Call of Mazdoor Ekta Committee (MEC), 26 April 2025
Every year, workers in all countries of the world mark the 1st of May with marches, rallies, gate meetings and other forms of actions. We assert the rights which belong to us as workers. We express our resolve to fight for our liberation from all forms of exploitation and oppression. This has been the tradition of the working class, ever since workers of Europe and North America celebrated the first May Day in 1890.
As we approach May Day 2025, Mazdoor Ekta Committee salutes the workers of our country and of all countries in the world, who are courageously fighting against capitalist exploitation and in defence of their rights.
Comrade workers,
When we look at the situation in the world today, we find that governments in all capitalist countries are claiming to be acting in the interests of all members of society. In fact, however, they act strictly in the interests of the capitalist class. They enact laws and adopt policies to intensify the exploitation of workers, in order to maximize capitalist profits.
In our country, successive governments at the centre and in the states have been implementing the program of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation during the past 34 years. Government spokesmen and bourgeois ideologues claimed that this program would result in “inclusive growth” and “sab ka vikaas” (development for all). The real result has been an enormous growth in the wealth of super-rich capitalists. It has led to ever more intense exploitation of workers, robbery of peasants and ruination of other small producers.
In the name of globalization and liberalisation, doors have been opened for foreign multinational companies to dominate many sectors of the Indian economy, from automobiles and insurance to retail trade. Indian monopoly companies have greatly increased their investments abroad, reaping huge profits from the exploitation of workers in other countries. Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists have begun to dominate the sphere of agricultural trade and procurement of food crops, leading to declining incomes and growing indebtedness of peasants.
Privatisation is a program to hand over public assets and services to private companies. It has been implemented in different forms and under different names including disinvestment, monetization, and public-private partnership (PPP). Its aim is to convert essential public services into sources of maximum capitalist profits. It has made many essential goods and services too expensive and out of reach for many working people. It has worsened the conditions of workers in the railways, coal mines, electricity, telecommunications, banking, education, health and many other sectors.
In the name of improving the “ease of doing business”, central and state governments have taken many steps to deprive workers of rights which have been won through many years of struggle. Outsourcing and employment of contract workers, without any legal protection of labour rights, has become a widespread practice in both public and private companies. It has served to weaken the bargaining power of the workers.
For many years, the capitalist class had been demanding changes in labour laws to deprive workers of their rights and facilitate their super-exploitation. Various state governments carried out such reforms in their labour laws. The BJP government used its parliamentary majority to get four all-India Labour Codes enacted in 2019 and 2020. These labour codes are aimed at depriving workers of rights we have won through many decades of struggle, including the right to an 8-hour working day.
The Labour Codes deprive us of the right to organise and form unions of our choice and to go on strike. Crores of workers are being deprived of the right to social security. Capitalists are being allowed to hire and fire workers at will. They are being allowed to hire the majority of workers on temporary contracts, and flagrantly violate safety norms in workplaces. They are being allowed to extend the working hours beyond 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.
Life experience has exposed the lie that the political system in our country is a democracy, in which the people allegedly have decision making power. Workers and peasants, who make up more than 90 percent of the population, have no power in this system. We have no say in deciding the laws and policies. The real ruler of the country is the capitalist class. Capitalists use elections to select one or another of their trusted parties to run the government. They select that party which can most effectively implement the capitalist program, while fooling the people that it is acting in their best interest.
Comrade workers,
Counting all those who work for a daily wage or monthly salary, we workers make up the most numerous class in our country. The times are calling on us to unite as one mighty force and step up the struggle against the capitalist exploiters and the government which is in their service.
We need to rise above all the divisions which the capitalist class and its parties impose on us. The laws and government regulations divide us into formal and informal workers, regular and temporary workers, organised and unorganized workers. The political parties of the bourgeoisie try to divide us based on religion and caste.
We need to strengthen our unity around our own program, in opposition to the program of the ruling capitalist class. There is already a charter of immediate demands around which workers’ unions and kisan unions have united. We must firmly stick to these demands and escalate the struggle for their fulfilment.
Who is going to ensure the fulfilment of our demands? In the existing system, parties of the ruling class compete with each other to manage the system. We cannot expect governments formed by such parties to fulfill our demands. We have to fight with the political aim of replacing the rule of the capitalist class by workers’ and peasants’ rule. Only then can we put an end to all forms of exploitation and guarantee the rights of all the working people.
Comrade workers,
We are approaching May Day this year at a time when the capitalist system is caught in an extremely severe crisis on the world scale. The trade war launched by the USA shows that the ruling class in the most advanced capitalist country is in a desperate condition. The bitter fights between the capitalists of different countries is not a sign of strength but a sign of weakness of the entire capitalist system.
Developments on the world scale show that the capitalist system cannot provide for all, and the bourgeoisie is unfit to rule society. If this class remains in power, it will cause one disaster after another, resulting in death and destruction on a colossal scale.
Only the working class can save humanity from the dangerous course on which the capitalists are dragging it. We can do so by preparing and organising to take political power in our hands and carry out the transition from capitalism to socialism, like the Russian working class did in 1917.
Times are calling on the workers of all countries to unite around the aim of putting an end to capitalist exploitation once and for all. An immediate step is to make the May Day celebration as big as possible.
Mazdoor Ekta Committee calls upon the workers of all sectors to join in large numbers to celebrate May Day in all parts of the country. Let us resolve to advance the struggle for our rights, with the exciting perspective of ushering in workers’ and peasants’ rule.
“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”[1]
[1] Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party