Vol. 76/No. 20      May 21, 2012

Ferry workers organized by the Inland Boatmen’s Union carried out a strike for one shift in their fight for a contract, shutting down ferries that shuttle commuters from Marin County to San Francisco. Thousands of nurses in the San Francisco Bay Area conducted a one-day walkout to protest demands by Sutter Health for more concessions. Some 300 airline contract workers picketed terminals at Los Angeles International Airport, and 780 Caterpillar workers went on strike in Illinois.

In a number of places, May Day demonstrations were stamped by the diffuse politics of Occupy groups under the banner of the “99 percent” and bombastic calls for a “general strike.” In a few cities, anarchist forces carried out provocative actions that gave the press and politicians a handle to violence bait and smear International Workers Day.

More than 3,000 people marched in Chicago, demanding legalization and an end to deportations, a halt to the firing of workers without papers, and the elimination of the E-verify Internet system to check work papers. Supporters of the Occupy movement also joined the march.

“These companies are trying to turn workers into criminals,” Robert Hines told the Militant at the Chicago march. “They use background checks to fire workers and for you to accept bad conditions.” Hines was part of a mostly Black contingent from Warehouse Workers for Justice.

“We have to stand up against the treatment of immigrant workers and all workers,” said Arturo Castro, who came with seven coworkers from a welding shop in Wheeling, Ill.

Some 4,000 marched in Salem, Ore., for the rights of immigrant workers. A letter from Governor John Kitzhaber was read there announcing state police will begin accepting Mexican government issued cards as ID during traffic stops.

About 400 marched in steady rain from East Boston, Mass., to Everett. Immigrant workers were joined by members of Service Employees International Union Local 615 and airport contract workers fighting for better pay and working conditions. Several dozen people came from an Occupy Boston protest held earlier that day.

Among other immigrant rights actions on May Day: a march of 600 in Yakima, Wash., with many farmworkers; 200 in New Orleans; hundreds in Los Angeles; 200 in Houston; 250 in Minneapolis; about 100 in Montgomery, Ala.; and 200 in Atlanta.

Thousands of supporters of immigrant rights marched in Oakland, Calif. The March for Dignity started at the Fruitvale transportation station and marched to City Hall. It included several union contingents, including postal workers and Bakery and Confectionery Workers Local 125.

“We need to organize and get together,” Ana Castaño told the crowd at a rally during the midpoint of the march. “We are not criminals. We are workers.” Castaño is one of 200 workers who were fired from Pacific Steel Casting in Berkeley, Calif., at the end of the year as a result of an immigration audit.

During the course of the day, some groups connected to Occupy Oakland blocked streets downtown and 39 were arrested by the police. As the immigrant rights march continued, more people associated with Occupy joined the action, including some who carried gas masks and shields made of corrugated steel.

A group of immigrant high school students decided to leave the march early as did some of the union contingents and other participants. By the time the march reached City Hall it was mostly an Occupy march.

In Seattle, some 1,500 took part in an immigrant rights march endorsed by a wide variety of immigrant rights, student and religious groups and more than a dozen unions.

Provocative actions by anarchists

Trial by Fire, an anarchist website, hailed these pointless and dangerous provocations as a sign of “a real challenge beginning to form” to “those in power.”

Two days earlier El Comité Pro Reforma Migratoria y Justicia Social (Immigration Reform and Social Justice Committee), the coalition that organized the march, issued a statement saying that the immigrant rights and Occupy organizations were organizing separate actions at different times of the day and distancing itself from any provocative actions.

“We are working with members of Occupy Seattle to make each of our events both safe and effective,” the statement said. “We in no way encourage the dissemination of any information that encourages our participants to engage in reckless, poorly thought out activities. … Contrary to reports that have been disseminated in the media, the vast majority of participants in May 1st activities do not have the intent of placing participants in danger.”

In one of the largest May Day actions, more than 10,000 people marched in New York. The main banner on the stage read, “We are the 99%,” with a subhead saying “legalize, organize, unionize.”

“I came to support the Occupy movement,” said Chris Reinsch, 28, who described himself as self-employed. “Things need to change.”

Reinsch said he was sympathetic to those fighting for immigrant rights, but added, “I don’t think it should be that easy for everyone to get papers.”

The week before the march New York City cops visited several Occupy Wall Street participants to probe for information about the upcoming May Day action on the pretext that they had outstanding warrants for minor misdemeanors. According to the New York Times, the cops woke up Zachary Dempster, 31, at 6:15 a.m. April 30 and arrested his roommate for an open-container warrant. They then attempted to interrogate Dempster about plans for May Day.

A May 1 article in the New York Post began, “New York is braced for May Day mayhem” that could “not only make it difficult for people to get to their jobs, but … put angry demonstrators on a collision course with beefed-up police.” It included several paragraphs on a police investigation into cornstarch-filled envelopes that arrived by mail the day before to six banks and an office building with a note saying, “Just in case you needed some incentive to stop working we have a little surprise for you.” One of the letters was addressed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In Cleveland, the FBI announced on May Day that they had arrested five men the night before for “conspiring to use explosives to destroy a bridge.” The Wall Street Journal noted that the group had been infiltrated by a paid FBI informant for several months and that the fake explosives were “provided by an undercover FBI agent.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran an article May 1 titled “FBI Arrests 5 Accused of Plotting to Blow Up 82 Ohio Bridges In Cuyahoga Valley.” After nine paragraphs on the FBI-manufactured plot, the piece concluded by saying, “May Day protests were also taking place in other U.S. cities today.”

Galinsky is reporting from New York and Cotton from the Bay Area. Betsy Farley from Chicago, Mary Martin from Seattle and Eric Simpson from San Francisco contributed to this article.
 
 
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