May Day General Strike/Boycott

[lovebombanarchy]

from Infoshop News
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/

May Day 2006 - General Strike Across the USA


The United States may see its first widespread general strike in decades as hundreds of thousands across the U.S. are organizing a strike on May 1st. Another round of massive demos for immigrants is scheduled for many cities. School walkouts are being organized. A general strike is being organized among dockworkers and truckers around the country.

Los Angeles Port Truckers Call for May Day GENERAL STRIKE!
Flyer for Mayday
Dodge City, KS: Wildcat strike to protect undocumented workers
Los Angeles: May 1st: Reclaim the Streets
LISTING OF MAY DAY EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD
What can you do to participate?

Stay home from work. Walk out of school.
Support and help organize the truckers strike. Attend their actions and demos. Help organize by passing out this flyer at truck stops.
Organize May Day protests, actions and events in your city or town.
Attend demonstrations for immigrant rights.
Protest right wing media station that broadcast racist garbage.

* DON'T BUY ANYTHING. BOYCOTT MAJOR CORPORATIONS (you should do this anyway)


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make sure you participate

[BattleOfTheCowshed]

Just so show people that this is FOR REAL: Los Angeles International Airport (like the third biggest airport in the US) will be CLOSED, as will the third biggest meatpacking plant in the US and various other workplaces!

[Hefer]

If you can't attend the rallies; like myself, don't buy anything, stay at home with your families. LONG LIVE THE WORKERS AND TO THE SOCIALIST TRIUMPH!!!

[DORRI]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 03:02 AM
Just so show people that this is FOR REAL: Los Angeles International Airport (like the third biggest airport in the US) will be CLOSED, as will the third biggest meatpacking plant in the US and various other workplaces!
WOw! well done! good luck!

[bunk]

This should be more like a week long if you want to have an impact on the economy which most of these protestors don't want

[piet11111]

its symbolic but it might give the poeple some confidence that they can be strong when united.

too bad such lessons are easily forgotten.

[McLeft]

And especially if you live outside the US don't buy anything American.

[piet11111]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 04:08 PM
And especially if you live outside the US don't buy anything American.
in my opinion china is worse then the united states when it comes to pay for work ratio.

but to avoid products from china is impossible.

[perdido]

Well darn i guess i can't go to school today... :P

[Hegemonicretribution]

I wasn't set to work today, and my college was closed anyway. I haven't bought anything at all, but I guess I kinda forgot about May Day anyway, and have just been lazy. There were no protests scheduled around here, but I was at a pagan festival with hippies over the weekend, and they are very anti-corporate.

For those out there doing it today though, hats off.

[bcbm]

We had a protest and "strike" here, it was all right. Nothing too terribly exciting happened, and I had some concerns about the actions of the anarchist/wobbly contigent after the official student march and rally had ended and we were moving to a local park for a "party."

[Janus]

I attended a protest today though it was mainly about the immigration issue rather than May Day.

[More Fire for the People]

I'm part of the economic boycott but I went to school as only a handful of people in my town knew about the strike — I wore white in solidarity though.

[Red Axis]

Isn't May Day like a communist holiday? Just wondering, I am new at this.

[Correa]

It's a worker's holiday really and therefore communist embrace it obviously. It originated in Chicago 120 years ago, thousands of workers and their families were marching through the streets of Chicago. It was a Saturday. Everyone left work, because in those days people had to work on Saturday. They were working a ten- and twelve-hour day. Most of these people were immigrants, and they were protesting as immigrant workers, as well as as people who were U.S. citizens and wanted to be U.S. citizens.

[lovebombanarchy]

Originally posted by Red [email protected] 1 2006, 08:42 PM
Isn't May Day like a communist holiday? Just wondering, I am new at this.
well, the event that May Day commerates is the Haymarket massacre, in which anarchists were killed fighting for the 8 hour work day. people associate May Day with communism because the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba, and other stalinist states made it a state holiday, despite the fact that it is at its heart an anarchist holiday.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?...060501101210604 (http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060501101210604)
more on that

yeah, we passed out hundreds of anarchist fliers and pamphlets and cds at school during lunch today. it was great fun. then we went to an immigrant rights rally, which was also cool.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 08:24 PM
I attended a protest today though it was mainly about the immigration issue rather than May Day.
Yeah us and the IWW members we're the only ones who knew it was MayDay.

But in other news, I'm glad we did something on MayDay, better than sitting at home, and it was really nice meeting you!

[Wiesty]

Haha, i stayed home sick today, does that count?

[YSR]

I walked out from school and the protest I attended had a very interesting spin on the Haymarket story. They connected the fact that 5 of the 8 arrested were immigrants with the movement of today, which I'd never considered today and really made the story relevent for us. It was really smart.

It rained, which put a damper on things a bit (I'm so punny!) but it was still powerful.

[Janus]

This is definitely going to have quite an impact. The restarurant industry will be hit pretty hard as will most places down in Texas and the deep south. Hopefully, this will send a big message.

[mscommieparty]

had there actually been something going on where i live (Buffalo, New York, if anyone lives around there, PM me, we'll organize something) i definitely would have gone but being that my parents (really strict so my political beliefs aren't expressed much around the house) took me to school and had all the fauking teachers watching me...

[Commie Rat]

We get a public holiday in Aus ahahhahahah. so no school for me!
Was going to go to the marches but was severly hungover. handed out a shitload of leaflets for lead up to though

[Jimmie Higgins]

Mayday is no more an exclsivly anarchist day or Stalinist day, it is celevrated in countries all over the world as international workers day... it was observed by many workers in the US until the late 40s.

I think these protests have brought mayday back to the US... even if people don't know the stroy of the fight for the 8-hour day, this event brought a return of the much more important spirit of fighting-back. Workers haven't massively walked-out from work like this since before McCarthyism.

Past Maydays where there are a bunch of radicals and a handful militant unionists were completely useless even though everyone there could tell you the story of Mayday. If the movment continues to make more demands and develops a militant or radical wing, then fututre generations in the US will talk about the original Mayday and then they will talk about this past Mayday.

For more than 1/2 century, workers didn't walkout or strike across many industries or celebrate Mayday; this is very possibly the beginning of a turning point for the US labor movement.

[Janus]

Well, it seems to me that the protests in America are more about the immigrants and their status than the actual labor movement. I agree that it is very good and publicizes our movement but I haven't seen much radical action or demands. However, this is only in my area and probably doesn't hold for others.

[Jimmie Higgins]

No, this isn't a radical movement, it's a mass movement; my argument is that the dynamic of the movement could help revitalize the labor movement as well as the social and anti-war movements because it shows that the best way for worker's demands to be heard is through a mass movement and walking out. In the anti-war movement, many people see lobbying congress or appealing to Democrats as the way to get our demands heard and it's gotten these movements nowwhere fast... this movement dosn't have the liberal luxuries and illusions about collecting money and lobbying politicians to change their minds and it actually defeated Sensenbrenner!

In any movements US comrades are involved with where there is a strong liberal wing, we should point to the walkouts and such actions as a way to fight back that wins! What if the anti-war movement tried to organize a shut down the docks day where longshoremen walked out so that the US government couldn't ship weapons to Iraq? This is what we need to tell the rest of the left about the immigrant movement!

[RevMARKSman]

Hmm, couldn't stay home from school on Monday, but managed to put up a MayDay flyer on my locker...
We really need to keep this going. Workers of the world, unite!

[metalero]

Mesoamerica comes to North America, The Dialectics of the Migrant Workers’ Movement:

"...The mass migrant workers movement has served, to a certain extent, as a “social pole” attracting and politicizing tens of thousands of high school, community college and even university students especially those of Latin- American origins. In addition, a minority of dissident “Anglo” trade unionists, middle class progressives and clerical liberals has been activated to work with the labor struggles. The MIGRANT WORKERS MOVEMENT struggle is political -–directed at influencing political power, national legislation and against the rule of ‘white capital’ directed at criminalizing and expelling ‘brown labor.’

The movement demonstrates the proper approach to combining race and class politics. The emergence of an organized mass labor-based socio-political pole has the potential to create a new political movement, which could challenge the hegemony of the two capitalist parties. The dynamic growth of the migrant workers movement in the US can serve as the basis for an international labor movement (free from the tutelage of the pro-imperialist AFL-CIO) from Panama to the US West, Southwest and southeastern states. Family and ethnic ties can strengthen class solidarity and create the basis of reciprocal support in struggles against the common enemy: the neo-liberal model of capitalism, the repressive state apparatus and legislation South and North.
The positive developments of the NMMWM however face political obstacles to growth and consolidation: First “from the outside” numerous employers fired workers who participated in the first wave of mass demonstrations. Latino workers who were trade unionists received little or no support from the labor bosses.

Secondly, after the mass success of the movements, numerous traditional Latino politicos, social workers, professional consultants, non-governmental organizations and clerical notables jumped on the bandwagon and are active in deflecting the movement into the conventional channels of “petitioning” Congress or supporting the “lesser evil” Democratic Party politicians. These middle class collaborators are intent on dividing the movement to serve their purpose of gaining a political platform for career advancement.

Finally the movement faces the problem of the uneven development of the struggle within the working class and between regions of the country. Most “Anglo workers” are at best passive while probably over half perceive migrant workers as a threat to their jobs, salaries and neighborhoods. The general absence of any anti-racist, class-based education by the trade union bureaucracy makes working class unity a difficult task. The challenge is for the migrant workers to reach out and build coalitions with black, Puerto Rican and Asian workers – as well as a minority of advanced Anglo trade unionists. There is also the pressure from the leaders of the capitalist parties to divide migrant workers, by passing legislation that favors ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ workers, ‘long-term’ versus ‘short-term’ workers, literate versus less literate workers, skilled versus unskilled workers.

Finally there is the need to confront the new wave of large-scale police raids at workplaces and neighborhoods, where hundreds of Latino workers are rounded up and expelled. Today, in Nazi style, entire Latino neighborhoods are closed and the police go on house-to-house searches. The Immigration police have recently escalated their mass ‘round-ups’ at work sites trying to provoke a climate of intimidation. During the week April 21-28, NeoCon Chief of Homeland Security Agency, Michael Chertoff directed the arrest of 1,100 undocumented migrants in 26 states.

Full article by James Petras (http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=30892)

[LoneRed]

the anarchists at haymarket and the fight for the 8hr day were different events.

[Tekun]

Didn't go to school, bought nothing, went to the march in LA with a big black sign that read "solidarity within the proletariat"

It was a good day

[FT1]

The immigration march in Chicago passed within 1/2 a block of the Haymarket site. I did see a number of red flags carried by marchers, although there were many, many more U.S. and Mexico flags. The red flags were noted in a Chicago Sun-Times column.