June 2000

May Day 2000

Chicago: Deepest layers of labor

Chicago—The city where it all began saw its largest May Day rally in recent memory this year. Hundreds of Black, white and Latino, women's liberation and queer activists turned out to reclaim the historic meaning of the day.

The international character included support for immigrants' rights, anti-sweatshop actions and statements, and opposition to the bombing of Vieques and military aid to the Colombian government. There was also opposition to local and national police brutality.

One of the most significant aspects of the rally was the participation of a large contingent of day laborers, representing some of the most exploited workers in this economy. Their presence was the result of an ongoing organizing campaign here by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and other groups.

The day labor experience is a paradigm for the lowest and deepest elements in society. To spend time in a day labor agency waiting room is to really see today's logic of exploitation in action. Those workers who are considered most vulnerable get called up first, Latinas and Asian women, immigrants; then Latinos and Black women; and finally, maybe, or maybe not, Black men. Those called get packed into a crowded van to be taken to a factory and put to hard, dull work for minimum pay, which amounts to even less after the agency deducts a transportation fee. Those who aren't called get to spend a numb morning watching the same cartoons and talk shows as the warehoused people at the county jail, as well as worrying about food and shelter.

It was a real breakthrough to have such workers present for May Day, and it can be carried much farther if there is an understanding of the way the effects of capitalism represented by the multiple issues taken up at the rally are manifested in the lives of the most exploited workers.

—Gerard Emmett

New York: May Day march for immigrant workers

New York—More than 3,000 immigrants and their supporters—mostly Mexicans—marched May 1 to demand amnesty for undocumented immigrants and better pay and working conditions for all immigrant workers. The demonstration began at Union Square, the traditional site for May Day events, and marched to City Hall. It stopped on lower Broadway in front of sweatshops and then at the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), which has been raiding workplaces and deporting undocumented workers, where we shouted, "The rats are in there."

The march was led by men and women in beautiful Mexican dance attire, and nearly everyone carried a hand-made sign in Spanish or English, as the immigrants appealed to the public:

We raise your economy/we deserve amnesty...No more 12-hour days...Viva Mexico! Dignity and amnesty for the undocumented...You were once where we are now...We demand because we produce...Fair wages, without discrimination and inequality.

The march, organized by the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, the garment workers' union, UNITE, and amnesty organizations, was the first large public action by Mexicans in New York City. Mexicans here are mostly recent arrivals without a neighborhood or media of their own and with good reason to fear getting into trouble for demonstrating. That so many came at all, especially on a work day, and marched all afternoon, may indicate a new immigrant movement is in formation:

No human being is illegal...No more slaves/freedom for everyone...Work is a human right.

Other Latin American countries, Chinese, Bangladeshi and African immigrants' groups were represented as well: Amnesty for victims of military intervention...No more borders.

The amnesty movement was given a boost in February when the AFL-CIO, the huge labor federation that once supported anti-immigrant laws, issued a call for a general amnesty for the undocumented and an end to the law that turns employers into INS agents and provides the excuse for workplace raids.

Better to die on your feet than to live a lifetime on your knees...We're here and we're not leaving...Workers of the world unite.

About six million undocumented immigrants live and work in the U.S. Without an amnesty, many have no way to legalize their status, even if they have been here for more than 15 years, and even if they have children who were born here and are U.S. citizens. Many children on the march wore signs expressing fear of their parents' deportation: I was born here but my parents were not...We demand better lives.

Two young Mexican women with baby carriages said, "We came here looking for an opportunity for a little better life for our children. At home there is so much corruption, you cannot make a living. New York is nice, but to get here we went through torture.

"Here we're exploited, cheated and subjected to racism. We pay taxes here, so we're tired of suffering discrimination. Being undocumented, we don't have any rights to protect us from the boss. I work in a garment factory, and the Mexican women are really discriminated against."

Twice the police arrested for no reason supporters dressed in black, some wearing masks, some carrying huge puppets. It was apparently part of a federally supported national campaign against anarchists since the protests in Seattle last November. One legal observer described how about 200 helmeted cops seemed to come out of nowhere and surround about 20 people. They pushed the legal observers away and kept them from seeing what they were doing as they arrested the people. The immigrants moved away quickly, since arrest can mean deportation for them, but they continued on the march to City Hall.

—Anne Jaclard