Vol. 79/No. 18      May 18, 2015

It was striking that many actions were organized by unions — just 10 years ago most labor officials would have viewed any May Day action as too radical for union involvement.

International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 organized the May 1 march and rally of 750 in Oakland, California. “Stop Police Terror” and “An Injury to One Is an Injury to All” read the lead banner.

Local 10 held the protest in place of their monthly eight-hour “stop-work meeting,” effectively shutting down the Port of Oakland for the day.

Relatives of Bay Area youth killed by cops spoke at the action. “We got the cop who killed Oscar Grant charged, convicted and sent to jail,” Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, told the crowd. A Bay Area transit cop shot Grant in 2009 as he lay face down. “We need the community and labor working together.”

International Workingmen’s Day, May 1, was born in the United States in 1886 as part of the fight for the eight-hour day, and became a day of international working-class protest.

Because of these traditions, and the manipulation of the date by Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, conservative U.S. labor officials boycotted May Day, and the rulers organized “Labor Day” in September.

That changed in 2006 when millions of immigrants took to the streets nationwide against a draconian anti-immigrant bill in Congress. Proclaiming “We are workers, not criminals!” they organized the first political strike in U.S. history, reconquering May Day for the entire working class.

This year there were two May Day marches in New York City, each with about 1,000 participants. One was organized by Labor Rights, Immigrant Rights, Jobs for All, a coalition of the New York State and City labor councils and more than two dozen union locals. It began outside the home of Alice Walton, one of Walmart’s owners.

Hundreds of construction workers from Laborers’ International, including a number of women unionists, marched along with government employees, operating engineers, nurses, building workers and community groups. A Walmart worker spoke at the rally. She was one of more than 500 who lost their jobs when the retailer shut its Pico Rivera, California, store April 13 to retaliate against workers joining labor actions.

The march organized by the May 1 Immigrant Rights Coalition gathered in Union Square, drawing a wide variety of immigrant organizations, university students and fighters against police brutality who chanted “Black Lives Matter” and called for prosecution and conviction of the cops who killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore. One contingent called for freedom for Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López and several demanded justice for 43 Mexican students from Ayotzinapa disappeared by municipal police in Iguala, Mexico, last September.

There were several demonstrations across Washington state. “My mother was deported in 2007 and my brother was deported a year later,” Claudia Loza, a student from Evergreen College, told the Seattle rally of more than 1,000. “I’m here standing for my family and standing for all the families that have been separated.” Several hundred farmworkers and their supporters marched in Yakima, behind a “No deportations” banner.

Hundreds of high school students walked out of class in Minneapolis to protest the killing of Freddie Gray, feeding into a march by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee.

Marches took place in Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Boston, Pittsburgh and other cities.

May Day worldwide

Tens of thousands marched to Zócalo Plaza in Mexico City. One contingent in the march was led by relatives of the 43 disappeared students and by farmworkers from the San Quintín Valley in Baja California who won a wage increase in an April strike. Some signs read, “We support Baltimore, San Quintín, Ayotzinapa.”

May Day protests of 150,000 in South Korea were the largest ever, Hankyoreh newspaper said. A main demand was increasing the minimum wage, currently about $5.17 an hour.

Demonstrators were also joined by about 100 family members of the victims of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster, which killed 294 passengers.

The week before cops fired water cannons and tear gas at a demonstration of tens of thousands in support of the Sewol families, who are demanding an investigation into government responsibility for the disaster.

Clint Davis in Washington state and Mark Schaefer in Oakland contributed to this article.  
 
 
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