Hundreds turned out yesterday on a warm spring day at Washington Square park for 2017 May Day event. The history of May Day,
Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don’t realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.
In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Jack London’s The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class. Read more here,,
http://www.iww.org/history/library/misc/origins_of_mayday
6TH ANNUAL IMMIGRANT WORKER JUSTICE TOUR
Rally and March | 12:30 PM Washington Square Park
12:30-2:00 Rally at WSP
2:00-4:00 Tour through downtown
ON INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY,
WE STRIKE.
WHEN WORKERS, IMMIGRANTS, WOMEN, MUSLIMS, BLACK AND BROWN, INDIGENOUS, QUEER AND TRANS COMMUNITIES FACE EXPLOITATION, CRIMINALIZATION, INCARCERATION, DEPORTATION, EVICTION, VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT,
WE STRIKE.
More info on ICE, A couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever, I represented an undocumented worker in deportation proceedings. Or rather, I tried to. My attempts to navigate this system were not what I would call successful. Part of this may be due to the fact that, though I have been a practicing attorney for 10 years, this was my first go at immigration law. But another part of it—most of it, I’d venture—is due to the fact that the U.S. immigration system is designed to be opaque, confusing, and inequitable. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2017/04/ice_detainees_enter_an_unbelievably_cruel_system_designed_to_make_them_disappear.html
WHEN OUR WORKPLACES ARE NOT SAFE..
OUR HOMES ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR SCHOOLS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR STREETS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR HOSPITALS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR SUBWAYS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR COURTS ARE NOT SAFE.
OUR WATER IS NOT SAFE.
OUR LAND IS NOT SAFE.
WE STRIKE.
