International Solidarity

By John Jacobsen - Fellow Worker Jacobsen is a labor activist currently living in Seattle, Washington. He works as a welder’s apprentice with the Boilermakers Local 104, and is an organizer with both the Seattle Solidarity Network and the Industrial Workers of the World. He has written and spoken on labor and anti-war topics to audiences from Seattle to Portland to London. Originally Posted at Trial by Fire

The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act would require immigrants in the state of Arizona to carry their alien registration documents on their persons at all times. It also requires police to question any person they may reasonably suspect is in the U.S. illegally.

The Act comes after years of increased public outcry for better enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

In response, grassroots organizations all over the country, from faith-based groups to labor unions, poured into the streets on May 1st to demand a repeal of the Arizona reforms.

May 1st, also known as International Workers’ Day, has traditionally marked the anniversary of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, 1886. But recently, the holiday has served as rallying point for labor activists and immigrant rights advocates to gather around.

Backlash – Mayday, 2010:

In all, over 90 cities saw tens of thousands of protestors march, and a large number of high-profile politicians and celebrities speak out against the Arizona law.

In this video, you can see U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) being arrested for participating in an act of civil disobedience at the white house.

In another high-profile disagreement with Arizona, the Major League Baseball Players Association released a statement condemning SB1070.

In Chicago, between eight and fifteen thousand people gathered in support of immigrant rights only days after activists attempted to physically block deportation vans in their city. In Dallas, around 20,000 rallied.

Los Angelas saw by far the largest protests, massing about 50,000 marchers at its height, focusing predominantly on the Arizona reforms. Five coalitions, representing over 150 labor, faith, and immigrant rights organizations banded together to put out the call for the protests. Protestors in the march chanted “boycott Arizona,” and wore t-shirts asking “do I look illegal?”

The International Solidarity Commission (ISC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) supports the workers in struggle in Greece and their strike actions in opposition to the threat of "austerity measures" by the Greek government, who claim those measures are needed to stop the country from bankruptcy. We are encouraged to see workers across Greece take a stand against the government's gamble with their livelihoods and exploitation of their labour. They have taken to the streets, and stopped working in a visible and powerful refusal to pay for the mess of the banks and financial speculators.

Rather then acquiesce to the official lie of a nation united in necessary sacrifice for the common good, they have exposed that the working class are not the cause of the crisis.  We will not suffer for it. As the slogan goes, in Greece and elsewhere,  we won't pay for their crisis! As one of the first countries threatening such wide-sweeping cuts, and in turn verging on bankruptcy in this crisis, the protests of workers in Greece are for us all.

As governments across the world respond to the current recession, a fruit of the unfettered gambling by capitalists with the wealth of the earth and the labour of workers everywhere, by further cutting into the subsistence and rights of the working class, we are glad to express our solidarity with the workers of Greece.

We are grateful to them for refusing to comply with the lie of "austerity" measures, which amount to the demand of a sacrifice by the poor for the benefit of the rich and for continuing to take a brave stand in the face of police repression.

In the hope that their struggle, which is also a struggle for workers everywhere, may continue and succeed, the IWW aim to lend our support, by action in solidarity, where it is within our grasp to do so, in our firm knowledge that 'an injury to one is an injury to all'.

In Solidarity,
The ISC of the IWW