May Day 2025. The working class is under attack and must switch from defense to offense. New AI-run world makes it necessary.

MAY DAY 2025

Moving from Defense to Offense

New Goals for a New World

Fight for a Better Life

May Day honors working people’s fight for a better life. On May 1, 1886, US workers held a massive nation-wide strike for an 8-hour work day. May Day is International Workers’ Day and commemorates this battle and the long struggle for decent working conditions, better wages, and unions.

Class Struggle

May Day was forged in class struggle between the working class, the majority of us who must sell our ability to work in order to live, and the capitalist class, the less than 1% of us who own the means of production, the electronic media, factories, banks, mines, etc., and who use the labor of the working class to make money. This is a war between those of us who supply the collective labor that produces wealth versus the private owners who seize that wealth.

On May Day 2025 we are fighting to hold on to, to defend, what we have gained. In the 139 years since the first May Day, we made progress towards a better life. The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), the 19^th Amendment granting women the vote (1920), Social Security (1935), National Labor Relations Act (1935), and the Voting Rights Act (1965) are only a few examples of the concessions won from the capitalist class and its government.

Today we are losing all of these hard-won rights.

Why? AI has changed the world. The Trump government along with the Republican and Democratic parties are implementing the ruling class’s plan for the new AI-run world. They know that new technology is “disrupting” capitalism by eliminating the role for mass industrial labor. By firing half of the federal workforce and by attacking all of our hard-won rights, they are sending the working class a message, “this is our house, we will do what is necessary to keep it that way.”

Who will own and control AI?

The fight is over who will own and control AI. Technologies such as AI are too powerful to function in a competitive, capitalist economy. They were created with public money but are used to create private wealth. These technologies demand a cooperative framework. The only way to achieve that is by seizing state power, eliminating private property and making economic and social cooperation the law of the land.¹

Take the Offensive

“We have to go beyond just defensive strategies, and take the offensive. We have to build for political power; the power to direct and coordinate human and material resources to the tasks of survival and dignity for all people and the planet.”²

Building Practical Unity

“We need unity – we are moving towards unity, and unity is built around the practical needs we all face.”² On May 1, over 600,000 Americans participated in more than 1,000 demonstrations and rallies held in every state in the country.^3,4 On May 3, over 50 events were scheduled^3,4.