May Day ads - part of our PV Drive

(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

    As May Day 2009 approaches, the global economic and political landscape has shifted dramatically. Working people face the deepest and most complex crisis in decades: spiralling unemployment, sharper attacks on wages, pensions, and working conditions, continued cuts to social programs, the rising threat of militarism and environmental catastrophe. Everywhere, workers are saying, “we didn’t cause this crisis, and we refuse to pay for it.” The demand is rising to decisively scrap the neoliberal agenda, in favour of policies that put people’s needs ahead of private greed.

    Not surprisingly, the corporate media tries to obscure and confuse this situation. The same right-wing politicians and talking heads who spent 2008 denying the impending crisis now tell us that “we’re all in May Day ads - part of our PV Drive the same boat.” Maybe so, but it resembles the Titanic: the rich are scrambling into lifeboats built by the working class, which is waging a desperate fight for survival.

    The good news is that this struggle is picking up momentum in many countries. The recent wave of huge strikes in Europe and the “Yes” vote in the Feb. 15 referendum in Venezuela are just two examples. Here in Canada, the labour movement is playing an important role in efforts to block the hated minority Harper Tory government. Workers are stepping up the fight for jobs, improvements to EI, massive investments in low-income housing and vital social programs, renewal of the Canadian manufacturing sector on an environmentally-sustainable basis, and public ownership of key industries.

But we can’t rely on the corporate misinformation outlets to report these struggles. We need our own media to provide a truthful, coherent picture of the campaign for a people’s alternative to the capitalist crisis.

    People’s Voice has been doing this since our first issue in March 1993, just as The Worker, the Tribune, and others did for the previous seventy years. The labour and people’s movements have a powerful advocate in People’s Voice, which seeks to unite the struggles for peace, jobs, democracy, equality, social justice, and the environment, into a powerful coalition which can bring fundamental socialist change to our society.

Carrying on our working class traditions, we will again print May Day greetings from a wide range of trade unions and other people’s organizations in our May 1-15 issue. By publishing a greeting this spring, your organization will send a message of solidarity to all working people in the struggle for real change, and help People’s Voice to continue improving and expanding. All greetings will count towards provincial targets for our annual $50,000 Fund Drive, which has just begun. See the information on this page for details of sizes, cost, etc.

The Editorial Board of PV thanks all organizations which have placed greetings in previous years for your ongoing solidarity. We look forward to reporting on the campaigns of the labour and people’s movements during the critical year which lies ahead!

Here's my contribution to the PV Fund Drive!

Enclosed please find my donation of $_____
to the 2009 People's Voice Press Fund Drive.

Name __________________________________

Address ________________________________

City/town ______________________________

Prov. ________ Postal Code _______________

Send to: People's Voice, 133 Herkimer St.,Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3

MAY DAY 2009
GREETING ADS
To mark May Day 2009, People's Voice will print
greetings from a wide range of labour and people's
organizations in our May 1-15 issue, which will be
distributed at events across Canada. The deadline for
camera-ready ads is April 19; if PV is preparing the
layout, the deadline is April 17. Please check with us
about the format if your ad is being sent electronically.
Ad rates (based on 5 column page):
Send greetings to People's Voice at:
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1
Fax (604)254-9803 E-mail: pvoice@telus.net
One column-inch.......................................$10
One column x 2 inches..............................$20
Two columns x 2 inches............................$35
Two columns x 3 inches............................$50
Two columns x 5 inches............................$75
Three columns x 4 inches....................... ..$90
Two columns x 7 inches...........................$100
Three columns x 7 inches........................$150