Immigrants and Unions United to Fight Cutbacks and Demand Jobs

[Better Believe It]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2011
CONTACT: May 1 Coalition for Workers and Immigrants’ Rights

Tony Murphy [phone] / Teresa Gutierrez [phone]


Immigrants and Unions United to Fight Cutbacks and Demand Jobs
May 1 Coalition for Workers and Immigrants’ Rights Statement on the Revival of International Workers Day in the U.S.

NATIONWIDE - May 1 - International Workers Day in the U.S. was resuscitated by the immigrant workers’ movement. Now of necessity it is being embraced by the wider working class.

On May 1, 2011, in cities large and small, the union and immigrant movements are uniting – in order to fight back together against austerity, racism and cutbacks.

In 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrants took to the streets against the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill. The powerful culmination that spring was May 1, when – one year after the call by the Million Worker March to revive May Day – a million immigrant workers nationwide stayed home from work, walked off the job and demonstrated in huge rallies.

Since then, every year the immigrant workers’ rights movement has demonstrated on May 1, putting International Workers Day back on the map in the land of its birthplace.

Now in 2011, in New York, Buffalo, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston, members of the labor movement – facing a deadly assault from Wall Street – have chosen on this May Day to march side by side with their immigrant brothers and sisters. AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka is addressing tens of thousands of union and immigrant workers in Milwaukee.

The uniting of these two powerful forces helps push back the racism now being viciously promoted in the form of deportations, show-us-your-papers laws and attacks on ethnic studies.

Pushing back racism strengthens and widens the movement – a necessary step as Wall Street ratchets up the suffering of the working class through school closings, layoffs, slashed wages, looted pensions and foreclosures.

The students who took over the school board meeting in Tucson, the longshore workers in California who held a one-day strike in support of Wisconsin public sector workers – as the movements come together, all are now part of a broader movement for workers’ rights.

Wisconsin teachers and students revived the labor movement. Immigrant workers revived May Day. Together they can beat back Wall Street.

SI SE PUEDE!

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/05/01


-------------------------------------------



AFL-CIO joins Wis. immigration group's rally
May 1, 2011

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Immigration-rights leaders in Wisconsin have teamed up with national labor leaders to fight for workers' rights and support reform in Madison and Washington, D.C.

Thousands of protesters marched through downtown Milwaukee on Sunday as part of a coordinated series of May Day rallies across the nation.

Speakers at a rally afterward included AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. He says it's natural for the two groups to combine forces because they're being attacked by the same conservative opponents.

The march was organized by Voces (VOH'-ces) de la Frontera, an immigrant-rights group. Executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told demonstrators that politicians are holding the working class responsible for Wall Street's failures.

http://www.westport-news.com/news/article/AFL-CIO-joins-Wis-immigration-group-s-rally-1360657.php

[EFerrari]

1. This coalition could be really effective.

K&R

[MichiganVote]

2. Like going back in time all over again.

[socialist_n_TN]

3. It is isn't it? The original socialists and trade unionists

back in the early part of the last century were mostly immigrants too. I think that, slowly but surely, we ARE coming together.

Solidarity! Workers of the world, UNITE!

[MichiganVote]

4. Yup. But not before some pretty bad things happened. So it goes.

[socialist_n_TN]

6. Oh yeah. It'll happen again. The exploiters

won't give up without making it uncomfortable and probably dangerous for everyone involved. After all, they're the ones that BENEFIT from the exploitation.

They will fight, but there's more of us than them. I hope we have the courage of our ancestors. We're going to need it.

[MichiganVote]

7. We certainly are.

[nc4bo]

5. Very good to hear! nt