This year’s International Workers’ Day, or May Day, comes at a very particular moment in history. As the trade war threatens the jobs and livelihoods of workers everywhere, our labour leaders line up behind their own ruling class. Rather than fight the bosses, they end up pitting workers of different countries against each other. This is a losing strategy. The only way out of the crisis is a return to the traditions of May Day: class independence, militancy, and internationalism.
Team Canada and the dead end of protectionism
When Trump announced his first round of tariffs, our whole ruling class rallied around the banner of ‘team Canada’. The only way to win the trade war, they said, was to buy Canadian goods and impose counter-tariffs against the US. The NDP and major labour leaders all hopped on the bandwagon, partnering with the Liberal government. On the other side, American union leaders like Shawn Fain supported Trump’s tariffs, saying they would undo the damage caused by free trade and globalization.
To put it bluntly, team Canada is off to a bad start. The economy lost 33,000 jobs in March, the worst monthly drop in over three years. Cities like Windsor and Ingersoll are facing an existential threat due to layoffs and factory closures. More layoffs will certainly follow. Unfortunately, the labour leaders seem to have accepted this and are not fighting to save jobs. Their approach of siding with the ruling class leaves them with no other option but to support counter-tariffs and beg the capitalists to not lay off workers.
This approach will lead nowhere. We can have no trust in the ruling class to protect the workers. As we have said before, the Canadian nationalism fostered by our ruling class has nothing to do with defending jobs or “sovereignty”, but with protecting the profits of the rich and powerful. It is a race to the bottom, and a dead end for the labour movement.
It is true that free trade was a disaster for the working class. But protectionism is no solution. Capitalism has created an interconnected world economy. The struggle for profits between different countries’ capitalists disrupts that global system, hurting workers everywhere. Despite what Fain says, auto and steel workers are already facing substantial layoffs in both Canadian and American plants. Food prices continue to rise. This is what the trade war means for workers: fewer jobs and a higher cost of living.
Return to internationalism!
The idea of collaborating with the bosses is alien to the roots of the labour movement, both in general and in Canada specifically. Some of our first industrial unions were affiliates of American unions. And Canadian workers have shown a natural instinct towards solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the world, like the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, which demanded an end to the imperialist invasion of the Workers’ Republic in Russia.
Our current leadership accepts the limits of capitalism, which means competing with other workers for scraps. We need to reject this logic. The real enemy is at home: it is the capitalists, the Westons and Rogers who hoard the wealth in society. Our struggle is against them, and our only ally in that struggle is the international working class.
The founding of International Workers’ Day was not a token gesture. It was organized by the Socialist International in the late 19th century as a worldwide demonstration of the power and common interests of the entire working class. This was only possible because the founders of the International understood that the movement could not accept the limits of the system, but had to overthrow it and build a socialist society.
Today, the RCP raises the banner of world socialist revolution as part of the Revolutionary Communist International. Against the chorus of nationalism and class collaboration, we say: workers of the world unite! Fighting as a “team” isn’t working. It’s time to fight as a class.
