DAVE WILTSHIRE, the Secretary of the All Trades Unions Alliance told the WRP’s May Day rally: ‘From this May Day meeting we send revolutionary greetings to the working class and people of the world fighting a bankrupt capitalist system that is in its greatest crisis in history and is waging war on its workers at home and war to reorder the world abroad.
‘We send our warmest greetings to the workers, youth and poor in Sri Lanka who have risen up against the corrupt bankrupt Rajapaksa regime.
‘To the workers and small farmers in Myanmar who for over a year have fought the reactionary military regime and the murderous attacks by troops and police to shore up this crumbling dictatorship.
‘In particular we send greetings to the Palestinian people who have been absolutely resolute in the struggle for an independent homeland.
‘They have face increasing attacks over the past month of Ramadan – attacks by right wing settlers and Israeli troops carried out with the full support of the Zionist regimes imperialist masters.
‘The resistance of the Palestinians is growing as the Israeli regime attempt to drive Palestinians from their land and this struggle has won the overwhelming support of workers in Britain, America and Europe.’
He urged: ‘The time has come for this support to be translated into action to completely boycott Israeli goods and services in support of an independent secular state of Palestine.’
He also sent: ‘Greetings to the workers in the US who have been fighting and winning some increasingly bitter struggles against anti-union corporations like Starbucks and Amazon, whose billionaire owners spend millions in union-busting.’
He added: ‘Across the US workers have been engaged in mass struggles over wages and against the casualisation and exploitation of their labour.’
Wiltshire pointed to France where ‘the rejection of the bourgeois order was shown at last week’s presidential election where Macron – hated as the “president for the rich’’ only won against the neo-fascist Le Pen thanks to the massive abstentions and people voting not in support of his austerity policies but to keep Le Pen out.
‘French workers and young people will not submit to the austerity policies that Macron intends to bring in to rescue French capitalism from recession and finance his dreams of an expanded EU army to conduct imperialist war.’
He added: ‘The TUC recently announced that in the past year there have been over 300 industrial disputes recorded in the UK – a slap in the face for all those who talked about the trade unions being weak after years of Tory attacks.
‘Far from being defeated the working class in Britain are also rising up demanding pay increases to combat the raging inflation and an end to all the wage cutting fire and rehire policies aimed at increasing the profits of the bosses and shareholders through wage cutting.’
He continued: ‘Workers across all sections and throughout the country – from University lecturers, Post Office workers through to refuse collectors are taking or organising for strike action in defence of wages and pensions and against zero hours contracts …
‘With the cost of living spiralling out of control, forcing working class families to choose between heating and eating and with the Trussell Trust reporting that over a million families have gone without food at least once a week to provide enough food for their children, the working class has reached the limits to what it is prepared to put up with to keep capitalism alive.
‘And this social crisis is rapidly growing as the effects of the imperialist war to carry out regime change in Russia increases, driving food prices and energy costs through the roof, making life impossible for workers and the middle class.’
He continued: ‘And it is a war that the ruling class of the US and UK are intent on waging. This was made clear last week when Tory Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the Lord Mayor’s banquet: ‘‘The war in Ukraine is our war’’ – a war that she said could go on for years as she urged the country to be prepared for the “long haul’’ to defeat Russia.
‘Truss didn’t stop there, she called for the G7 group of leading capitalist countries to become a ‘‘global NATO’’, policing the entire world from Europe to the Pacific, where it would confront China and impose imperialist domination over the world.’
He concluded: ‘So deep is the crisis of capitalism in its final most barbaric stage of imperialism that it can only survive through wars on the working class at home and wars to overthrow the socialised property relations established by the Russian and Chinese revolution – restoring the wealth of these countries to capitalist exploitation.’
