Submitted by x360279 on Sun, 04/26/2009 - 11:13pm
Happy International Workers’ Day!
Dear Friend,
This Friday, May 1st, is YOUR day, a day to celebrate all working people.
Please take a moment to thank your co-workers, friends, and family members for all the hard work they do every day.
Many people don’t know about the history of May 1st as a workers’ holiday. Here is some information on the roots of May 1st, also called May Day.
ORIGINS
The origins of International Workers’ Day go back to 1886, when hundreds of thousands workers across the United States went on strike. Workers demanded that their 10- and 12-hour workdays be shortened to an 8-hour day with no reduction in pay. Over the next few years, thousands of workers won the 8-hour workday that many of us still enjoy today.
REMEMBERING THE HAYMARKET MARTYRS
We also celebrate in memory of the Haymarket massacre, in which eight labor activists were framed and put on trial by the government. On May 4, 1886, there was a rally at Chicago’s Haymarket Square in support of striking workers from a nearby factory.
Submitted by x344543 on Tue, 05/15/2007 - 3:54am
Text by Rob X355616 and Photo by Stephanie X360677
Early May and Leicestershire IWW was involved in a host of diverse activities, ranging from participation in the May Day demo, running a stall at a local Social Forum event, flyering a local blood donor surgery as part of the National Blood Service dispute, and engaging in IWW social activities.
As the official Leicester Trades Council march was to be held on the 5th May, Leicester Wobblies decided to celebrate the real May Day with a social event at a cheap and friendly local Indian vegetarian place. The new local branch is a great believer in the notion that, 'people who play together will fight together' so social events are seen as essential for not only building branch cohesion but also for bringing new members into the local Wobbly scene.
Saturday 5th May we mobilised 15 Leicestershire Wobblies and were joined by a couple of members from Cambridge and Milton Keynes for the Trades Council march to defend public services.
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 05/09/2007 - 3:26am
“I had to be here for my gente,” said Linda, a Mexican American educator who came from the far south side of Pittsburgh.” Her knee operation did not stop her for coming in a wheel chair and bringing her two children and three grandchildren to the vigil and the march. “I support Pittsburgh Friends of Immigrants and I thank them for organizing this, it is needed in this city,” she said.
Under a beautiful sunny day, this second May Day, International Workers' Day, Pastor Linda Theophilus of PFOI and the Detention Watch Network once again honored the 1.8 million deportees since 1996 in our country. She read personal stories and statements of families separated by raids and deportations and at the end of each, her chant, a national immigrants' rights chant, resounded through the streets adjacent to the jail which were later taken to the streets by the protestors: Immigrants Rights: Are Human Rigthts! Immigrants Rights: Are Human Rights!
Submitted by x344543 on Thu, 05/03/2007 - 2:55am
By Jose San Mateo - City on a Hill Press, May 2, 2007While thousands of students and Santa Cruz residents rallied for immigrant rights on May Day--marching from the quarry plaza all the way to the beach flats--this group raised glasses of dark lager at The Poet and the Patriot before unfurling their red and black (Industrial) Workers of the World (IWW) banner and setting out for their own march down Pacific Avenue to the Veterans Hall for the sixth annual Reel Works Film Festival.
Paul Ortiz, a Community Studies Professor at UCSC, an organizer for the event since its inception in 2001. He said that the goal of the event was to give workers a voice.
“In our schools and within the community, we are taught a vision of society where workers pay more and get paid less,” Ortiz said. “We believe that people have the capability to have a voice at the table.”
Submitted by x344543 on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 3:19pm
Article and Photo by By Sheri Levisay - The Argus Leader, May 2, 2007
It's hard to get people to a rally about workers rights on a beautiful 70-degree day in Sioux Falls.
In fact, it's hard to get people interested on any day in Sioux Falls, said Mike Beaver, one of the organizers of a May Day Rally on Tuesday at Van Eps Park.
"People don't care," Beaver said.
But six people did care enough to show up near the Minnehaha County Courthouse, trickling in between 4 and 5 p.m.
The majority of them are active with the Industrial Workers of the World, "a solidarity union interested in immigrants rights, both legal and illegal," Beaver said.
Some of them looked the part. Beaver wore a T-shirt saying, "Not my president." Various piercings, tattoos, red-streaked hair. One smoked a cigar, another a pipe. One carried a police-style riot shield.
Travis Stuckey, another organizer, showed up a bit late. "It's the first time I've ever worked on May Day," he said.
He had passed out Spanish-language pamphlets at bus stops, near the John Morrell plant and other places where Hispanic workers were likely to gather.
As the activists waited, the discussion wandered from Cinco de Mayo to using cell phones to tell what time it is ("Man, you're paying $40 a month for a watch") to a new kind of dog food that reduces poop, then turned to the U.S. economy.
"There's maybe 20 years max before this country falls into the Third World" if we don't recover manufacturing jobs, Stuckey opined.
About 5:15, Stuckey went to his vehicle to pull out signs and literature. Chris Huska of Act Now to Stop War & End Racism exchanged pamphlets with Stuckey.
When they stood near Minnesota Avenue with signs, there were a few honks - hard to tell whether in accord or in anger.
None of the immigrants the group was trying to help showed up. But South Dakota's low pay and dearth of unions will keep these activists passing out workers rights pamphlets.
"It's needed here quite a bit," Beaver said.
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