Brought to you by Boston Radical Reference.
Austin
The Personal Demons of the Republic and the Industrial Workers of the World announce:
WHAT: MAY DAY 2005 Picnic, Puppet Play, and Singalong
WHEN: Sunday May 1, noon to four
WHERE: The Rock Garden in Zilker Park
CELEBRATE the traditional day of international labor SOLIDARITY and RECLAIM the CULTURE of the working class with a radical rite of spring:
- Songs and stories from the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), drawing on their 100 years of working class struggle.
- Puppets and artwork by the Personal Demons of the Republic
- Face painting, juggling, kite flying, and a Sing-A-Long from the IWW songbook.
- Info booths from Ecology Action and other non-profit, union outfits.
Its free (although Zilker Park now charges for parking on weekends) and all are welcome. No alcohol or glass please. The Rock Garden is at the top of the hill opposite the entrance to Barton Springs Pool, just north of the Zilker Hillside Theater.
Produced with support from MonkeyWrench Books.
info available from austinmayday2005@hotmail.com or 512-423-5559
Baltimore
May Day Precarity Potluck
Sunday, May Day at 7pm
at Red Emma's Coffeehouse
800 St. Paul St.
Baltimore MD 21202
410-230-0450
info@redemmas.org
...we might be flexible, but we're never going to bend.... May Day's origins as a worker's holiday date back to a time when working conditions looked a lot different than they do now. With deindustrialization and the breakdown of the factory as the primary site of empoyment, the nature of work in the world's richest countries has also changed: an increasing emphasis has been placed on low paying service and retail jobs (the latter often in chain stores), on "knowledge work" like that in call centers, as well as in the increasingly less utopian IT sector, but above all on the "flexibility" of labor, where a series of meaningless jobs replaces the career, where temp labor replaces the job, where "independent contractors" replace the employee. And as work has become more flexible, more *precarious*, the social saftey net has been gutted. If the neoliberal rulers of the worldhave their way, all labor would be as precarious as the illegal immigrant: forced to work to survive, but unable to call upon any civic institutions to fight for better working conditions. Activists in Europe and elsewhere have tried to name this condition with the word "precarity", trying to forge an alliance based on the precarious aspects of life shared by the sans-papiers and the university student, the call center employee and the artist. Some might claim that such an alliance is impossible or poorly conceived. Nevertheless, this May Day, the "Euromayday" protests in major cities across Europe will be trying to bring precarity into the street. To do our part to celebrate May Day, Red Emma's invites you to our Precarity Potluck, where we'll try, together, to see what we can make of this word "precarity". Bring your horror stories of temping, your experiences fighting for the rights of the supposedly unorganizable, your thoughts on the theory of precarity, and maybe even some food to share. To get us started, we'll be screening parts of "P2P Fightsharing III: Precarity", a collection of short films documenting precarious labor and resistance worldwide, as well as some documetary films about precarious labor struggles right here in Baltimore.
Boston
Hit the streets!
May Day Rally for Immigrant Rights
Sunday, 2 p.m.
Copley Square, Boston
(right in front of Trinity Church)
Looking for a great way to celebrate International Workers Day? Then join folks from over two dozen immigrant, labor, community, and religious organizations at the May Day Rally for Immigrant Rights! The event will bring together diverse immigrant and non-immigrant communities to demand immigration policies that reflect U.S. commitments to human rights and dignity including offering amnesty to all resident immigrants, ensuring that all residents can qualify for drivers' licenses, and affirming the right of immigrants to attend college. In addition, the rally will protest the increasing criminalization of immigrants since 9/11; explain the many benefits immigrant labor provides to a flagging Massachusetts economy; and condemn U.S. corporate practices that destroy the economies of the immigrants' home countries forcing people to migrate to the U.S. every year in search of economic opportunity, not necessarily out of choice, but rather out of necessity.
Great entertainment too.
Vibewise (rocksteady reggae), Rohan Quinn (traditional Irish), Cuban drum and dance, live capoeira and more!
For more information, or to sign your organization on as a sponsor, please call 617-338-9966 or networking@massglobalaction.org
Sponsored by (list in formation): Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Friends Service Committee, Asian American Resource Workshop, Asian Community at Tufts, Boston Mobilization, Brazilian Immigrant Center, Centro Presente, Community Church of Boston, East Boston Ecumenical Community Council, Irish Immigration Center, Irish United for Immigrant Rights, Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Global Action, Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation Boston, North American Alliance for Fair Employment, Painters District Council 35, SEIU Local 615, SEIU Local 2020, Tekiah, Tufts Association of Latin American Students, Tufts Black Men's Group, Tufts Brazilian Club, United for Justice with Peace, UNITEHERE New England Joint Board, Workmen's Circle
~~
5/01 Boston Convergence Against Capitalism
MAY DAY 2005: BOSTON CONVERGENCE AGAINST CAPITALISM
Sunday, 12:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.
Called by BAAM Boston
No Bosses, No Borders:
Into the Streets for Freedom for Immigrants & All Working People!
On International Workers Day, we call for people of Boston and New England to take to the streets in opposition to capitalism. Capitalism is the enemy of the worker, the enemy of the immigrant, the enemy of all freedom loving people. We reject its wars, its governments, its immigration laws, and its exploitation and degradation of life.
We stand for a world free of bosses and borders. One day we will abolish them and seize control of our own lives, workplaces, and communities. In the meantime, this May Day, we will take back the streets of this city and stand in solidarity with the struggles of immigrant workers. We will make anti-capitalist resistance visible again. We will give new life to the new world that's in our own hearts and the hearts of working people everywhere.
12:30p - Converge at Boston Common at Park & Tremont St
1:00p - Anti-Capitalist March through Downtown Boston
2:00p - Immigrant Rights Rally at Copley Place
5:00p - Benefit for ABC No Rio at 45 Mount Auburn St
11:00p - Reclaim the Streets in Harvard Square
Bring friends and lovers and fellow workers. Bring pots and pans, drums, and instruments, songs and banners and flags. Bring creativity and defiance.
History of Struggle
May Day was born in the struggles of workers here in America in 1886, when general strikes broke out across the land and were met with bloody repression - including the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, followed by the frame-up and death sentences of anarchist labor organizers Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg, Fielden, Schwab and Neebe. Every year since, workers all over the world have marked May Day with mass mobilizations, work stoppages, and other direct actions. In the place where it all began, the forces of reaction have done all they can to make us forget. Yet we remember with our feet: We remember in the streets. Boston and eastern Massachusetts has been a historic center of working class resistance to tyranny and exploitation, from the Boston Tea Party to the Bread & Roses Strike to community struggles against segregation, gentrification and corporate invasion.
Join us in the streets of Boston as the Spirit of '76 and '86 rises again!
Called by BAAM http://www.baamboston.org
To endorse or otherwise get in touch: maydayboston@yahoo.com
~~
Wake Up the Earth Festival
http://www.spontaneouscelebrations.org/earth.html
Saturday, May 7th 2005
Check site for schedule.
The origins of Spontaneous Celebrations date from the first Wake Up the Earth Festival, in 1979. This festival was a celebration of the successful defeat of the I-95 extension through many Boston neighborhoods. Numerous houses had been torn down by the time the eight-lane highway was finally stopped. The collaboration of artists and activists who worked on this issue in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury subsequently started community gardens and worked for the creation of new parks on the vacant lots left by the destruction of the houses. The Festival has taken place every year since then, on the first Saturday in May. Now 27 years old, the festival has become an integral part of community life in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, incorporating the celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, May Day, Beltane, International Workers Day, and Earth Day.
Chicago
Attention Working Families!
Celebrate the Great May Day Celebration
Reclaiming The Original Labor Day in Chicago!
Sunday, May 1st at 2:00 PM
at the site of the NEW HAYMARKET MEMORIAL
Des Plaines Ave. between Randolph and Lake Street
Workers all over the world recognize May 1st (May Day) as Labor Day because of the tragic events that occurred right here in Chicago at Haymarket Square in 1886 that have come to symbolize our nation's struggle to uphold workers' rights to organize and to exercise their constitutional right to free speech and assembly.
Now 119 years later, the Chicago labor community is gathering for the first time on May Day to honor its past, pay tribute to its fallen heroes, and continue to promote and fight for many of the same workplace issues that the Haymarket Martyrs defended with their own lives.
Join your fellow workers at this event, which will include speeches by a distingui! shed group of union leaders, religious clergy and labor historians. Union musicians will provide entertainment as well. And a delegation of Colombian trade unionists will be on hand to install the first international plaque on the new Haymarket Memorial.
This event is being called by the Illinois Labor History Society, the Chicago Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the Illinois AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice and the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America.
~~
Celebrate May Day with Chicago Day Laborers!
Celebrate International Workers' Day and Chicago Day Laborers' Victories of 2005
May 2, 6:00pm
potluck and dance
Albany Park Workers' Center
4174 N. Elston Ave.
(Near the Irving Park blue line stop and the Irving Park/Pulaski highway exit)
latinounionofchicago (nospam) yahoo.com
Detroit
All day Mayday celebration at No Borders! by No Borders Radical Organizing Collective
Sunday, May 1st
In conjunction with the grand opening of the No Borders Radical Organizing Center, formerly Idle Kids Books & Records, there will be an all day Mayday celebration to rejoice and reflect back on more than one hundred years of revolutionary resistance and struggle. Mayday, the original worker and revolutionaries' holiday, is a day of world protest, action, and global solidarity. This is the day all workers, collectively, can put down their tools and rejoice in the possibility of another world, where bosses, exploitation, poverty, racism, sexism, and prisons are abolished. Starting at 12pm the No Borders space will host an all day celebration of struggles of the past and those yet to come, with speakers, events, food, discussion, and music to top the night off. Our collective's hope is that we can help to facilitate the making of a new world out of the husk of the old.
Mayday gives us a reason to come together, network, build solidarity, and lay the organized base for future struggle and success.
At noon we will kick off the day with some opening comments, some brunch, and discussion. Peter Werbe will be speaking on the 'Importance of Permanent Autonomous Areas,' followed by presentation from the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the oldest revolutionary unions, Earth First!, the Anarchist Black Cross, Sweetwater Alliance, No Borders collective, and many more.
There will be open mic time, so if anyone wishes to speak to an issue or ask for support feel more than welcome to come and give your piece.
At 6pm there will be a radical vegetarian potluck, food will be provided, but all should feel welcome to bring a dish, followed at 7:30 by a general caucus to discuss where we are all at today and how we can all work together better to fight capitalism and the state.
At 9:30 the music will begin, all are welcome to stay as late as necessary as we celebrate this festive holiday, refreshments will be provided, and if you know a few revolutionary tunes, feel free to ask for a chance to perform.
No Borders Radical Organizing Center
3535 Cass Ave.
Detroit, MI 48201
313.832.7730
nopasaran (at) no-borders.org
http://www.no-borders.org
Flagstaff
belated MAY DAY SPANISH REVOLUTION FILM NIGHT
TUESDAY MAY 3 @ 7:30PM
STUDIO 111 ( 111 S. SAN FRANCISCO)
SUGGESTED DONATION $5
(NO ONE TURNED AWAY)
cah57@dana.ucc.nau.edu
DE TODA LA VIDA-This documentary chronicles the life of the anarchist-feminist organization Mujeres Libres during the Spanish Revolution. It includes interviews with numerous former members where they discuss revolutionary Spain and the involvement of women in the war, their relationship to the other anarchist organizations at the time, and their life since. Decades later the Mujeres Lebres organization still remains a model for revolutionary feminist theory and action. LAND AND FREEDOM-Ken Loach's epic film of the Spanish Revolution, following a youthful British volunteer, and his involvement with the anarchist and POUM militias, agricultural collectivization, and the destruction of the revolution by the Communists. Loosely based on Orwell's Homage To Catalonia
INTRODUCTION BY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT NAU, JOEL OLSON.
Houston
May Day! Beltane!
Celebrate Beltane, the "earth day" with thousands of years of history and May Day--the REAL international festival for working people.
We will gather at Emancipation Park at 3:00 pm on Sunday, May 1, where we will have food, music, a maypole dance, crafts and a puppet show. Kids of all ages are welcome--this is a wholesome family-friendly event! Also bring stuff like food, musical instruments, games, and whatever else you'd like to see.
Emancipation Park is in Houston's Third Ward on Elgin @ Dowling.
At 5:00 pm we will march from Emancipation Park to the Southmore House (3107 Leeland @ Palmer.) The Southmore House will be celebrating Beltane all day Sunday, and we will perform our puppet theater piece there at 6:30 pm.
Then, at 9:00 pm, there will be a May Day Ball at the Bill Hicks Resurrection Lab (2915 Delafield) with bands and djs.
BRING IT!
~~
Mayday Radical Bike Tour
Mayday is a celebration of the struggles of working people around the world, that was started in Chicago, but now almost forgotten in this country. Spend your Mayday celebrating the radical history of Houston as we take a radical bike tour through Third Ward, Montrose, Freedman's Town, Downtown (the highest concentration of evil per capita in the city), and time permitting other parts of the city. The ride will meet at Emancipation Park at 5pm at Elgin and Dowling, and leave by 5:15 (call 713-304-9837 if you're late)
We will visit radical community spaces, evil corporate headquarters, and the sites of peoples struggles here in the belly of the beast. The evening will wind down around 8pm at Poison Girl where they will be donating some of the proceeds of the evening to the Third Ward Community Bike Center.
The past is struggle, the future is ours!
fatcitybikeclub@riseup.net
Haledon (NJ)
A great and moving event will take place on Saturday, April 30, from 1 to 5 p.m. in Haledon, NJ
May Day Celebration/Concert at Botto House
American Labor Museum
83 Norwood Street
Haledon, NJ
973-595-7953
http://inet.paterson.k12.nj.us/~labormuseum/
This annual gathering at this great labor museum features the wonderful Anne Feeney; Chris Chandler; the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Co. http://www.aestheticrealismtheatreco.org/ singing labor and union songs from "Ethics Is a Force!" with incisive commentary about what's economic justice for America now; the NJ Solidarity Singers; and Julius and George http://www.georgeandjulius.com/ with Alan Podber and Marty Confurius.
$10 admission includes food and drink, great music, and poetry! And an event that will move and inspire.
Los Angeles
Mayday Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Authoritarian Contingent
Gather at 11am at Olympic and Broadway
Bring flags, banners, anti-authoritarian literature (in different languages, English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese), yourself and your friends Worldwide May 1st is recognized as International Worker's Day, a holiday that carries with it a history of class struggle, state repression, and resistance from the working class. In 1886, 800,000 workers from all trades and factories throughout the US went on strike demanding the eight-hour workday. The Ruling class responded by sending out their lap-dog police forces, opening fire on
picketers, and in the end, framing, railroading, and murdering eight anarchists in Chicago, known as the "Haymarket martyrs."
In 1889, the American delegation attending the International Socialist congress in Paris proposed that May 1st be adopted as a workers' holiday. This was to commemorate working class struggle and the "Martyrdom of the Chicago Eight". This is where we find our history; this is Mayday!
The legacy of Mayday lives on to this day, with worldwide celebrations of resistance, direct action, and complete shut downs of factories, cities and whole regions. In the United States, the powers-that-be replaced the powerful workers holiday, with their own state-sanctioned event, otherwise known as "labor day", in an attempt to once again control and regulate working people. We are taught to forget the significance and importance of this day because our bosses fear it; our bosses fear our power and our significant history. They fear our potential when we're united and fighting in solidarity against their capitalist power structure and their entire way of life based on their greed. We will never forget and only struggle harder.
We realize that all forms of oppression are a result and stem from the systems of capitalism and imperialism. We're united against capitalism, imperialism, authoritarianism and all its forms of degradation and bondage. From South Korea to Argentina, from Palestine to LA, we are building and we are resisting.
Although capitalists, racists and sexists don't like and even deny our struggle, it will go on and grow. That's why on May 1st, the international day of labour, we call for an anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian contingent at the immigrant rights march organized by the MIWON Coalition.
We're in solidarity with immigrants working in the garment district in downtown, day laborers in the fields, and those that have been attacked and assaulted by the racist Minute Men in Arizona. We passionately believe that no human being is illegal, and borders are just a product of the rich drawing lines between working people everywhere. We recognize that global capitalism forces people to leave their homelands in need of survival, which is a human right. As Revolutionary Anarchists we oppose this system and instead believe that our communities must be reclaimed by all of us, the people who they truly belong to.
This is a call for a non-black bloc contingent. The purpose of the contingent is to not alienate ourselves, but integrate ourselves with the rest of the march. Our goals are to make alliances and connections, and to engage people there not just hand them flyers. Our contingent will be accountable to everyone at the march, therefore we would have to act accordingly and think tactically. This, in turn, will help us grow to the critical point in which we can be effective in forms of protest that go beyond the legal boundaries outlined by the state.
Always in struggle until humanity is free,
Southern California Revolutionary Anarchists
Make everyday a celebration for workers, internationally!!!!!!
~~
[Oxnard to be exact]
May Day Speak-Out to Defend Workers' Rights
Defend Social Security!
Health Coverage for all Working Families!
Legalization for Undocumented Farm Workers Now!
Sunday, May 1, 12-3 pm
Del Sol Park at Rose Avenue and Camino del Sol
Oxnard, CA
Sponsor: La Placita Anti-War Committee
Endorsers: ANSWER LA, ANSWER Ventura County, The Atomic Mirror, C.A.U.S.E., Committee on Raza Rights, Green Party of Ventura County, NION Ventura, Topanga Peace Alliance.
For more info e-mail answervc@riseup.net or info@committeeonrazarights.org or call 323-464-1636.
Madison
May Day in Madison
Saturday April 30
Gather at 11:00 am at Lisa Link Peace Park
Lunch will be provided by Food Not Bomb
March to the Farmer's Market for leafleting
Bring signs, drums (!!!), banners, puppets, horns, etc
Community discussion on the war at Rainbow Bookstore at 1:00pm.
Miami
May Day Unity March @ Torch of Friendship
COME PARTICIPATE IN A DEMONSTRATION OF UNITY AT THE TORCH OF FRIENDSHIP IN BAYFRONT PARK.
LET'S MAKE MAY DAY A TRADITION
COME HEAR SPEAKERS TALK ABOUT:
- THE HISTORY OF MAY DAY IN THE UNITED STATES
- AGAINST THE WAR IN IRAG AND AGAINST IMPERIALISM
- DEFENSE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
- AGAINST U.S. COUP D'TAT IN HATI
- DEFENSE OF THE BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION IN VENEZUELA
- POLITICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE
FEATURED SPEAKERS
MAX LESNICK - ALIANZA MARTIANA
LAVARICE CAUDIN - VEYE YO
PAUL LEFRAC - BROWARD ANTI-WAR COALITION
CATHI DE LA AGUILERA - MIAMI COLLECTIVE INFO SHOP
BOLIVARIAN CIRCLE OF MIAMI - SPEAKER TBA
and others soon to be announced.
Torch of Friendship
Bayfront Park
401 Biscayne Blvd.
Downtown Miami
Milwaukee
May Day Parade and Picnic
Come and show your solidarity with the laborers of Milwaukee and the world!
March with us to celebrate past and present struggles that have earned you rights as a laborer and as a human being. Show the world where progress and freedom really come from.
Meet Sunday, May 1st at 11:30a.m. in Kern Park on Humboldt and Keefe.
From there we march to a potluck in Cathederal Square Park.
Everyone is invited! Bring friends, noisemakers, food, and smiles. Come for an afternoon of fun and freedom! Potluck starts at 1 p.m. unless you decide to start earlier.
Minneapolis
The 31st annual MayDay Parade and Festival will be Sunday, May 1, 2005 beginning at 1:00 p.m.
HOBT's MayDay Parade and Festival is eagerly anticipated by thousands who flock to the parade route and ceremony site to join this joyous spring ritual. For many, this is the highlight of the year, as they donate countless volunteer hours needed to bring beautiful and fantastic puppets and floats to life.
The 31st annual MayDay Parade and Festival will be Sunday, May 1, 2005 beginning at 1:00 p.m. HOBT's MayDay Parade and Festival is eagerly anticipated by thousands who flock to the parade route and ceremony site to join this joyous spring ritual. For many, this is the highlight of the year, as they donate countless volunteer hours needed to bring beautiful and fantastic puppets and floats to life. Click here to see this year's MayDay Park Entertainment Schedule
Held on the first Sunday in May, MayDay is a testament to COMMUNITY. Immense joy is generated as thousands of people work towards a common, energetic purpose.
Click here to see pictures from last year's Mayday.
New Haven
The 19th annual May Day New Haven Festival
2 days this year!
This event is held in conjunction with May Day commemorations all over the world. Most countries celebrate May First as Labor Day, in honor of the Chicago martyrs who died in 1886 in the struggle for the 8-hour work day, known as the Haymarket Massacre.
Saturday, April 30, at 1:30-4:30pm
New Haven Colony Historical Society
114 Whitney Avenue
A special commemoration for the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, featuring activist, featuring activist speakers, music and poetry.
Info: Joan, 203-776-4098 or jcavanagh@skybridge.com
Sunday, May 1, 12pm-7pm
New Haven Green, with speakers, music, historical displays, info tables, bands, children's activities, Maypole dance, hands-on activities and free vegetarian food.
Info: 203-776-4-098 or 203-562-2798 or email: maydaynewhaven@yahoo.com
New York City
Visit here.
Pensacola
MAY DAY!!!!
The Pensacola IWW will participate in the upcoming Pensacola MAY DAY DEMONSTRATION at the corner of Garden and Palafox at high noon.
On May First, 1886, passionate and committed workers and revolutionaries demanded and expected transformation of the society that was killing and exploiting them.
Around the world that struggle is continued and reinvented by small groups and mass organizations, non-violent activists, freedom fighters, socialists, communists, anarchists, people with eyes open to the pain of the world, ready to act and learn. Whole cities and nations have stood up and demanded change!
The U.S. military is extracting and destroying the best parts of our lives for profit and in vain, leaving behind nuclear wastelands, graveyards, broken minds, broken hearts, and broken bodies, from Eglin to Iraq, Vieques to Guantanamo, Hawaii to Micronesia, from Harlem to Afghanistan.
It will take more than government grants, blue tarps, and new roofs, houses, and condos for the rich to make this city whole. The elites must answer for the anger, pain, and suffering they have caused, for all that they have stolen. Make them answer! "It's now or never."
Email: iwwpensacola@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/iww
Pittsburgh
REMEMBERING HAYMARKET: MAYDAY 2005
Sunday, May 1st, 3 pm at the Thomas Merton Center (5125 Penn ave).
Presentation and discussion on the events surrounding and involving the martyrdom of the Haymarket anarchists. Come to eat some vegan snacks and to listen to historical narratives and speeches about and by Lucy Parsons, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Sam Fielden, etc.
Come and learn about the struggle for the eight-hour day. Fall in love again with the radicals whose sacrifices are uncelebrated and suppressed by those who are still afraid of the ideas of those who were willing to fight and die for a freer society. Honor with us the history of resistance passed on to us by the Haymarket 7— not the history of oppression passed on to us by this capitalist, imperialist system.
Bring your sympathy, passion, and open minds. Come and remember how their sacrifice lives on in our resistance.
Sponsored by your friendly, neighborhood, Bloomfield Free State anarchists.
haymarket2005@yahoo.com
Portland (OR)
Celebrating Working Class Pride
Solidarity Worldwide
May Day, Sunday, May 1st
International Workers Day
With the themes of Health Care, Jobs/Overtime, & The Right to Organize, the days events are as follows:
8:30 a.m. Labor Breakfast, with Congressman and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich
ILWU Local 8 Hall 2435 N.W. Front Ave.
Breakfast for Union members
Noon Rally North Park Blocks at NW. Park Ave. and W. Burnside St.
Some of the Music, Entertainment and Speakers and Topics:
General Strike; Radical Cheer Leaders; Gene Lawhorn History of May Day; Mary Rose WILPF; Jim Robison MCDCC; Linda Averill FSP; Marcelitte Failla; Jennifer Lavedur* Healthcare; Mitch Besser ORTECH - Right to Organize; Mary Winzig ILWU; Jason Sheckler* UBC and CBLOC - Solidarity; Helen Sherman NAACP; Gary Bills Teamsters; Stacie Wolfe* IWW; Suzanne Scheans* Trades Women Network; Elisha * Sisters in Action for Power; Jeri Sundavold* Environmental Justice Action Group
2:00 p.m. March Approximately 2 miles
Dennis Kucinich will speak at one Stop
Dr. Martin Donohue will speak on Healthcare at one stop
Return to North Park Blocks
4:00 p.m. Speeches by Political Candidates
North Park Blocks
After March party at the IWW hall at SE 6th and Burnside
6:00 p.m. 7th Annual Labor Appreciation Night
Westmoreland Union Manor, 6404 SE. 23rd Ave.
Hosted by NW Oregon Labor Council annual Labor Appreciation and recognition Night featuring a tribute to a veteran of the famous 1934waterfront strike in Portland. Winning the strike was one of the most significant US labor victories and helped forge the CIO and the ILWU
For more information call NW Ore. Labor Council 503-235-9444
7:00 p.m. May Day Celebration
Bread and Roses Center 819 N Killingsworth
Greek Dinner at 6:00 pm. $6.00 donation
Linda Averill senior staff writer for Freedom Socialist newspaper will speak on "A Socialist Remedy for the Red White and Blues." An evening of Labor Songs, socializing and international solidarity.
For rides or child care call in advance 503-240-4462 or emailfsp@igc.org
During the industrial boom of the late 1800's, a movement grew from a spark into a great fire that swept across this nation. That movement was for the Eight Hour Day. It climaxed with the great General Strike on May 1st 1886, in which hundreds of thousands of workers all across this nation turned out.
In 1891 union leaders from throughout Europe met in Paris to form an international association of working people. There they voted to support the 8 Hour Day and to designate May 1st as International Workers Day.
In 1932, unemployed councils were formed around the country. In Chicago alone there were 45 branches with a total membership of 22,000.
We are Marching for:
* Jobs
* Work for all wanting work. No accepted level of unemployment without unemployment support benefits
* Living wages for all workers
* Immigrant rights. If someone works in the United States, they are to be treated and afforded all the employment benefits and rights of citizens.
* Workplace and safety conditions should be guarentedd and actively enforced.
* Health Care It's simple. It is available in every other industrial nation. Universal single-payer healthcare
* Right to Organize
* Reclaim the ability for workers to call a General Strike. Repeal Taft-Hartley
* Protect the Right to organize. Enforce and enhance standards of non-interference from corporations
* Celebration of Fertility and Rebirth
* Let there be beauty and strength; power and compassion; joy and commitment to life
On May Day, in Portland we march and rally for the above reasons and to celebrate, honor and remember all those who struggled before us to bring us the Eight Hour Day, The Forty Hour Week and Social Security and to maintain them for our children and grand children, with these Family Friendly Events.
(503) 231-5488
pdxiwwhall@riseup.net
~~
Call for Black Bloc Militant Action on Mayday!
Attention my fellow Anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians and activists this is a call for a Portland Black Bloc on Mayday at the North Park Blocks. At high noon speakers until 2pm then we take the streets!
The history of Mayday is closely linked with the anarchist movement and the struggles of working people for a better world. Indeed, it originated with the execution of four anarchists in Chicago in 1886 for organizing workers in the fight for the eight-hour day. Thus May Day is a product of "anarchy in action" -- of the struggle of working people using direct action in labor unions to change the world ("Anarchism . . . originated in everyday struggles" -- Kropotkin)
Attention my fellow Anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians and activists this is a call for a Portland Black Bloc on Mayday at the North Park Blocks. At high noon speakers until 2pm then we take the streets!
We only need to look back at previous Mayday actions to know that more militant action is needed. Come with your masks, sticks, flags, shields, slingshots, body armor, rock, paint, and anything else you feel is necessary.
In solidarity
-Widerstand
Support Your Local Black Bloc!
Providence
Mayhem…Celebrating May Day So Many Ways...
Actions, music, films, panels, readings, races and romps!
(all events are FREE *except AFSC benefit)
Coming from out of town? Want more info?
contact: loveandresistance(at)riseup.net
Wed April 27th
Textron Shareholders Meeting
RI Convention Center
This is their national/international meeting. Do you know how well their stock is doing? Got something to say about it? 11:45 am meet on library steps, bring drums, signs, etc - to march over to the Convention Center
Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century Panel Discussion with Robert McNamara, former Sec of Defense during Vietnam War
4pm @ the Watson Institute at Brown
Friday April 29th
Critical Mass Bike Ride
Garibaldi Park — Under the Pineapple on Atwells Ave
Meet @ 4:30; Ride at 5
Benefit Concert w/ David Rovics
for AFSC's Veterans' Heath Care Advocacy and Counter Recruitment
Organizing
Beneficent Church, 8pm
300 Weybosset St
521-3584 / $10
Saturday April 30th
No Time to Be Silent Peace Vigil
12pm-1pm Memorial Square S. Main Street
247-1434
Recycle A Bike Volunteer Work Day
1pm at City Arts
Recycle A Bike is a volunteer-run bicycle advocacy group that distributes bikes for free and conducts children's educational programs 891 Broad Street, Providence, southside Organizational day to prepare for the Big Move
Potluck BBQ, Seed/Seedling Swap, and Bike-In Movie "The Corporation"
Summer Street off of Broad, behind Burger King, 7pm Weather Permitting!
May Day, Sunday May 1
Alley Cat Bike Race
11am Armory Park
ends @ City Hall
Food Not Bombs
12-4pm Burnside Park
across from Kennedy Plaza
Providence Roller Derby
3pm @ Fleet Skating Center
Spring Fever: May Day Celebration
Food, drinks, raffle and the music of
BREAD and ROSES (Boston) and Rachel Jacobs (NYC)
9pm @ 28 Cemetery Street- off North Main
Monday May 2nd
Keep the Pressure on Textron Action
Meet @ 11:45 at Memorial Square (S. Main Street)
Bring Signs, Drums, Lunch
Tuesday May 3rd
Road to Haymarket & Trainwreck of Ideologies
Two short films about the history of the labor movement
Fox Point Library
6-7pm
A Reading by Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz
7pm @ the Black Rep
176 Westminster St
351-0353
Saturday May 7
Help Recycle A Bike move to its new home @ the Steelyard
Meet at 10 am at City Arts 891 Broad
Bring your trucks & vans.
Salt Lake City
Celebrate Mayday--the real Labor Day!
Sunday, May 1, 2005 Noon until Dusk
Northeast Pavilion in Liberty Park (Enter on 1300 South 600 East and proceed to the northeast corner.)
Join with wobblies in celebration of Mayday and the 100th anniversary of the Industrial Workers of the World! Food Not Bombs will provide free food. The entertainment line up is: Blue Sage ~ Kyle Wulle ~ Eric McGil, ~ Anke Summerhill ~ and more! Educators and activists will speak on: Utah labor history ~ women in unions ~ worker solidarity ~ and direct action. A raffle will be held to raise money for the striking Huntington miners. All are invited to take a whack at the popular 'boss piñata"—a rewarding and healthy way to relieve occupational stress! And, as always, this event is free—the way speech is meant to be! For more information contact Scott: 424-0460 or tr_wobbly@yahoo.com
San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO MAY DAY 2005 MARCH DEFEND IMMIGRANT RIGHTS! RECLAIM WORKERS' POWER!
What: May Day March and Rally in Solidarity with Local Labor Struggles and Immigrant Workers.
When/Where: Sunday May 1st.
3PM- March from Jefferson Square Park (Gough/Turk 10 minute walk from Civic Center BART)
5PM- Rally at Dolores Park (18th/Dolores)
7PM- Town-Hall meeting, food, music, film screening at CellSpace (2050 Bryant near 18th St.)
Who: Anarchist Action, Bay Area Anarchist Council, Industrial Workers of the World- Bay Area Chapter.
May Day is International Workers Day. It was born out of the struggles of workers here in America in 1886, when general strikes broke out across the land and were met with bloody repression - including the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, followed by the frame-up and state-sanctioned executions of several anarchist labor organizers.
Since then, it has been observed world-wide as International Workers Day. This year once again, all over the globe, working people will take to the streets to celebrate their struggle for workers' rights and opposition to the capitalist's wars.
We stand for a world free of bosses and borders. We are fighting and struggling so that one-day we will abolish them and take back control of our own lives, workplaces, and communities. This May Day, we will take back the streets of this city and stand in solidarity with the struggles of immigrant workers.
We will gather on Sunday May 1st at 3 PM at Jefferson Square Park (Gough/Turk) and march to Dolores Park in San Francisco's Mission district. There we will hold a rally including speakers from recent and ongoing local labor and immigrant workers struggles with a report-back from the recent delegation, which went to Arizona protesting the racist vigilantes Minuteman Project. The march and rally will be followed by food, music, and a free movie screening at 7PM at Cellspace (2050 Bryant St). We will also hold a brief town-hall style meeting at Cellspace where we will discuss plans for fighting back against the proposed cuts and fare hike of San Francisco's public transportation system.
In Solidarity,
Anarchist Action
anarchistaction@riseup.net
http://www.anarchistaction.org
Bay Area Anarchist Council
baac@riseup.net
Industrial Workers of the World- Bay Area Branch
bayarea@iww.org
~~
This Saturday, April 30 at 7 p.m., join San Francisco labor and community leaders, as well as former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, for a special indoor rally at San Francisco's Mission High School Auditorium to Defeat the Bush Program, 3750 18th St.
Rally speakers will include representatives from the growing movement fighting against both Bush and his junior partner, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Please note below the newly added guests on the program.
Speakers Include:
Ramsey Clark, Initiator of the Impeach Bush Campaign
Trent Willis, President of ILWU Local 10
Eric Mar, President of San Francisco School Board
** Lillian Taiz, Statewide Vice President for the California Faculty
Association
Elias Rashmawi, National Coordinator of National Council of Arab Americans
** Rev. Cecil Williams, Senior Minister, Glide Memorial Church
** Janice Mirikitani, former San Francisco Poet Laureate
Mike Casey, president of UNITE HERE Local 2
Gloria La Riva, A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition
Denise D'Anne, Senior Action Network
** The Dance Brigade, Women's Dance and Taiko Drumming Group
Youth Speakers
~~
RALLY on MAY DAY
MAY 1, 2005
INTERNATIONAL WORKERS' DAY
JOBS with a living wage
BRING BACK MAY DAY
Albert R Parsons, 1886
Executed by the Government during the fight for the eight hour day.
May Day grew out of the struggle of working people in this country more than a 100 years ago for an 8 hour work day with full days pay. All over the world, working & poor people march on May Day to send the message, that workers are united. Let's bring that unity and fighting spirit back.
Harry Bridges Plaza
12— 3 p.m.
(Directly across from the Ferry Building at Embarcadero)
call: 510-444-6272 FAX: 510-632-6816
San Francisco
For more info go to http://www.millionworkermarch.org
~~
Tues. May 3, 4:15 p.m.
March and Rally for Local 2 Hotel Workers
Union Square at Powell and Geary, San Francisco
The employees of San Francisco's 14 Multi-Employer Group hotels are taking it to the streets for a huge March and Rally. For the better part of a year, the hotel workers have been struggling for a decent contract. We have been victorious in ending the lockout, but the hotels still want to cut our healthcare and offer us disrespectful wage increases, as well as disallow us to work with our brothers and sisters in cities across North America.
The Lockout in the fall ended because of strong picket lines and community support. Local 2 workers need continued support securing a decent contract.
Join the ANSWER Coalition contingent on May 3 in solidarity with the Local 2 workers.
~~
Thurs. May 5, 7:30 p.m.
ANSWER Film Series: "Harlan County, USA"
in celebration of May Day
ATA 992 Valencia at 21st, SF
$5 donation (no one turned away for lack on funds)
This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract-when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America-led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supporters. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective-giving some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA. 1976, 103 min.
Santa Cruz
Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival
Thursday, April 28, 2005
12:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Workers Memorial Day
College 8 Red Room, UCSC, Santa Cruz • Noon
The Relevance of the Wobblies Today
Public lecture on the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. Paul Buhle's book, Wobblies!, will be available here for 20% discount!
Speaker: Paul Buhle, labor historian;
Respondent: Archie Green, author, storyteller
College 8 Red Room, UCSC, Santa Cruz • 1:30 pm
Lewis County: Hope and Struggle (work in progress)
(Filmmaker: Anne Fischel, 2005, 90 min)
Commemoration of an attack on the IWW Documentary, the Centralia Massacre.
Speaker: Anne Fischel, Filmmaker
Sin Fronteras Book Store, Santa Cruz • 5-6:30 pm
Wobblies, A Graphic History
A pictoral history of the IWW by 25 artists.
Reading & book signing by Paul Buhle, author
Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz • 7 pm
Proclamation to honor Reel Work and the 100th Anniversary of the IWW presented by City of Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin
The Take
(Filmmakers: Avi Lewis & Naomi Klein, 2004, 87 min)
Argentine workers take back their abandoned factories.
Speakers from Argentina: Cecilia Sainz, lead field analyst for The Take, Ernesto "Lalo" Paret, activist member, Movement of Recovered Factories
Emcee: Dana Frank, teacher, author
Music: David Winters
Location:
College 8 Red Room, UCSC, Santa Cruz • Noon and 1:30pm
Sin Fronteras Book Store, Santa Cruz • 5-6:30 pm
Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz • 7 pm
Contact: info (at) reelwork.org
http://www.reelwork.org
Seattle
May Day Celebration Bicycle Ride and Picnic Sunday May 1st
Come celebrate May Day, Sunday May 1, in Seattle with a bicycle ride and picnic in the city.
12:01 p.m. - Converge at Westlake Center
12:33 p.m. — Mount up and let's ride
Sometime Later p.m. — throw down the blankets, open up the picnic baskets
After we eat p.m. — the celebration continues, we ride
Bring friends and lovers and fellow workers. Bring food to share, chalk, songs, banners, flags, creativity, defiance and your bicycle.
May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but ironically it is rarely recognized in the US where it began.
In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which later became the American Federation of Labor) passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly.
On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history.
Over one hundred years have passed since that first May Day. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the US government tried to curb the celebration and further wipe it from the public's memory by establishing "Law and Order Day" on May 1, and gave us instead Labor Day, a holiday devoid of any historical significance.
By covering up the history of May Day, the state, business, mainstream unions and the media have covered up an entire legacy of dissent in this country. As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for its historical significance, but also as a time to organize around issues of vital importance to working-class people today.
Truly, history has a lot to teach us about the roots of our radicalism. When we remember that people were shot so we could have the 8-hour day; if we acknowledge that homes with families in them were burned to the ground so we could have Saturday as part of the weekend; when we recall 8-year old victims of industrial accidents who marched in the streets protesting working conditions and child labor only to be beat down by the police and company thugs, we understand that our current condition cannot be taken for granted - people fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today, and there is still a lot more to fight for. The sacrifices of so many people cannot be forgotten or we'll end up fighting for those same gains all over again. This is why we celebrate May Day.
May Day
Here are links to some May Day reports
[weblink:http://www.geocities.com/progressivepix]