May Day: Tens of Thousands Prepare to March Across the Country as Labor Struggle Linked to Immigrant

Source: democracy now

May Day: Tens of Thousands Prepare to March Across the Country as Labor Struggle Linked to Immigrants Rights

Tens of thousands are expected to march in cities across the country today, linking immigrant rights to May Day for the third year in a row. The major demands include legal status for undocumented migrant workers and an end to the raids and deportations that have torn families apart. We speak to Anike Tourse of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, and journalist Robert Lovato.

Today is Mayday, a historic day in the struggle for labor rights and the eight-hour workday. Tens of thousands are expected to march in cities across the country today, linking immigrant rights to May day for the third year in a row. The major demands include legal status for undocumented migrant workers and an end to the raids and deportations that have torn families apart.

One of the biggest rallies is expected to take place later today here in Los Angeles, California. Two years ago, over a million people took to the streets here and participated in what was called the Great American Boycott. In 2007, the May Day rallies for comprehensive immigration reform continued but were marred by incidents of violence with the Los Angeles Police Department firing rubber bullets at protestors in MacArthur Park.



Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/1/may_day_tens_of_thousands_prepare

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Memories Of 2007 May Day Melee Sparked By Today's Rallies
http://www.knbc.com/news/16088967/detail.html

Notwithstanding an arbirtators injunction, Longshoreworkers and warehouseman have called a meeting day and refuse to go to work today to protest the war in Iraq and Afganistan. Marches and demonstrations are planned for all day on the West Coast from Oregon to Mexico.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ4D1_9PGPQ

they know who butters their bread comrade ;)


wolves in monks clothing



who knew?

Question: How many so-called "Tibet Independence Groups (CIA Fronts?) endorsed the various May Day immigration and anti-Iraq war demonstrations in the United States?

Answer: None

Hypocrites!

Well, none of these independence outfits have condemed the firebombing of Chinese shops and beatings of common Chinese people in Tibet. Nothing like a little "ethnic cleansing" in Tibet!

every picture tells a story don't it


Chinese "freedom of religion" in action

I don't know the answer to that question. Perhaps you do.

But you know and I know that the CIA did in fact bankroll the Dalai Lama and "Tibet Independence" groups for many years.

Isn't that right?

Seems that doesn't bother you so long as they were fighting the "red menace" in China like the right-wingnuts fought and are still fighting the "red menace" in the United States. Where did you happen to pick up the art of red-baiting those you disagree with?

Hope that Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover aren't your role models!

If you disagree with me and wish to explain what it is you disagree with and why fine. If you'd rather engage in name calling and red-baiting we have nothing further to discuss!

seems easy enough for you to google up the story of how this group you claim to be a blood lust cult are out to destroy the PRC


But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao..

You ain't gonna make it with anyone any how...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kB5bQGHuTg

What a clever and effective debating tactic! Just make up a lot of b.s. and throw lots of mud hoping some of it will stick!

ohio2007 wrote:

"this group you claim to be a blood lust cult are out to destroy the PRC"

I never wrote or suggested that. Got a link to your charge?

I didn't think so.

If you can't defend your position or effectively challenge the positions of others I can understand why you feel the need to just make up stuff in your posts.

with my sign today.
I usually stand alone and it is always entertaining and empowering.
Off to make some fresh signs.

Join us.

10:30 AM
ILWU's anti-war march
Meet at Beach St. at Mason St. (Take Muni F-Market.)

NOON
ILWU's anti-war rally
Justin Herman Plaza (Embarcadero BART)

2:30 PM
The immigrant rights rally and march.
Dolores Park (18th St. at Dolores, 16th Street BART)

The rights of American workers? What about us? Don't we deserve some protection from competition against virtual slave labor, and labor market dumping?

to speak Spanish that is
Learn to earn
;)

learn to assimilate hombre

And I feel just the same as you.

because more immigration dilutes wages, no iffs ands or butts

Illegals do not belong here and should be deported to their own countries. To many US Citizens are without jobs and we are paying for health care for millions of illegals out of our own paychecks along with food stamps, etc. This situation needs to be taken care of by this country in the protection of their own country people using the laws which already exist on our books.

I feel for the illegal people/families and their situations but not before those of my own country men/women who also have families. This is the only home they have and they are not going to break the laws of another country to go to it so this is it for them. I could never be disloyal to the legal Americans I share this nation with while we obey its laws. Even Mexico has laws against illegal aliens but they are trying to get our sympathy for their citizens coming here illegally by changing them but it does not change the fact that US Citizens should and must remain loyal to their own country people. By being disloyal they have assisted in the economy's issues we face now because like it or not the illegal aliens are a part of our problems. Without them more US Citizens would be employed/working and working with better wages. I know personally what illegal aliens taking jobs can do to us.

I watched my small town get damaged by it, loss businesses because of it, jobs stolen from Americans for them, wages decreased for them and by them. I have the past and the history that go with what happens to people when illegal aliens are allowed to use the benefits of citizenship without being a citizenship and it is not a good event to watch. I cried so much over it and I hated watching what it did to my neighbors whom I had lived next to for many, many years. It is just not right to lose your job because you were born here and someone who was not and will take lower wages can take everything you worked for in your life away from you. No one can tell me that this is right because it is wrong, dead wrong.

They killed the unions that tried to protect us from them. They first killed the company and then they moved it out of the country once again because the labor was cheaper there though the cost of living in this country was so very, very much higher. All we are asking for is to come first in our own nation where we were born, is it really that hard for other Americans to understand, really is it. If it is then why even be counted as citizens, why do we vote, why do we look up to our national symbols, why smile at our flag, place our hand over our heart, why do we do any of these things at all if you do not come first here, why? The corporations must stop their behavior and the illegals must stop coming here or otherwise this nation should mean nothing to us but I do not wish for this to happen in the wake of this damage to our nation's public work force. You must make us come first or ask nothing of us in return.

If we really wanted to help them instead of keeping them here in our country at extremely low wages which harm legal Citizens as well as the illegals, we would deport them and then work with their nations to build up their own nations without hurting our own nation's population which is what NAFTA is doing right now. That is if we can do so without keeping them here as some sort of under class which brings down our already recessive stressed out economy in part due to them being here or working aboard at lower wages.

The lower class/middle class wages have not grown and their value has been decreased due to the higher prices on all goods and no increase due to a cost of living which the country naturely took care of before they created the illegal alien under class. So sorry this can no longer be acceptable by any standard by any legal Citizen. That is why there are surveys which are coming up with a 80% agreement on deporting all illegal aliens. Citizens should come first as they did in the past before corporations took over this country and it was lead but real leaders.

in some cases there are some good arguments against immigration but most of them are xenophobic rumors. There is no doubt that the immigration system has to be reform it does not work the way it is now. The anti - Mexican crowd won't talk about the 300 billions those immigrants put in to the economy or how the middle class benefits from low prices in services. Like the gold rush rumors of the 1800's in which the idea was to conquer new territories today's rumors about immigrants may have an agenda other than just stop illegal immigration and that maybe the segregation of the latino community.

that give them these jobs that encourages them to cross the border....20 years ago you could go to most fast food restaurants and find only young Americans working behind the counter, most entry level low wage jobs were only taken by the youth and a few older Americans but every place I go to now it's almost always immigrants...God! I almost feel racist but my last name is Garcia

when you say "young Americans" are you referring to anglo americans or how do you distinguish Americans from immigrants who speak english... like Canadians or English immigrants.

me on stereotyping. The issue is employment, bust the employers, I have no issues with people coming to this country looking for work and all those I've met work their asses off but make it legal. Unrestricted immigration is bad for this or any country.

I don't agree with that sentiment by the way, but thought I would write it for everyone else who does . :sarcasm:

Undocumented workers marching in the streets on May Day.

Hey, let's just hang up a sign at the democratic convention and call it the "Marxist/Hispanic Convention" and see how many votes we get.

With undocumented workers still pouring in, more and more H-1B visas, outsourcing, and whole companies moving out, sometimes I want to tell my kids to get fixed so they can never have kids, because I surely don't know how they will support them.

well, you could get more votes with a sign preventing hispanics from entering the convention, like those signs that used to read No Mexicans or Dogs allowed.

beer companies trying to give equal time for March 17th celebrations that happen around the country

;)

:applause:

Legalize all of the undocumented workers!

Racists and other right-wingers keep complaining about 12 million or more immigrants because they are not "legal" and have violated current immigration laws.

Well, change the laws! If the laws are changed and these undocumented workers are made "legal" they won't be able to complain about "them" being illegal!

Now it's obvious that immigrants in the United States and across Europe are being made scapegoats for the economic crisis they did not cause and are in fact major victims of. And of course racism is a major element in this campaign against immigrants.

any one who happen to ever walk on US soil could be granted access to US citizenship and benefits right?

oh,

that won't be allowed to happen .... ;)

That's a total distortion and misrepresentation of what immigrant rights and civil rights groups are proposing and you must know that!

"US citizenship and benefits to .... Anyone who happen to ever walk on US soil" would probably mean over 100 million people who visited the United States as tourists.

Perhaps you can provide a link to a progressive human rights organization that is proposing that.

What .... you can't?

Your comment sounded like just a cheap shot directed at civil rights and human rights activists.

Sorry to see you join the right-wing immigrant bashing and economic scapegoating chorus led by the most racist and right-wing forces in the world.

there are no 'simple solutions' when I see you are starting to think it through.

Your words;
Anyone who happen to ever walk on US soil" would probably mean over 100 million people who visited the United States as tourists.

exactly my (our) point of those that will feel.....?
well
....disenfranchised from any amnesty program proposed. Give an inch, watch the rules change when you start reading future articles.

Since you don't want to look at the situation five years into the future, go back to reading your little Chairman Mao book on revolutionary thinking.

I did not like Chairman Mao and his ruling group so stop the red-baiting!

OK?

right

But, if you wish to worship the Dalai Lama and want to join his cult followers that's your right of course.

I don't think most Tibetans want to restore feudalism. But, if they do, that's their right!

So long as they stop the violent attacks on ethnic Chinese and stop firebombing their stores and homes.

:shrug:

The Taliban may use the same argument

:tinfoilhat:

isn't it scary

WOW! WOW!

with fresh water



U.S. envoy urges China to use influence in Sudan

OSLO (Reuters) - China should use its economic might to influence events in Darfur and its absence from an international donors' meeting on Sudan was disappointing, the U.S. special envoy for the east African state said on Monday.

Richard Williamson told Reuters in an interview that Sudan remained the "world's biggest humanitarian crisis" and called the violence in its Darfur region a "genocide in slow-motion."


snip

"China is the country with the deepest economic involvement with the nation of Sudan -- they buy the bulk of Sudan's oil," Williamson said. "I am told that close to 6 percent of the imported oil in China comes from Sudan."


snip

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSL0589014920080505

;)


MSM ignores the story. Peoples Republic of China doesn't give a sh!t about the peoples of Sudan and their plight of shrinking western aid

isn't it scary ?

WOW! WOW!

spinning its easy, but a sentence its just harder, 'humanitarian vision' and adjective not verb.

BTW how many poor people are we helping when we consume their oil?

In Mexico, the world’s fifth largest oil producer, poverty hovers at nearly 70 percent (tk – check this), and the country’s proven oil reserves are dwindling. Even if it succeeds in securing foreign investment for crucial new exploration – a huge constitutional challenge, given the 1938 ban on foreign oil companies working on Mexican soil – the nation will still face immense challenges to overcome deepening poverty and ongoing corruption at PEMEX, the state-run oil company.


http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Academics/courses/center/spring2003/petroleum2003/tolan.html">More..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3SnZBOlZhQ

so i must not be an American

because every job i've ever done, is a job 'Americans wont do' and therefore there is no reason not to dillute the wages