Workers' Forum Online

Forum in French
Friday, May 1 --7:00 pm EDT

Forum in English
Sunday, May 3 -- 2:00-4:00 pm EDT

Organized by the Workers' Centre of CPC(M-L)
To register email: workerscentre@cpcml.ca or centreouvrier@cpcml.ca

Across the country and around the world, it is the working people who are fighting to defend their own rights who defend the rights of all and protect us during this COVID-19 pandemic.

On the occasion of May Day 2020, under the conditions of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Workers' Centre of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is organizing several video meetings to provide workers who are on the front lines of fighting for their rights and the rights of all with a Workers' Forum to share their stories and exchange experiences.

The pandemic is revealing above all else, especially as workers are being told to get back to work to ramp up the economy and "get back to normal," that our society cannot afford this "business as usual" approach which has caused such devastation.

The conditions of the pandemic show beyond the shadow of any doubt that neo-liberal anti-social policies are destructive and cause havoc which the people pay for with their lives.

A mural in Madrid reads: We will not go back to normal because normal was the problem (No volveremos a la normalidad porque la normalidad era el problema).

In this vein, the Workers' Centre of CPC(M-L) is calling on the workers to make May Day 2020 a turning point for the workers' striving for empowerment. Never again must the working people be left in the dark about the decisions which are taken which affect their lives. Never again must they be told what to do without their say-so. The working people must be the ones who determine what must be done. The working people must continue both during the pandemic and beyond the pandemic to put themselves in a position that ensures what they say is done.

Those who want to be included in the video-consultations please inform: workerscentre@cpcml.ca or centreouvrier@cpcml.ca

Another Defining Moment

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances
existing already, given and transmitted from the past - Karl Marx

May Day 2020 is being marked all over the world under conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. On this occasion, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends revolutionary greetings to the workers across the country and to our fraternal comrades and workers in all countries. Everywhere, the workers are in the forefront of the fight to make sure this crisis is not resolved on their backs or in favour of the rich. It is the struggle of the workers for their rights which provides rights with a modern meaning -- that rights are not privileges, available to some and not all and they are not something that can be given and taken away based on the whims of ruling elites who serve narrow private interests. It is the struggle to provide rights with a guarantee that opens a path to society's progress. Nothing illustrates better than the situation during this coronavirus pandemic that our security lies in the fight for the rights of all.

In Canada and the provinces, after three decades of nation-wrecking on the basis of implementing the neo-liberal anti-social agenda, the conception of a society which provides "the greatest good for the greatest number," has been discarded. As a result, even as ruling elites are forced to call for the unity and co-operation of the people, the self-serving character of their decisions cannot be hidden.

The actual circumstances reveal that we are in this together and it is through everyone playing their role, recognizing the necessity, joining in a common struggle that the pandemic will be brought under control. But all the war talk and language and the special powers of those who have usurped the governing roles are the declaration of the ruling elite that they are using the emergency to impose narrow self-serving aims on society. Despite the oodles of money governments are throwing out in the name of helping the people to weather the crisis, the role of the people is to fend for themselves and do what they are told.

Despite this, not only workers organized in unions but also those who are striving to be organized to better protect themselves, are speaking out and taking serious stands about what they need and how things should be organized. In response, governments at all levels are making the issue one of whether or not they will receive sufficient protective gear and forces to carry out their responsibilities or whether it is possible to enforce proper working conditions to keep the workforce safe. Meanwhile, they think that the workers will be satisfied to have everything decided for them, going so far as to deprive the essential work force of the human factor required to carry out the tasks at hand. Employers, administrators, government officials and political representatives are carrying out "business as usual" as concerns the direction of the economy and who benefits from the decisions made, even as emergency circumstances prevail. At the same time, the ruling elite are using the crisis to introduce new police powers and set up new mechanisms to pay the rich.

Where will we be at when the crisis abates and if, as predicted, the economy is in shambles? Can the working people afford to accept the in-fighting in the Parliament, Legislatures and National Assembly or that the alternative is to strengthen the iron-grip of the cartel parties on government through forms of cooperation now called an "administrative parliament"? Everything is done to keep the workers disempowered. Even during the pandemic, workers have to fight tooth and nail to get protections for their health and safety and that of their families and communities.

The workers have never accepted that they have no say over their living and working conditions and they will not do so in the future either. They do not accept people being left to fend for themselves according to the economic and political subservience to narrow private interests and the U.S. They do not accept the claim of ruling elites that we can't have a self reliant economy with friendly relations with all nations.

At this time, as we mark May Day 2020 in conditions of pandemic, the conditions are demanding that the working class take up its historic role to lead all working people in action to fight for their own rights in a manner which upholds the rights of all. CPC(M-L) calls on its organizations across the country to make sure workers' forums bring out what is pertinent and decisive in these struggles, thus enabling the class to develop the confidence and perspective required to carry its struggle successfully. This is how the working class will itself constitute the nation and vest sovereignty in the people.

Two Worlds in Combat

There are two worlds in combat today. One is the world of the bourgeoisie, counter-revolution, retrogression and the anti-social offensive. This world of reaction and war tramples underfoot the right of the peoples of the world to chose their own system. There is another world, the world of the working class and all progressive humanity, the world of revolution and the opening of the door for the progress of society. This is the world of pro-social programs, the world of unity and struggle of the peoples of all lands.

While the world of the bourgeoisie is decaying, the world of the working class has to be created afresh, anew. The world of the working class is not ready-made nor will it emerge on the basis of reforming the old world. On the contrary, it is a world that must be consciously created on the basis of the most advanced and revolutionary forces engendered within the modern conditions. May Day must remind all the progressive forces to double and triple their efforts to create the new world.

The old world is relying on everything anachronistic in order to hold itself together. In the sphere of the economy, it has the vain hope that the making of maximum capitalist profit within an institutionalized global system, in the end, will be the basis of its continued prosperity. In the political sphere, it has the vain hope that its unrepresentative democracy, in the final analysis, will guarantee that political power remains in its own hands. In the sphere of relations between peoples, it hopes that the destruction of the very idea of the independence and sovereignty of nations will guarantee its eternal worldwide domination.

The world of the working class, the new world, is relying on modern definitions. It is based on dealing with the outstanding problems of each major sphere of human endeavour. The working class would organize the economy with the aim of guaranteeing a livelihood to all as a human right on the basis of the most advanced techniques and the continuous raising of standards of living. In the sphere of politics, the working class will establish a system of modern democracy in which the representatives are subordinate to the people, and the people directly participate in the selection and election of candidates, and in governance. The working class, in the sphere of relations between peoples, will uphold as a modern principle that all peoples have the right to chart their own course.

May Day presents all progressive humanity with a challenge. It is the challenge to reject everything old and decadent by waging a merciless struggle against it, while creating the new on the basis of the modern working class and on the most advanced thinking and theory coming out of the contemporary conditions. These are exciting times for all those who wish to create the new world. The basic ingredients for this new world are already in existence. The working class has its own experience of revolution and socialism of well over one hundred and fifty years, especially during the twentieth century. The ingredients of this experience are all too precious to be frittered away. The time is now to use these ingredients anew and add fresh ones for the destruction of the old and the building of the new.

Let everyone take their place in this historic combat by leaving the old behind!

May Day Virtual Workers' Forums

Another Defining Moment

Two Worlds in Combat