LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Thousands of union members, immigrant-rights supporters and others flooded the streets of downtown Los Angeles Thursday for the first of multiple marches behing held to mark International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day.
A coalition of unions and other groups began the day with a massive rally at Olympic Boulevard and Figueroa Street downtown. The crowd grew slowly throughout the morning, swarming across Olympic in preparation for a march to the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The crowd was expected to march east on Olympic then north on Los Angeles Street to the detention center on Alameda Street.
According to the Service Employees International Union, the march is a “show of solidarity with immigrant communities, while also condemning the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants and working people. The powerful coalition will raise a unified demand for living wages, safer workplaces, and a future with dignity for all workers.”
Other groups taking part include the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, United Teachers Los Angeles and Alliance for a Better Community.
Later in the day, there will be a May Day march and rally in Boyle Heights, beginning at Mariachi Plaza, 1831 E. First St. Participants are scheduled to gather at 4:30 p.m. for a rally, followed by a 5:30 p.m. march, also ending at the Metropolitan Detention Center, 535 Alameda St.
Among the groups taking part in that action will be United Teachers Los Angeles, Teamsters Local 396, Legalization for All Network, MORENA-LA, Eastside Padres, Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council, La Mesa Brown Berets, Centro CSO, CISPES, Union del Barrio and Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
“The Boyle Heights families will protest the Trump escalating ICE arrests on the Mexican-American community by marching on May Day in Boyle Heights,” according to a statement from Centro CSO: Community Service Organization. “Families and groups will rally at Mariachi Plaza to denounce President Trump’s attacks on working people, unions, women, LGBT, and immigrant communities.”
Another rally and march is planned at 4:30 p.m. at MacArthur Park, sponsored by the Community Self-Defense Coalition, which includes dozens of community organizations working in support of immigrants and protesting mass deportations.
The marches come two days after thousands of striking Los Angeles County workers represented by SEIU Local 721 held a mass protest that moved through the streets of downtown. The SEIU strike began Monday night and ended Wednesday night.
Also in conjunction with May Day, thousands of University of California health care, research and technical workers were staging a one-day strike at UC facilities across the state. Their union, University Professional and Technical Workers, says the action is in response to a systemwide hiring freeze imposed by the UC in March, a move the union contends is exacerbating a staffing crisis in the system. The UPTE has been engaged in contract talks with the university, and the union staged a three-day statewide strike in February.
International Workers’ Day is recognized in many countries around the world, with its origins dating back to the 1880s and initially supporting the establishment of an eight-hour work day. In the United States, the May 1 date was chosen to commemorate a general strike that began on the date in 1886 and ended with the Haymarket affair of May 4, 1886, when a peaceful rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in support of workers ended with an unknown person throwing a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the meeting. Eleven people were killed and nearly 200 others injured.
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