Several manifestations were held in Mumbai on May 1, the International Working Class Day. The Girini Kamagar Sangharsh Samiti (GKSS) organised a May Day march in Central Mumbai. The Trade Union Joint Action Committee (TUJAC) organised a meeting in the Central Railway Hall at the Chatrapati Shivaji terminus. Several other workers' organisations held meetings in Saki Naka, Thane and other places.

Activists of Kamgar Ekta Chalwal joined hundreds of textile workers in the May Day march organised by the GKSS. They held aloft banners calling for the "Workers of the World, Unite!" and declaring that "Only worker-peasant rule can ensure prosperity and security for all!" The march began at the Kamgar Kalyan Kendra, N M Joshi Marg, wound through the BDD chawl area to Chinchpokli station, to Kalachowki and ended at a closed down NTC mill. All through the march, the workers raised militant slogans demanding their rights as mill workers and hailing May Day. The workers gathered at the gate of the closed mill, where they were addressed by several leaders of the working class.

In his address to the workers, the representative of KEC talked of the society being divided into the exploiters, with big capitalists at the head, and the exploited with the working class at the head. The Indian state is in the hands of the capitalist class which wields state power to suppress the working class advance its own interests nationally and internationally.  May Day is a day for the workers to rededicate themselves to the struggle to wrest political power from the capitalist class into its own hands and establish a state that will serve the interests of toilers.

In the meeting organised by TUJAC, comrade A D Golandaz of CPI convened the meeting. Representatives of Kamgar Ekta Chalwal, Bombay University Teachers Union, Kamgar Aghadi, Bank employees federation, Socialist Unity Centre of India, BSNL union, CPI, CITU, State Government Employees Union, HMKP and NRMU spoke on the occasion.

Speakers were angry because the government is trying to reduce even the space available to hold protests and meetings under the pretext of enforcing "silence zones". Even the permission to hold the May Day meeting in Maharashtra High School maidan, where it is traditionally held, was denied this year, forcing TUJAC to hold the meeting indoors.

Other speakers talked about capitalist offensive against the workers. More and more workers are being turned into contract workers deprived of even the minimum of labour rights that organised sector workers enjoy. Even minimum wages are being denied. Government is persisting in its plan to privatize the banking sector. There is a big attack on taxi drivers and hawkers in Mumbai. The salary of BEST workers has actually been reduced by 4000 to 5000 Rs. per month. Government is not taking action to fill job vacancies. The condition of the railway and postal workers is very bad. Public health, education and other public services are being cut down. On this May Day it is important to note that the right of 8 hour workday, for which the workers laid down their lives more than a 100 years ago in Chicago, is being trampled by the capitalists and workers are being forced to work for even more than 12 hour shifts. The general sentiment of the speakers was for organising united actions of workers,

The representative of Kamgar Ekta Chalwal emphasised that the economic crisis is not the result of some wrong policies of this or that country but is the result of capitalist system of exploitation. The government is handing out huge concessions to big corporate houses to keep their profits high whereas working people in cities and villages are suffering and no help is coming from the government. This clearly shows the class nature of the Indian state and the major political parties.

He reported on the initiative that KEC had taken, along with other organisations like Communist Ghadar Party of India, Lok Raj Sangathan and a dozen other organisations in coming out with an election manifesto and people's program in the interest of the working people. Candidates who were willing to support such a program and were willing to be accountable to people's committees were nominated as People's candidate. One such candidate, an active member of KEC and Ladaku Garment Mazdoor Sangh and a fighter for the rights of workers, Com Suryakant Shinge stood from Mumbai South constituency in the general elections. He concluded by saying that the working class needs to come forward with many more such initiatives and challenge the exploitative rule of the capitalist class.