home

GLOBAL STRIKE AGAINST CORPORATE TYRANNY
7AM TUESDAY 1 MAY 2001
CITIES WORLDWIDE

By walking out of workplaces, campuses and schools to join the international action against global capitalism on May 1, we will be uniting with peoples in the Third World who have been fighting the disastrous impact of corporate destruction for decades. On that day, the power of large numbers of people united in struggle for an end to exploitation and injustice will be seen and heard around the world. M1 calls on all progressive groups and individuals; including trade unions, progressive political parties, green, feminist, queer, disabled, unemployed, student, indigenous, internationalist, socialist and anarchist activists, and entertainers and performers to be part of the M1 activities.

WHAT IS M1 ?

Something special will happen on May 1. For the first time ever in Australia, thousands of people will take action, simultaneously across the country, against the stock exchange, the symbolic heart and soul of corporate power and global capitalism.
You should be there. The world needs to hear your voice – and your friends’, neighbours’, workmates or classmates’, the voice of everyone you know and everyone you meet – raised in protestagainst the effects of corporate globalisation, which is bringing unprecedented misery to 80% of the world's population so an already obscenely wealthy minority can become richer. It is also part of a global movement that is calling for the abolition of organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum and the World Bank, and and end to global inequality and environmental destruction.
Here’s a few facts and figures to consider:
· Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations: General Motors is bigger than Indonesia, Shell is bigger than Venezuela, AXA is bigger than Ireland.
· The combined sales of the largest 200 corporations are 18 times the size of the combined annual income of the 1.2 bilion people (24% of the world’s population) who live in severe poverty.
· Microsoft Corporation alone turns over a profit of $12.5 billion a year. $9 billion per year would provide everyone on the planet with basic education.
· $153 billion - six months' trading on the Australan Stock Exchange. $160 billion - would fund provision of basic services (health, water, education) to everyone on the planet. (UN estimate)
· The world’s three richest men now own assets equivalent to those owned by the 600 million people in the world’s 48 least developed countries.
· $780 billion per year is spent on the world's armies. Water and sanitation for every person on the planet would cost $9 billion; basic health care and nutrition for every person on the planet would cost $13 billion.
· Each day, US$1.5 trillion flows through the world’s currency markets, 90% of which is speculative: enough to wipe out the entire debt of the 92 Third World countries which most need it.
And the wealth and size of these giant banks and industrial combines isn’t even the worst of it: it’s what they do with that wealth and size which is most devastating.
Mining companies pollute entire ecosystems with impunity; banks and hedge funds cause financial meltdowns and collapse currencies; oil and automobile manufacturers block action to halt climate change; privatised utilities downgrade services and ratchet up prices; fashion labels pay sweatshop workers a couple of dollars for a shirt which retails for hundreds; chemical conglomerates claim rises in cancer incidences have nothing to do with the toxins they pump into the air; and company after company throw their money around, buying politicians and governments and clever advertising campaigns to convince us that nothing’s wrong and that there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.
Well, they’re wrong: there is something you can do about it, and M1 is your next opportunity.
You can take to the streets, blockade and protest, shout out Peter Finch’s famous cry: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more”, and sing defiantly “this is what democracy looks like”!
By doing so you’ll be part of a swelling mass of people, in every corner of the world, who are casting off the shackles of “there is no alternative”, who are throwing the corporate elites into a panic and who are getting together to make the world into the kind of place they want to live in.
May 1 is May Day, the traditional day of the workers’ movement – and M1 is part of that old and proud tradition, of working people standing up against injustice, whatever and wherever it may be.
But M1 is also something very new – a brave attempt to bring together all the disparate communities, groups and individuals who are resisting the various injustices of the capitalist beast, to bring them together and strike out at the beast itself.
M1, and the global movement it is a part of, deserves success, as the hopes for the future of millions rest with it – success which you can guarantee by being part of it, before, during and after the first of May.

history of mayday >>