The global economic crisis facing the majority of working people around the world is becoming sharper and made worse with US imperialist ambitions. Workers today are under increased economic assault with inflation and skyrocketing energy costs hurting workers the most. With the health emergency scheduled to end by mid-may we see cuts to important life lines such as food access, education resources, and cuts to health care resources despite the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis.
US public policies have responded in the interest of the exploiting capitalist class. Everywhere we look corporations are provided with increased privileges while workers are relegated to worsening economic conditions. Even the environment is under assault with expanded oil extraction in Alaska worsening global environmental degradation; expanded war profiteering in the Ukraine-Russia crisis; expanding tensions with China; and politicians are escalating world conflict reflected in an absurd US war chest increase from 773 billion in FY2023 to 842 billion in FY2024.
Workers are the producers of all material wealth, and we must reject the corporate welfare state that is currently administering a political response on the backs of working people. Workers throughout the world will unite our struggles beyond political borders in our historic obligation to wrestle control for the power of our labor from the exploiting capitalist class.
San Diego workers will unite with our class interests to build power in the hands of workers, and fight back against the ongoing assault by the capitalist exploiting class.
DEMANDS:
- Free and Universal Healthcare, Housing and Education:
The on-going health crisis has exposed the inefficiency of the privatized health system. We reject the pharmaceutical privatization of vaccines and medicines funded by our tax dollars. Workers demand an immediate prioritization of our tax monies to be used to ensure all members of society can access quality, public health services as it constitutes a fundamental human right. We affirm the right to a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and the right to reproductive health care including the right to have an abortion.
The speculative nature of real estate has manufactured a housing crisis in California and throughout the United States. We assert that housing is a Human Right and we all deserve affordable, accessible, safe and decent housing, for all. We demand an end to developer control and speculative real estate practices. Cancel rent debt accumulated from the crisis, freeze rent increases and house the homeless. Rent Control Now!
The public-school system is being defunded to respond to the privatization of education via the charter school movement. Cancel all student debt and make College/University education free. Fully fund public education including Ethnic Studies, with a focus on Critical Pedagogy and Democratic schooling.
- Union jobs with living wages for all workers: Reparations for Indigenous and African people.
The levels of worker exploitation continue to grow with grotesque levels of wealth inequality never seen in human history. The origin of these grotesque levels of wealth accumulation and inequality is rooted in a colonial economy born from the system of slavery of African people and the genocide of Indigenous people and nations; we demand reparations for the crimes of the colonial capitalist system. The capitalist class is shifting all the speculative losses of their financial institutions on the backs of workers and their families.
WE WILL NOT DIE FOR CAPITALISMS SURVIVAL!
- No cages, No Camps, No walls; Free All Political Prisoners!
The for-profit concentration camps set-up by private companies along the border and throughout the United States are warehouses and death traps for thousands of migrant workers held captive, many of which work for slave wages. The announced expansion of family detention, border wall construction, ongoing immigration enforcement, and police surveillance with the use of SMART cameras has manufactured an economy on the backs of the working class with particularly punitive measures targeting migrant, immigrant and refugee workers. We demand the immediate closure of Otay Mesa Detention Center run by CoreCivic, the Western Regional Detention Center run by Geo Corporation. The release of all migrants detained including those on work and hunger strike at Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex California; End to the use of SMART cameras, and all surveillance technology to track migrants and their families The release of political prisoners Mumia Abul Jamal, Leonard Pelitier and Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.
- End to Police Migra (ICE) Terror; Abolish Colonial Borders:
The police, operating as the coercive arm of the capitalist class; persecute the working class, especially if you are a black and brown or considered a migrant. African and Mexican-indigenous people continue to be disproportionately criminalized in this country. We reject the over policing, the persecution of working families by ICE and the systematic death and suffering that colonial laws, political borders, and police, impose on working class families. We demand Community Control of the Police, Abolishment of the Racist Migra (ICE and Border Patrol), The demilitarization of the US border with Mexico.
- No to colonial wars: End sanctions, and blockades!
The increased war budget makes clear the intentions of the US war machine. 20 years after the criminal invasion of Iraq, the US has been involved in more than a dozen world conflicts either directly or indirectly (NATO, OAS). The expanding Ukraine-Russia conflict has cost taxpayers billions without any attempt to end the conflict diplomatically. The use of the Philippines as a staging ground to militarily encircle China is escalating tensions, negatively impacting Philippine society.
The continued US war footing must end as well as the use of economic sanctions as they constitute unilateral and coercive measures with negative impacts on working people . These blockades are meant to cause profound suffering to the people of targeted nations as a means to achieve “regime” change. Commercial, economic and financial blockades constitute a policy of genocide. We uphold the right of nations to self-determination for the peoples of the world, and demand an end to the US economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba! End the sanctions on Venezuela, End the NICA Act against Nicaragua, end the FBI attack and sanction on the Uhuru Movement; an end to all military funding of the apartheid zionist state of Israel; end to military support of the Marcos Jr. regime in the Philippines.
Hands off Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Palestine, Africa and the Philippines!
Links to UdB-Sponsored May Day 2023 Activities in Southern California:
Click here to learn more about the history of May Day:
May 1st, also known as May Day, or Primero de Mayo, is celebrated across the globe as International Workers Day. Precisely because this day commemorates the struggles of working people, this is one of only a few commemorations that spans across borders and touches all humanity. This is true because human labor continues to be the foundation of all material wealth on our planet, despite the global power of the capitalist class. Every year on this day there are huge demonstrations, marches, and rallies throughout Nuestra América and the world.