9:00 AM to 2:00 PM Teach-in, Rally and March at San Diego City College
3:00 PM Rally at the Federal Building
4:00 PM March to Chicano Park followed by Rally in Chicano Park
Click here for coverage and photos from May Day actions in San Diego, North County, and Nationwide.
By Jim Miller
Credit: Bay Resistance
Usually May Day comes and goes with a small march that most people barely notice. Indeed, most Americans don’t know much about May Day and if they do, they associate it with the state sponsored holiday in the former Soviet Union.
The truth of the matter is, however, that May Day has deep American roots. It started in 1866 as part of the movement pushing for the 8-hour day. As historian Jacob Remes reminds us:
The demand for an eight-hour day was about leisure, self-improvement, and freedom, but it was also about power. When Eight Hour Leagues agitated for legislation requiring short hours, they were demanding what had never before happened: that the government regulate industry for the advantage of workers. And when workers sought to enforce the eight-hour day without the government—through declaring for themselves, through their unions, under what conditions they would work—they sought something still more radical: control over their own workplaces. It is telling that employers would often counter a demand for shorter hours with an offer of a wage increase. Wage increases could be given (and taken away) by employers without giving up their power; agreeing to shorter hours was, employers knew, the beginning of losing their arbitrary power over their workers.
In the course of this effort, the nationwide American labor movement was born. Workers joined together in the service of the principle that, in the emerging industrial age, they should have a say in their economic lives and a voice in our politics—neither of which would come without a struggle.
This campaign led to the passage of the first 8-hour day law in Illinois that was set to take effect on May 1st, 1867. Chicago workers celebrated its enactment with a huge parade and other festivities. Unfortunately, the next day, employers refused to recognize or implement the law, making their workers stay for the customary 10 or 11 hours. The workers responded with a massive general strike that was eventually crushed by the state militia.
A year later the Railroad Strike of 1877 also showed great worker militancy and power, but that too was put down, this time by Federal troops, which deeply damaged the labor movement for the time being.
By the 1880s a revitalized labor movement took up the issue of the 8-hour day once again. In 1886, workers in Chicago, led by anarchists, called for a General Strike on May 1st, and they vowed not to return to their jobs unless employers agreed to an 8-hour day. As Remes notes, “The demands of the militant Chicago anarchists coincided with a massive upswing in other militant movements. Workers and Texas farmers were rebelling against a monopolistic railroad system. The Knights of Labor were rapidly organizing and spreading their vision of a cooperative, rather than capitalistic, society.”
It was more than a general strike; it was a struggle against plutocracy and a call for a cooperative commonwealth where democracy was not controlled by the big money of the robber barons of that earlier Gilded Age.
This was, of course, met with fierce resistance from police and the powers that be, and it led to the famous events at Haymarket Square in Chicago. There, an unidentified man threw a bomb into a crowd of protesting workers, killing a policeman, which led the police to fire on the crowd. This resulted in the arrest and conviction of eight anarchists with no hard evidence of their guilt. Four of them were eventually hanged and became martyrs for the cause of workers’ rights internationally. As August Spies shouted out before meeting his end, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.”
Eventually, American workers would win their struggle for the 8-hour day, but May Day itself has been largely forgotten in the United States despite its continued recognition internationally. In the early twentieth century, an attempt was made to bury May Day under “Law and Order Day,” which never quite stuck either.
Still, as a result of over a century of redbaiting, May Day is frequently demeaned as a relic of the former Stalinist bloc, which ignores its uniquely American roots. Despite this history, the immigrants’ rights movement, Occupy, and other activist groups revived May Day to inspire new struggles for workers’ rights.
What is important for us to keep in mind during this new Gilded Age is how hard the struggle was to get many of the things we take for granted in the American workplace and in our democracy. There are forces afoot in America that are in the process of returning us to the era of the old robber barons when the notion of a world with workplace democracy and basic workers’ rights was merely a dream.
They’d also like to permanently bury the idea that working people standing together can play a key role in our society and have real political power. Across the country, not just collective bargaining but many other hard-won gains from worker safety laws to Social Security are in jeopardy with billionaire-funded groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) pushing roll-backs of once taken-for-granted rights in statehouses and the nation’s capitol.
With the Trump administration in power and the wrecking crew in control of Congress, the dreams of the Koch Brothers and others to turn the United States into the best democracy that money can buy are coming to fruition. On the extensive wish list of the plutocrats in charge is the privatization of education, the destruction of healthcare, the “deconstruction” of the state, and the elimination of the buffers against the hard edges of the marketplace that the New Deal established, worker protections and collective bargaining in particular. They want free reign to destroy the commons, pollute the planet, and threaten the future health of our children, consequences be damned.
These new lords of the American marketplace are using their wealth to undermine the commonwealth as they seek to silence the voices of those whose actual speech they hope can’t match their spending.
Let’s not let them do it. Let’s stand together as a community this May 1st, educate, organize, agitate, and just say no to a future based on hate, division, inequality, and a reckless disregard for the future.
In the words of the old labor slogan, we believe that “an injury to one is an injury to all” and that the beloved community we serve is worth fighting for with all we’ve got. Let’s come out this May Day and make our voices heard like never before.
#AFTMay Day 2017: An Injury to One is an Injury to All!
Educators, Students, and Community
Stand Together!
Monday, May 1st 9 AM -2 PM at City College
9:00-11:00 AM: Teach-in the on Steps of the B Building facing Park Boulevard
11:00-12:00: Student March on Campus
12:00-1:00: Music, Dance, and Student Speak Out at B Building
1:00-2:00: Educators, Students, and Community Rally at B Building
**La Rondalla Amerindia de Aztlan will be playing throughout the day
2:00: March to the Federal Building
3:00 PM Rally at the Federal Building
4:00 PM March to Chicano Park followed by Rally in Chicano Park
*We Remember: on this historic day during these troubled times the history of American Workers who struggled and died for many of the rights that are currently being threatened by the Trump Administration’s assaults on unions and the rights of all workers!
*We Resist: the Trump administration’s attacks on Public Education and the communities we serve!
*We Reject: the dangerous myth that America was greater when fewer people had a voice. We will not go back!
*We Stand Together: with all workers, women, immigrants, people of color, LGBT, and other communities endangered by the current regime!
*We Fight For: a future based not on the politics of hate, division, inequality and exploitation but on the idea that Democracy at its best is a beloved community where together we can all rise-up and prosper.
*Why? Because we know that “An injury to one is an injury to all!”
For Information on May Day Activities on all San Diego County campuses.
For Information on citywide actions.
Jim Miller
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Thank you Jim!
I tip my hat in your direction for trying to do something to stop Trump and the Republican agenda. However, I do not think this is an effective way to proceed. I suggest as an alternative the following organization of which I am a volunteer on the site.
Our organization, First Rate Crowd, has a rapid and guaranteed way to stop Donald Trump and the Republican agenda without voting anyone into office or changing any laws. Seriously, I would not be bold enough to say this if it was not true.
I am requesting you review our organization and the use of an Economic Inequality Rating App, (EIRA) to stop their agenda with the hope you will participate. Details can be found can be found at the website, FirstRateCrowd.com. The third video on our site provides a clear example of how this app will function once it is fully developed.
First RateCrowd is a crowdfunded and crowdsourced platform dedicated to stopping income and economic inequality. We firmly believe these inequalities are the greatest existential threats we face today. A major component of our platform is the EIRA which we consider the most efficient and effective way to stop theses inequalities and the conservative agenda.
Respectfully,
Dr. Robert Lipkowitz
FirstRateCrowd has conceived an idea to develop an Economic Inequality Rating App for handheld or other use. This will essentially become a way to economically boycott select aspects the 1%. The Rating App will provide clear guidelines as to which products and services, or which individuals providing these products or services, are aligned with the 99%-Crowd in contrast to those aligned with the 1%. By following these ratings, the 99% can not only capture the revenue normally lost to the 1% through Economic Inequality, but also redirect this revenue back to themselves.
This technology will make economic choices in support of the 99% simple and convenient to use; individuals can then change the economic equation back in favor of the 99%. This freedom of choice in the marketplace completely bypasses the usual political, tax, and judicial gridlock by placing the power directly back into the hands of the 99% to decrease economic inequality.
A giant Question occurs to me. Do you know what you’re talking about?
Dear Bob,
The answer to your giant question is a even larger, YES.
I would suggest you first visit the website at FirstRateCrowd.com and then let me know your thoughts.
Use the CLICK HERE TO BEGIN function as a starting point.
To paraphrase Herbert Spencer, {The one concept that bars all other concepts is contempt prior to investigation.}
Respectfully,
Dr. Lipkowitz
So there IS an APP for that?
Seamus,
The quick answer to your question is, no, not yet. But it is being worked on in a somewhat different form by JustCapital. However, to truly be effective it will eventually need the EIRA form.
Here is the more nuanced answer to your question below.
FirstRateCrowd’s EIRA
Although the EIRA is a great idea, FirstRateCrowd decided not to proceed with its development as a business venture. This is because a company of a much larger size than ours, JUST Capital, was working on a similar concept regarding company rankings. They were putting tens of millions of dollars into their own idea backed by the billionaire, Paul Tudor Jones II, who has an estimated worth of $4.6 Billion.
Even though we at FirstRateCrowd felt we had the better concept, to compete with JUST Capital as a startup in this arena would not have been a prudent business decision; this is due to JUST Capital’s financial wherewithal.
However, we at FirstRateCrowd wants to let our members know we fully support JUST Capital and the mission they are trying to accomplish. We highly commend their work and wish them great success. Their program will have a significant impact upon reducing economic inequality which is what we all want. We tip our hat in their direction.
About: “JUST Capital is a nonprofit that provides information and rankings on how large corporations perform on issues that matter most to the public. We give individuals a voice on what really matters to them, and evaluate how companies perform on those issues. The centerpiece of our platform is the JUST Ranking: a ranking of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. based on America’s definition of “JUST”. Our platform, and the research underpinning it, empowers consumers, workers, business leaders, investors – all of us – to make more informed decisions about where to buy, work and invest.”
We are all aware that ideas have an enormous amount of power. Surely the idea for an EIRA and a JUST Ranking for corporations fall into this category. Yet, there must be more of these powerful ideas bubbling up in the collective consciousness. Once found, these ideas will be well thought out, planned properly, and effectively implemented so they can provide the solutions we are looking for. Somewhere amongst us are the bright minded individuals capable of providing more of the solutions we so clearly need. If you have a thoughtful and relevant idea, CLICK HERE.
You see, we are fast approaching the end of an era where the pitchforks and torches paradigm will no longer be effective at stopping the wealthy elite. The new quantum computer age looms large and precious little time remains given its exponential rate of growth. Albeit some naysayers and critics proclaim the Singularity will never be fully manifested as conceived, just coming close is daunting enough to say the least.
CLICK HERE to learn why, with the coming Singularity, pitchforks and torches will no longer work to stop the wealthy elite.
Time is of the essence. Let there be no doubt, the single most important aspect we are really battling for here is to control the future, our future. Will we control it or let the wealthy elite control our destiny? Make no mistake, what happens here will determine the outcome of humanity. Whoever controls the Singularity will control the future; will it be them or us? This is why your participation to create the demand and eventual development of the EIRA is so important.