Primero de Mayo

Our Blog of the Week takes you back to nationwide demonstrations for an eight-hour work week in 1886 and juxtaposes those demonstrations with what has, and hasn’t changed, for workers today. Much has changed since the first May Day, but building worker power and combating racism and xenophobia remain just as important. May 1 is International Workers’ Day, a day workers around the world mark as Labor Day with marches, demonstrations, and renewed calls for workers’ rights. “May Day” got its start in 1886, when U.S. workers rallied in support of ongoing campaigns for an eight-hour day, setting May 1 as a deadline to begin mass strikes if employers failed to adopt shorter hours. In 1886 Chicago, where tens of thousands joined May Day actions and thousands went on strike, subsequent police shootings of striking workers escalated into the well-known Haymarket Tragedy. Months of state-sanctioned, anti-immigrant repression of labor organizing followed. Police raids of union halls and arrests of organizers culminated in a sham trial, eight guilty verdicts, and public hanging of four prominent immigrant, working-class movement leaders (a fifth died by suicide prior to the execution date). The trial and executions were followed closely by workers across the country and around the world. In memory of the Haymarket Martyrs, labor and socialist organizations declared May Day International Workers’ Day, now an official public holiday in many countries. Over 100 years later, our May Day 2022 economy has much in common with that of May Day 1886—rising inequality, economic upheavals affecting those with the least financial security, xenophobia, market concentration, and an upsurge in workers taking matters into their own hands while facing intense employer resistance. U.S. factory workers and railroad workers are still campaigning for shorter hours, in some cases striking (or threatening strikes) to challenge inhumane 12-to-14-hour shifts and unpredictable forced overtime. New generations of workers, including many immigrants, are breaking through barriers of employer union-busting to organize unions in warehouses, hospitals, nursing homes, coffee shops, retail stores, media outlets, universities, and beyond.

This May Day, policymakers should follow the lead of these workers, reverse policies that constrain worker power, and avoid the mistakes of the First Gilded Age that followed May Day 1886 by enacting a pro-worker agenda at both state and federal levels. “Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Rest, Eight Hours of What We Will” – chant from 1886 strike A shortened workday was a radical concept in 1886, as six-day workweeks with 12-to-14-hour days were not uncommon. Working conditions were dismal, and the nation was in the midst of the “Long Depression,” a period of severe contraction and crisis in the banking and railroad sectors. Growing numbers of workers were taking action to demand better; the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 695 strikes took place in 1885 with just over 250,000 workers involved. Just one year later in 1886, there were over double the number of strikes and 610,000 workers involved.

 

May Day- Immigrants Justice

 National Day of Action for Immigrant Rights

Sat May 1 throughout California | details
On International Workers Day and Immigrant Rights Day, we recognize and celebrate workers and their right to organize. This May Day also concludes the first 100 days of Biden’s administration. In the next 100 days, the President and the Congress will decide whether to create the pathway to citizenship for the approximately 10 million undocumented people who call this country home.

At this week’s Moral Monday, viewers were urged to attend Movimiento Cosecha’s May Day Action in Washington DC, where activists and allies will demand sweeping immigration reform. We Californians can show our support at actions taking place across the state. Find a May Day event near you.

Bring Back May Day

Most of the world recognizes May 1 — May Day — as International Workers’ Day. Here in one of the few countries that doesn’t, it’s worth pausing to ask how U.S. workers are doing.

At an event last December, Fight for $15 organizer Terrence Wise recalled “going to bed at night, ignoring my own stomach’s rumbling, but having to hear my three little girls’ stomachs rumble. That’s something no parent should have to endure.”

Wise was marking the launch of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Last month, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Poor People’s Campaign released The Souls of Poor Folk, a report on 50 years of change in the issues that affect working people, and particularly those at the bottom. We looked at systemic racism, poverty, militarism, and ecological devastation.

We found some startling and unhappy results. For the most part, workers like Wise are struggling hard to get by.

With the destruction of industries and the cities that housed them, the nature of our economy has shifted. Although the official unemployment rate is low, employment today often means low-wage work that offers little job security.

Our society’s treatment of workers has changed, too. For example, 28 states have passed so-called “right to work” laws that undermine the ability of workers to organize.

THE SOULS OF POOR FOLK

Auditing America after 1968's Poor People's Campaign 

That’s meant steadily declining union membership, which keeps workers from getting their fair share of the wealth produced by the U.S. economy over the past 50 years. Despite enormous growth in the overall economy, wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have remained largely stagnant.

Organized Labor in Mexico and the U.S.

Richard Trumka:   President AFL-CIO

En toda Norteamérica y alrededor del mundo, el Primero de Mayo es una fecha para recordar y respetar tanto los derechos de los trabajadores como los derechos humanos. Mientras la clase obrera sale a marchar en sus diferentes comunidades, surge un movimiento laboral – más sereno, pero igualmente importante para los trabajadores – que continúa creciendo en ambos lados de la frontera entre México y Estados Unidos.  

No importa el idioma que hablemos, ni dónde sea nuestro hogar o nuestro lugar de origen, los trabajadores siguen adquiriendo más poder, por medio del apoyo a los derechos laborales y una constante lucha en contra de la corrupción. Lo mejor es que estamos haciendo todo esto juntos. 

Nuestra agenda es simple. Nos oponemos a los esfuerzos para dividir y quitarle poder a los trabajadores. Nos oponemos a los muros fronterizos y a la xenofobia en cualquier lugar y en todas partes. Queremos leyes comerciales que beneficien a los trabajadores, no a las corporaciones. Y queremos reglas económicas que aumenten los salarios, amplíen las oportunidades y responsabilicen a las corporaciones.

Ya han pasado casi 20 años desde que muchos sindicatos mexicanos libres y democráticos iniciaron una alianza con la mayor federación de sindicatos de trabajadores de Estados Unidos, la AFL-CIO.

Hemos desarrollado una buena relación de trabajo. Hemos participado en un diálogo importante e identificado prioridades compartidas. Ahora estamos listos para llevar nuestra solidaridad al siguiente nivel, convirtiendo palabras en hechos y planes en acción.

Creemos que no existe ninguna diferencia fundamental entre nosotros. Compartimos valores comunes basados en la justicia social, y una visión común de los desafíos que tenemos que enfrentar.

La élite corporativa en Estados Unidos y en México ha estado despreciando a los trabajadores durante demasiado tiempo. Las políticas comerciales y de inmigración que han sido escritas por las corporaciones han dañado a los trabajadores de ambos lados de la frontera. Cada uno de nosotros ha experimentado la devastación causada por las reglas económicas escritas por y para los superricos.

Scenes From Los Angeles’ Massive May Day March – Capital & Main

Scenes From Los Angeles’ Massive May Day March – Capital & Main

Video from the Los Angeles march.
ery: http://www.univision.com/los-angeles/kmex/noticias/protestas/una-marcha-con-diferentes-reclamos-pero-todos-en-contra-de-donald-trump

also:  Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/DSALosAngeles/videos/?ref=page_internal

And, May Day in the Yakima Valley

MAY DAY IN YAKIMA
Text and photos by David Bacon
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/05/may-day-in-yakima.html

full set of photos:  https://www.facebook.com/david.bacon.5496/media_set?set=a.10211768695000478.1073741876.1461973423&type=3&pnref=story

Join the May Day Strike in Sacramento

Support the Workers'/Students' Strike on May Day

 Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes

Cosecha and DSA.

Cosecha, Immigrant Rights Organizations, Workers Centers and several unions  have launched  a  national strike billed as a “day without immigrants” to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class.  Thousands of students and  workers have already pledged to strike in what organizers expect to be the largest national strike since the Megamarches of 2006.

Join with DSA and this growing movement to strike on May 1. Don’t be left behind.  Organizers from Moviemento Cosecha have said that more than 400,000 workers have committed to strike. See story here http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/20071/the_upcoming_may_day_strike_could_be_the_biggest_in_over_a_decade

As the strike day approaches the presidents of the Almagamated Transit Union, the Communications Workers of America, the Nation Nurses United, and the United Electrical Workers  have urged their members to participate in the strikes, boycotts and protests in an outreach piece organized by Labor for Our Revolution.

We encourage DSA chapters, students and unions  to join in the massive strikes, boycotts, and other actions beginning on May 1. The movement will continue after May 1.  Information on the post May 1 events is at www.lahuelga.com

Do you have a right to strike?

Can workers strike for political issues ?

What actions can workers at risk of retaliation take to protect themselves?

In the lead up to the March Day Without Immigrants, the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL) suggested that their members who wanted to participate should take these  precautions to mitigate their risks:

1  Tell your employer, in writing, your reason for striking

2  Make sure the reason is directly related to your workplace

Inform your employer that you will be back at work on your first workday after the strike.

3. Send the message as a text and keep a copy of the text as evidence.

If you are a member of a union, discuss your strike plans first with your union representative. See a detailed description of your right to strike and how to protect yourself here. https://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/immigrants-strike-by-the-thousands/

Cosecha is a new nonviolent movement fighting for permanent protection, dignity, and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Their name, "harvest" in Spanish, honors the long tradition of farmworker organizing and the present-day pain of the thousands of undocumented workers whose labor continues to feed the country. Committed to winning real victories for their community, Cosecha believes in using non-cooperation to leverage the power of immigrant labor and consumption and force a meaningful shift in public opinion.

400,000 Workers Plan to Strike on May Day

“A Day Without Immigrants” May Day Strike Announced
Over 400,000 Workers Commit to Strike in Press Conference with Immigrant Rights Organizations and Unions
Washington, DC - Immigrant Rights Organizations, Workers Centers and Unions launch a national strike billed as a “day without immigrants” to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class people of color. Hundreds of thousands of workers have already pledged to strike in what organizers expect to be the largest national strike since the Megamarches of 2006.
Speakers at the press conference included Erika Andiola as well as representatives of Movimiento Cosecha, the SEIU United Service Workers West, and the Food Chain Workers Alliance.
“May 1st is the first step in a series of strikes and boycotts that will change the conversation on immigration in the United States,” said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a spokesperson from Movimiento Cosecha. “We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function, we will win permanent protection from deportation for the 11 million undocumented immigrants; the right to travel freely to visit our loved ones abroad, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect. After years of broken promises, raids, driving in fear of being pulled over, not being able to bury our loved ones, Trump is just the final straw. As we saw during the spontaneous strikes on February 16th, our people are ready.”
Tens of thousands of members of the SEIU United Service Workers West have pledged to strike on May 1st, to demand an end to the criminalization of black and brown communities, an end to raids and deportations, and an end to worker exploitation. “The policies of the Trump administration are motivated by cruelty. They villainize black and brown people and call us rapists and violent criminals. They break apart immigrant families and separate parents from their children, and for no reason,” said Denise Solis, first vice-president of the SEIU USWW. “We are shutting it down on May 1st to stand up to these policies and show that most Americans don't support cruelty and racism.” High School and College students, as part of the Sanctuary Campus movement, will also be joining the May 1st Day Without Immigrants Strike with mass walkouts.

May Day- International Workers' Day

Peter Dreier

Photo by David Bacon 

Unlike the rest of the world's democracies, the United States doesn't use the metric system, doesn't require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn't abolished the death penalty, and doesn't celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.

Outside the U.S., May 1 is international workers' day, observed with speeches, rallies, and demonstrations. Last year, a week after a building collapse in Bangladesh killed over one thousand workers in a sweatshop making clothing for Walmart and other American companies, thousands of garment factory workers paraded through the streets calling for work safeguards and for the owner of the collapsed building to be sentenced to death. This year, too, millions of workers in Europe, Asia, and Latin America are taking to the streets to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions.

Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity was started by the U.S. labor movement and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country.

Since 2001, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest around both workers rights and immigrant rights. The movement has been gaining momentum, enlisting more and more young immigrants and children of immigrants -- called Dreamers -- in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform, which would bring many of the estimated 11 million living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows.

Defend Immigrants

Defend Immigrant Rights

International Worker's Day- May Day-  2013 took  on additional special meaning this year, as the drumbeat for immigration reform gets louder and louder. As part of an ongoing campaign, SEIU and allied organizations - such as Mi Familia Vota and the Community Center for Change – as well as unions and community groups celebrated May 1st with major actions in over 70 cities  across the nation.    See photos. 

   The current immigration bill in the U.S. Senate has some positive provisions, but it fails because it  includes a guest worker program as well as an extensive further militarization of the border.  The bill being drafted in the  Republican controlled House will probably be worse.

   Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) favors both the permanent extension of the  DREAM Act as well as broader immigration reform legislation that would grant immediate permanent resident status to all undocumented workers and their children and would establish an expeditious and non-punitive road to citizenship for these workers and their families.

  

   We also oppose all workplace discrimination based upon immigration status and oppose any and all guest worker programs because they not only exploit the workers

involved but also undercut all workers’ rights to secure humane wages and working conditions, especially in the service and agricultural sectors.

      DSA is a member of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee rights and  participates  in the global struggle for equitable economic development and labor rights to reduce the forces that push desperate people to emigrate. We understand that massive migrations of workers, refugees and asylum seekers is a consequence of a global political and economic system that works for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of the vast majority of the peoples of the world.

See prior post.  A Working Class View of Immigration Reform. David Bacon.

Get involved http://www.dsausa.org/current_campaigns

Immigrants and Labor

MARCHING AWAY FROM THE COLD WAR
By David Bacon
Chapter 11 in "Wisconsin Uprising - Labor Fights Back"
Monthly Review Press, 2012

http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb2808/


One sign carried in almost every May Day march of the last few years in the United States says it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women who looked as though they'd just come from work in a factory, cleaning an office building, or picking grapes.

The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.

In the largest U.S. May Day event this year, marchers were joined by the public workers who protested in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, who have become symbols of the fight for labor rights in the U.S.  Their message was the same: we all work, we all contribute to our communities and we all have the right to a job, a union and a decent life.

Response to the May Day demonstrations at the Democratic Party in Sacramento

This blog is posted by the Latino and Anti Racism activists in Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).  A May Day protest in Sacramento raised some critical questions about immigration and politics.

To begin.  Should the Democrats be criticized for lack of progress on immigration?  Yes.  The Left and immigration groups have demonstrated outside of Democratic Party conventions since 1968, 1972, 1978,  1980, 1984, 2000 and more.   Some of these were organized by the Civil Rights Movement  and the Immigrants Rights movement.  I remember working conventions here in Sacramento with Bert Corona.  Yes, we should push the Democrats.

However, the protest of May 1, 2011, was more. For some it was opportunistic and for many it was disrespectful of Dolores Huerta.

Below are two videos of the events.  They represent two sides of the issues.  You can decide for yourself.

Protest against Dolores Huerta, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSiz3Ssnt7c

Dolores Huerta’s view of the protest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhlZFdR5itE&feature=related

Lets look at some arguments.  Dolores says, Who passed SB 1070 in Arizona.  It was the Republicans.  She is correct.  At this point she is shouted down by many protesters.  They call her a sell out.  Others chant for drivers licenses. 

Well. Who passed legislation to provide drivers licenses for all in California- the Democrats.  The bills were vetoed by a Republican governor.

And, on May 5, 2011, the Democrats passed on a party line vote the first of the California Dream Act bills.

So, Dolores has a point.  Look up her history and you will see she has legitimacy.

The actions of the anti Dolores young people es falta de respecto.

May Day : Born in the U.S.A,

May Day.  Born in the U.S.A.  by Michael Hirsch

For generations, May Day, the International Workers Day celebrated by working people in more than 200 countries, was ignored in the United States, the country of its origin. In fact, the annual holiday is as American as cherry pie, commemorating as it does the 1886 nationwide general strike in which U.S. trade unionists — largely foreign-born — walked off the job in support of an eight-hour workday.

This year’s observance marks the 125th anniversary of that campaign to humanize the workday — and of the tragedy at Chicago’s Haymarket Square that followed three days later. New Yorkers will mark the day in a rally in support of labor and immigrant rights in lower Manhattan’s Foley Square.

Back in 1886, when the typical work day was 10, 12 or even 14 hours long and joblessness was rife, the demand for a work day limited to eight hours at decent wages was viewed as dangerously radical. The eight-hour-day movement was spearheaded by two organizations, the craft-dominated Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor) and the Knights of Labor.

May Day Action in Sacramento

MAY DAY ACTION! Immigrant Rights / International Workers Day Let’s Rally! Sunday, May 1st, 2011 @ 10 AM CA State Captiol – North  Steps For more information, please contact Lino Pedres, Vice President of SEIU Local 1877, USWW at (916) 275-2039 or lino.pedres@seiu-usww.org.

May Day Immigrants' March

April 28, 2009
Greetings!

WORKERS AND IMMIGRANTS
WILL MARCH ON MAY DAY
Yes, workers and immigrants will march again throughout the U.S. on MAY DAY, May 1st. This is known as the International Workers' Day, but little celebrated in the U.S., at least until the great diversity of immigrants took to the streets in 2006 to advocate oppostion to the anti-immigrant legislation HR4437, and subsequent years to advocate for fair and humane immigration reform. This budding movement of workers and families has resulted in reviving this important and historic date, recognized internationally in memory of the struggle for the eight-hour day more than one hundred years ago in this country. Ironically, it was immigrant workers of European origin who led the fight for reducing the work-day, establishing unions, and fighting to improve working and living conditions of the laboring classes.
It is in this same spirit that immigrant and native-born workers march today to demand a stop to ICE raids, the forced separation of families and their deportation; legalization for all those currently undocumented in the U.S.; absolutely no new bracero-type programs, which merely constitute modern-day indentured servitude; approval of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will facilitate the right of all workers to form their free associations - unions - in their work-place with virtually little intimidation; and, ultimately, a fair and humane immigration reform of our current system, policies, and practices. Today, working communities are facing incredibly unsettling problems of unemployment, home foreclosures, declining wages, consumer debt, increased tuition for education, loss of or complete absence of healthcare, and a dimming economic future. These are challenging times.

Bert Corona used to say that we don't have far to fall when we have already been pushed off the bed and are lying on the floor. Once again we must stand together, march together, and demand a fair share of the wealth that we create for society. This is truly possible in our time!

Saludos on this MAY DAY from MAPA and Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, and the Hermandad General de Trabajadores Union Internacional/General Brotherhood of Workers International Union

Nativo Lopez-Vigil
National President

May Day 2009

Why Immigrant Workers Will Fill the Streets This May Day
Friday 27 March 2009
by: David Bacon, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

In a little over a month, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people will fill the streets in city after city, town after town, across the US. This year these May Day marches of immigrant workers will make an important demand on the Obama administration: End the draconian enforcement policies of the Bush administration. Establish a new immigration policy based on human rights and recognition of the crucial economic and social contributions of immigrants to US society.

This year's marches will continue the recovery in the US of the celebration of May Day, recognized in the rest of the world as the day recognizing the contributions and achievements of working people. That recovery started on Monday, May 1, 2006, when over a million people filled the streets of Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands more in Chicago, New York and cities and towns throughout the United States. Again on May Day in 2007 and 2008, immigrants and their supporters demonstrated and marched, from coast to coast.

One sign found in almost every march said it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women who looked as though they'd just come from work in a factory, cleaning an office building or picking grapes. The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.

The protests have seemed spontaneous, but they come as a result of years of organizing, educating and agitating - activities that have given immigrants confidence, and at least some organizations the credibility needed to mobilize direct mass action. This movement is the legacy of Bert Corona, immigrant rights pioneer and founder of many national Latino organizations. He trained thousands of immigrant activists, taught the value of political independence, and believed that immigrants themselves must conduct the fight for immigrant rights. Most of the leaders of the radical wing of today's immigrant rights movement were students or disciples of Corona.

Immigrants, however, feel their backs are against the wall, and they came out of their homes and workplaces to show it. In part, their protests respond to a wave of draconian proposals to criminalize immigration status, and work itself for undocumented people. But the protests do more than react to a particular congressional or legislative agenda. They are the cumulative response to years of bashing and denigrating immigrants generally, and Mexicans and Latinos in particular.

In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act made it a crime, for the first time in US history, to hire people without papers. Defenders argued that if people could not legally work they would leave. Life was not so simple.

Undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They cannot simply go, nor should they. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the US have historically fought to achieve. In addition, for most immigrants, there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they've come. Rufino Dominguez, a Oaxacan community leader in Fresno, California, says, "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) made the price of corn so low that it's not economically possible to plant a crop anymore. We come to the US to work because there's no alternative." After Congress passed NAFTA, six million displaced people came to the US as a result.

Instead of recognizing this reality, the US government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, have passed measures that go even further. Last summer, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff proposed a rule requiring employers to fire any worker who couldn't correct a mismatch between the Social Security number the worker had provided an employer and the SSA database. The regulation assumes those workers have no valid immigration visa, and therefore no valid Social Security number.

With 12 million people living in the US without legal immigration status, the regulation would lead to massive firings, bringing many industries and businesses to a halt. Citizens and legal visa holders would be swept up as well, since the Social Security database is often inaccurate. Under Chertoff, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted sweeping workplace raids, arresting and deporting thousands of workers. Many have been charged with an additional crime - identity theft - because they used a Social Security number belonging to someone else to get a job. Yet, workers using another number actually deposit money into Social Security funds, and will never collect benefits their contributions paid for.

The Arizona legislature has passed a law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of every worker through a federal database called E-Verify, which is even more incomplete and full of errors than Social Security. They must fire workers whose names get flagged. And Mississippi passed a bill making it a felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job, with jail time of 1-10 years, fines of up to $10,000, and no bail for anyone arrested. Employers get immunity.

Many of these punitive measures were incorporated into proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" that were debated in Congress in 2006 and 2007. The comprehensive bills combined increased enforcement, especially criminalization of work for the undocumented, with huge guest worker programs under which large employers would recruit temporary labor under contract outside the US, bringing workers into the country in a status that would deny them basic rights and social equality. While those proposals failed in Congress, the Bush administration implemented some of their most draconian provisions by executive order and administrative action.

Together, these factors have produced a huge popular response, which has become most visible in the annual marches and demonstrations on May Day. Nativo Lopez, president of both the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, says "the huge number of immigrants and their supporters in the streets found these compromises completely unacceptable. We will only get what we're ready to fight for, but people are ready and willing to fight for the whole enchilada. Washington legislators and lobbyists fear the growth of a new civil rights movement in the streets, because it rejects their compromises and makes demands that go beyond what they have defined as 'politically possible.'"

The marches have put forward an alternative set of demands, which include a real legal status for the 12 million undocumented people in the US, the right to organize to raise wages and gain workplace rights, increased availability of visas that give immigrants some degree of social equality, especially visas based on family reunification, no expansion of guest worker programs, and a guarantee of human rights to immigrants, especially in communities along the US/Mexican border.

At the same time, the price of trying to push people out of the US who've come here for survival is that the vulnerability of undocumented workers will increase. Unscrupulous employers use that vulnerability to deny overtime pay or minimum wage, or fire workers when they protest or organize. Increased vulnerability ultimately results in cheaper labor and fewer rights for everyone. After deporting over 1,000 workers at Swift meatpacking plants, Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff called for linking "effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program.'' The government's goal is cheap labor for large employers. Deportations, firings and guest worker programs all make labor cheaper and contribute to a climate of fear and insecurity for all workers.

The May 1 actions highlight the economic importance of immigrant labor. Undocumented workers deserve legal status because of that labor - their inherent contribution to society. The value they create is never called illegal, and no one dreams of taking it away from the employers who profit from it. Yet the people who produce that value are called exactly that - illegal. All workers create value through their labor, but immigrant workers are especially profitable, because they are so often denied many of the union-won benefits accorded to native-born workers. The average undocumented worker has been in the US for five years. By that time, these workers have paid a high price for their lack of legal status, through low wages and lost benefits.

"Undocumented workers deserve immediate legal status, and have already paid for it," Lopez says.

On May 1, the absence of immigrant workers from workplaces, schools and stores demonstrates their power in the national immigration debate and sends a powerful message that they will not be shut out of the debate over their status. They have rescued from anonymity the struggle for the eight-hour day, begun in Chicago over a century ago by the immigrants of yesteryear. They overcame the legacy of the cold war, in which celebrations of May Day were attacked and banned. They are recovering the traditions of all working people for the people of the United States.
David Bacon is a writer and photographer. His new book, "Illegal People - How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants," was just published by Beacon Press.

MAY DAY; Immigrants Rights

WHY WE MARCH ON MAY DAY
April 30, 2008
Greetings!

WHY WE MARCH ON MAY DAY
CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE, PHOTO, AND SURVEY: www.nativolopez.blogspot.com/
WHY WE MARCH ON MAY DAY
Op-Ed for L.A. Daily News
By: Nativo V. Lopez, National President,
Mexican American Political Association (MAPA)
The immigrant vote will increase to unstoppable heights in four short years across California's political landscape, a veritable big-foot electorate, according to a recently released study commissioned by the Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrants and Refugees. Fully one-third of California voters by 2012 will be comprised of immigrant voters - naturalized U.S. citizens and permanent residents eligible for citizenship - and their teenage U.S.-born children. The implications of even greater growth for Los Angeles city and county are abundantly clear.

So why do we march this MAY DAY considering these very promising demographic projections? If history teaches us anything it clearly demonstrates that numbers alone do not translate into political power. The political muscle necessary to make substantive policy changes favorable to immigrant working families devolves from organization of the numbers exercised repeatedly towards very specific ends. And the oxygen pumping up those muscles is civic education plus experience.

Today we continue to wage costly battles over too many issues related to the social well-being of our families. The list is long, and much remains as a legacy of the nasty 1990s in California - denial of the driver's license, higher education, financial aid, healthcare access, business and professional licenses, employment authorization - on the one hand, and overt forms of state terror on the other hand - wanton work-place and neighborhood raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, the arbitrary impounding of vehicles, which constitutes the outright seizure of a personal asset, facilitated by a growing number of police check-points in multiple jurisdictions, and the increased cooperation between ICE and local police authorities throughout the country. The most recent example is the Arizona legislature's approval of legislation mandating local law enforcement involvement in enforcing immigration laws. The state's governor vetoed it.

Notwithstanding a decade of political gains and increased electoral representation for Latinos, in particular, at all levels of government, we have not secured sufficient political strength to curb the practices mentioned above. Although, the prospect of these issues being resolved in favor of immigrants and their children within one more presidential term is highly probable if the numbers coalesce politically at the ballot box and in the street. In others words, it is not the vote juxtaposed to street heat. Both tactics are absolutely relevant to any credible social movement for change, although the change is not an iron-clad guarantee.

Take the city of Los Angeles as an example. The composition of the city council and mayor's office is an embodiment of diversity and liberalism - the greatest number of Latinos, blacks, Democrats, gays, and liberal Jews probably ever in the history of the city. Yet, the city is not as friendly to immigrants as one might think. Immigrant raids continue to abound, vehicles are regularly impounded, sweat-shops are more the norm than the exception, the poverty index remains high, the city is no longer considered a sanctuary as once touted by Mayor Tom Bradley in the 1980s, more then 94 percent of the private work-force is not represented by a union or enjoys a collective bargaining agreement, the city's schools are a laboratory of failure for immigrant youth, and the prevalence of gangs is greater today than a generation ago, disproportionately concentrated in immigrant neighborhoods. This is why we continue to march.

May 1st is a shout out not just to the adversaries of the immigrant's social integration and progress. It's footprint on California's political map will only get bigger. But, it is just as much a shout out internally to the immigrants themselves that shares the story of Lucy Gonzalez de Parsons, Albert Parsons, and the others of Chicago's Haymarket Martyrs in the fight for the eight-hour day during the 1880s, who with the vast majority of other immigrant workers of European national origin stock led the movement to improve the conditions of life and work for all workers, and as a result made America a better place to live. Ironically, however, black, Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese workers remained in even more inferior stations and were forced to create their own segregated organizations to contend with the challenges of the day.

The lesson to working people today is that nothing changes without a fight, a struggle, and a purposeful movement by collections of people with a common cause. And if they don't pursue their dream in an organized fashion, life goes on as before and they remain as objects of history, not subjects.

Los Angeles police attack immigrant marchers May 1

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May 1 Marches

ALL OUT FOR MAY DAY MARCHES
NO TO THE GUTIERREZ-FLAKE BILL

We invite you to join us in the May 1st, MAY DAY, marches and actions to raise our collective voices to STOP IMMIGRATION RAIDS and DEPORTATIONS, STOP the FORCED SEPARATION OF OUR FAMILIES, LEGALIZATION FOR ALL, and NO BRACERO-TYPE CONTRACT PROGRAMS.
Lastly, we adamantly oppose the Gutierrez-Flake Immigration Bill, known as the STRIVE ACT, introduced last month by Congressmen Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Our next eNewsletter will provide much more information about the STRIVE ACT by various sources which critique the legislation as deficient and dangerous to immigrants and working people.

We encourage you to download the letters we have posted for your convenience, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and circulate amongst your family, friends, and work-mates and forward these to the Democratic Party leadership.
MAPA