By Jose San Mateo - City on a Hill Press, May 2, 2007

While 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.”