Hundreds of thousands of workers in the U.S. and around the world turned out for marches, rallies and other actions called by unions and others on May Day.
In the U.S. many of the actions focused on the defense of immigrants, following the stepped-up targeting of workers without papers by President Donald Trump’s administration. Raids and deportations have escalated, aimed at heightening the fear of expulsion among millions of undocumented workers and deepening divisions among working people. The White House has also moved to end Temporary Protected Status for more than a million refugees.
Socialist Workers Party members participated in actions around the country calling for an amnesty for all immigrants, and explaining that unions should take the lead in this fight to advance unity in the working class.
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WASHINGTON — Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, marched in the May 1 action here. A thousand people rallied at the Washington Monument, then marched through downtown to rally at Franklin Park.
Speaking at a solidarity rally at Franklin Square, Vasquez Sura reminded the crowd that she spoke last year on the same stage. At that time Ábrego García, a SMART union apprentice sheet metal worker, had been denied due process and illegally deported to El Salvador where he was tortured in the notorious maximum security CECOT prison. “I stand here able to say that he is finally home,” she declared, “because the movement we are building has shown up time after time.”
She read a message from Ábrego García in English and Spanish thanking CASA, the immigrant rights group that leads his defense, and SMART, his union that has defended him from the beginning. “On May Day, this international day, I want to remind people of the working class of the world to hold your head up high for justice and dignity no matter who tries to bring you down. Keep fighting.”
Ábrego García is still battling the U.S. government’s efforts to deport him to Liberia. His next hearing is May 12.
His fight shows the potential that exists for winning widespread support from working people and our unions in the fight for immigrant rights. Native-born workers have lived and worked side by side with immigrants for decades and hate to see their co-workers and neighbors threatened with deportation.
— Arlene Rubinstein
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CHICAGO — Thousands of workers joined in the May Day march and rally here, many participating with immigrant rights groups or their unions. SWP members marched with a banner calling for “Amnesty for immigrant workers!” “U.S. troops out of the Mideast!” and “U.S. hands off Cuba!”
“My husband was detained by ICE in October,” Jasbledi told this Militant correspondent. She was part of a contingent from Casa DuPage, which organizes around immigrant workers’ rights in the western suburbs of Chicago.
“He’s being held in Michigan. They don’t give him medical care. The food is bad,” she said. “They tried to deport him to Honduras, even though we’re from Colombia. I’m working and trying to support our three kids while we try to get him released.”
A contingent of Amazon workers who are trying to win union recognition by the Teamsters participated in this year’s march. Carlos Herrera, an organizer for the campaign, said that when delivery drivers in Skokie joined the union, Amazon canceled the contract for the company they worked for.
“They claim the delivery drivers work for third-party contractors,” Herrera said. “But Amazon makes all the rules, controls the hiring process and can fire them. We’re now trying to organize more broadly among drivers and warehouse workers.”
In 2006 some 400,000 rallied in this city, part of a wave of actions involving 2 million immigrants in over 140 cities across the country. These actions defeated the Sensenbrenner bill, which would have made it a felony to be in the U.S. without papers, and helped reconquer May Day as a day for labor actions and rallies in the U.S.
— Naomi Craine
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NEWARK, N.J. — “This is a 140-year battle for workers’ rights,” Ramon Quinones, an organizer for District Council 21 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, told the Militant at a celebration of International Workers’ Day at the Lincoln statue here May 1.
Quinones pointed out that May Day was born in the U.S. in 1886 in the midst of a wave of labor struggles for the eight-hour day. “Today it’s important that undocumented workers know they have rights and unions stand with them,” he said.
Some 120 people joined the rally, sponsored by the New Jersey AFL-CIO, several area unions and the People’s Organization for Progress.
“At a time of turmoil and war, it’s important to march for workers’ rights,” retired postal worker Cliff Arrington said. “I was on the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and I’m still in the struggle!”
His friend, Wade McAllen, was also at the 1963 action. It drew 250,000 people, reflecting the growing strength of the Black-led working-class movement that uprooted Jim Crow segregation. “We were fighting to get justice. Everyone was there in solidarity, including many Jews.”
Both Arrington and McAllen signed to help put Joanne Kuniansky, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, on the ballot.
— Terry Evans
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MONTREAL — Strikers from the Montreal-area warehouse for the Metro grocery store chain, the Lavo cleaning-products plant, and from the maple syrup products plant in Plessisville joined several thousand other union members in a May 2 march here. Quebec Hydro workers, Teamsters member railworkers, Montreal blue collar workers, postal workers and many others involved in contract battles took part.
Nine Quebec union federations and provincewide unions chartered buses from around the province for the action, built on the theme “Our rights are being trampled, we must resist.”
The Quebec government recently adopted laws allowing it to severely limit the right to strike and dictate how union funds are spent and audited. In the past two years the federal government has made strikes by flight attendants, railworkers, and postal and port workers illegal.
Sylvain Champagne, on strike at Lavo against contracting out and for better wages, told the Militant, “There are a lot of strikes right now because people are fed up.”
— Katy LeRougetel