The Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC), along with its national unions and the National Association of Innovators and Rationalizers (ANIR), today called for the celebration of May Day, International Workers’ Day, under the mobilizing slogan “The Homeland Defends Itself.”

The call comes in a context marked by the U.S. government’s January 29 executive order, which added an energy embargo to the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed against Cuba for more than six decades.

Due to its importance, Radio Havana Cuba reproduces the call in its entirety:

CALL TO ACTION FOR MAY 1, 2026

Dear Cuban workers:

Faced with the growing threats from the U.S. government, reinforced by the executive order of January 29, which added an energy embargo to the already intensified economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed on us for more than 65 years simply for wanting to build a dignified, sovereign, and independent nation, there is nothing more important and decisive today than to work together and grow stronger as a country.

In the midst of this scenario, the Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC), its national unions, and the National Association of Innovators and Rationalizers (ANIR) call for the celebration of May Day, International Workers’ Day, under a cardinal and mobilizing idea: “The Homeland Defends Itself.”

Celebrating May Day is to demonstrate the unity of Cubans and their patriotism; It is to once again “break the palm tree,” as Maceo did in Baraguá when he refused to accept peace without independence; it is to evoke the ideas of José Martí in his speech “Los Pinos Nuevos” (The New Pines), a momentous declaration of unity among several generations of Cubans around the independence project; it is to defend, in the centennial year of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, his vision expressed on May 1, 2000.

We urge everyone to celebrate it in parades and events, in every workplace, bateyes (sugar plantation settlements), town, municipality, and province, with the same rationality we have had to adopt in the face of the restrictions imposed by the intensified blockade.

It is a call to defend the country, from the fields, the factories, the classrooms, the scientific centers, the thermoelectric plants, the hospitals, the cultural sphere, the sports arena; from every battlefront.

We invite Cuba’s friends around the world to join us, as they do every year, in celebrating International Workers’ Day.  We thank them in advance for their solidarity and for having the courage to share our fate amidst a real military threat, which, far from intimidating us, makes us repeat, with optimism and confidence in victory, the glorious verse of our National Anthem: To die for the Homeland is to live.

“Together we create for Cuba” is the conviction that will accompany us on this day, driving the priorities defined by the Party; for those of us who prepare ourselves in the defense of the Socialist Homeland; who work for the transformation of the energy matrix; who contribute to food production; who seek solutions to problems every day; it is the conviction of the doctors and teachers who do not give up and continue defending life; of those of us who are part of the Revolution, not out of dogma or fanaticism, but out of conviction, ideas, and action.

Workers, Cuban people:

With the vibrant colors of our flag, with joy and patriotism, and inspired by the teachings of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, just months before the final sessions of our 22nd Congress, the CTC, its national unions, and the ANIR call for a May Day that will shake us as a nation, united by our commitment to be useful, to contribute, and to defend the project that Martí dreamed of, Fidel fulfilled, and which, under the leadership of the Party, headed by First Secretary Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, together with the workers, we will not allow to be taken from us.

Long live the Cuban Revolution!

Patria o Muerte! Homeland or Death!

Venceremos! We will overcome!

SEE YOU ON MAY 1st!!