In March 2018, Awaaz carried an article by Ramnik Shah titled “Jayaben Desai: A Legend”. I don’t know how many people in East Africa and beyond read this excellent homage to Jayaben.  I take the occasion of the celebration of the May Day this year to write a small piece to remember the struggle of the migrant workers – mostly Asian women from East Africa – in a small factory in England, a struggle that eventually encompassed the whole country. I try, also, to learn from that experience to reflect on the situation with the struggle of the working classes in East Africa today.

On this May Day 2018, mass demonstrations across the United States of America and the world focus on the current economic crisis and workers’ struggle to defeat austerity. 

In view of the historic May Day, 1st May, analysts from Monthly Review, the famous independent socialist magazine, identify tasks the working classes should press with. In the following interviews, conducted in early-April, John Bellamy Foster, Professor and Editor of Monthly Review; Fred Magdoff, Professor Emeritus, and one of Monthly Review’s closest associates, and Michael D. Yates, Professor Emeritus and Associate Editor of Monthly Review, provide answers (presented in alphabetical order) to a number of questions as well as slogans to be raised by the working classes on May Day in 2018.