chains of bondage!!!