PAKISTAN, May 1 — “Workers of the world, unite!” was a slogan chanted with energy, enthusiasm, excitement and confidence all over Pakistan on May Day. The working class in Pakistan is still facing the same problems as the working class did in 1848. On this year’s May Day, comrades, friends and sympathizers of the international revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party were very active bringing the working class into the streets all over Pakistan!
Nationwide, huge rallies, protest demonstrations and seminars were organized under different trade unions, student organizations, employees and women’s organizations which were attended by hundreds of thousands of workers all over Pakistan. Workers were demanding minimum wage increases to 40,000 rupees ($392 per month from the current $197), empowerment of labor courts, social security benefits to informal sector workers, an end to forced labor, the contractual system and privatization. Workers also demanded an end to poor living and working conditions, and mass unemployment.
PLP in Pakistan Marches and Fights!
At two large rallies of workers and students in different places, PLP women comrades explained that only five percent of all workers are organized under trade unions in Pakistan, but only one percent of women are. They emphasized that any worker’s struggle cannot achieve success without the participation and leadership of women. Comrades also asked their coworkers in their trade unions to rise above their personal interests and help the working class to unite into a single movement for equality and justice. CHALLENGE was distributed to the workers and students in the audience.
In a rally, a PLP member explained to the crowd that the government is planning to privatize big industries like Pakistan Steel and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). But meanwhile the phony leadership of PIA’s union is organizing a strike just so they can win themselves free plane tickets! He explained that workers need PLP, a true working-class and revolutionary party to fight not only against privatization, but all capitalist exploitation. He expressed great concern over the economic and social sufferings of the working class, which enables the rich to become richer and the poor to be poorer. The bosses here have stashed $200 billion into Swiss banks. Meanwhile, the U.S. imperialists are pushing the Pakistani bosses into the clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
A comrade addressing another major trade union said that the children of workers had no access to education, but even if they did manage to get an education, they cannot get jobs because of blatant corruption and the preference given to rich people. He explained that without communist revolution under the leadership from the international working class, our children will also become exploited workers. Therefore we must strive to eliminate bosses and establish a classless society.
Hundreds of poor brick-kiln workers — a sector PLP has been organizing in the suburbs — also held a rally on May Day. A friend of PLP complained of being paid only 400 rupees ($3.90) per 1,000 bricks, against the government stipulated minimum of 742 rupees ($7.29) per 1,000 bricks. A woman brick-kiln worker and friend of PLP explained that sexual harassment is rampant, and owners of kilns threatened them with torture and death when they expressed concerns at the condition of the bonded laborers employed in brick-kilns. Another brick-kiln worker complained that the bosses had stopped them from traveling to the city for the May Day rallies.
Women healthcare workers also participated in citywide May Day rallies. Their union representatives blasted their industry’s lack of regulation of existing laws. Health care workers are paid far below the minimum wage of 12,000 rupees ($117.82), despite orders from the Supreme Court. They also condemned the bosses for not supporting the families of women health workers who were killed by terrorists during the polio campaign in the regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi.
Comrades and friends of PLP in industial unions demanded that the government immediately honor existing labor laws, restore labor inspection in all the industrial units, provide all workers the right to organize trade unions, and increase wages according to increasing inflation. They called on the workers to organize and build a fighting Progressive Labor Party on their jobs, and that only joining the fight for communist revolution can ultimately end the nightmare these workers suffer in Pakistan.
Only Security Is Communist Revolution
A PL’er in another area recalled the sacrifices of Chicago workers in 1886, which led to the first May Day in 1890, and said that the working class in Pakistan is also facing similar exploitation. He called on forging unity among workers to force the ruling class to fulfill their demands. He criticized the government for imposing a ban on trade unions in 98 per cent of private sector factories, where the workers are being forced to work for 12 hours on just 4,000 to 6,000 Pakistani rupees ($39 to $59 monthly). He said that the workers also lack social security, medical facilities, free education. Labor laws were openly violated with no check by the authorities. The only true social security for workers in Peshawar is communist revolution!
many areas also organized separate May Day functions, with PLP members involved in each. Workers demanded a mechanism to save the precious lives of workers at workplaces, provide social security to all workers, stop privatization and to smash the sexist harassment of women workers.
A Party comrade in a very remote and relatively backward city of Pakistan succeeded in bringing cart-drivers and rickshaw drivers onto the roads together with only red flags, and no other flag or banner! Another comrade who is organizing among taxi drivers convinced his friends and coworkers to raise red flags over their taxis on May Day as well.
Comrades and friends of PLP in another region who are landless agricultural workers report that they are organizing our Party among masses of landless farm workers in that region to unite against big feudal lords and to get rid of their barbaric actions and exploitation.We explained that without an international revolutionary communist struggle, we cannot truly get rid of exploitation and poverty! We will fight for the lands controlled by the big landlords. On May Day the landless workers demanded the government implement labor laws to protect farm workers, and erect decent housing for poor workers in Pakistan.

For the first time in two cities, young PLP comrades working in a student federation brought workers affiliated with different trade unions and students’ federations under one red flag to celebrate May Day. It was great to see their chanting anti-nationalist and revolutionary slogans like, “One world, one fight, workers of the world unite!” In their May Day speeches, comrades explained before the gathering of poor workers that nationalism is a tool of bosses to divide one working class into different nationalities, ethnicities, sects and races so that workers cannot fight a united struggle against exploitation, poverty, illiteracy and injustices. They concluded that we must unite under one red flag, of the Progressive Labor Party, for an international communist revolution to establish a classless society.
Our Party in Pakistan marches on!