Texas Labor Against the War

Istanbul--200,000 rally at Taksim Square (photo Reuters-Stringer)

 May 1, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey–200,000 people march.  Milwaukee, Wisconsin–100,000.  These were among the largest events in the world on May Day, International Workers Day–or simply Labor Day for most of the world, El Dia del Trabajo. 

 Born in the U.S. in 1886 in the struggle for the 8-hour day, May Day was associated with anarchists, socialists, and communists, so the U.S. government undermined it with the establishment of a new and innocuous “Labor Day” holiday in September.  Kept barely alive by a few leftists, May Day was brought back to the U.S. in a big way by immigrants in 2006 and became a big day for the expression of immigrant issues and the demand for immigrant rights.  As U.S. workers tried to reclaim our holiday,

Milwaukee (photo Tom Lynn, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

 consciousness grew about the need for solidarity with workers all over the world, and more U.S. workers joined with immigrants in the celebration of this holiday.  The biggest expression of this unity in 2011 was in Wisconsin. 

Some of the issues around the world:  More jobs, union rights, better working conditions, higher wages to counter higher prices for food and fuel; migrant worker rights; an end to the growing income gap between rich and poor; democratic political rights and an end to autocratic governments; an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ciudad Monte, Tamaulipas, Mexico--workers remember the "martyrs of Chicago" along with their own fallen comrades (noticiaselmexicano.com) Dhaka, Bangladesh (photo Pavel Rahman-AP)

Beirut, Lebanon (photo Migrant Workers Task Force)

Ankara, Turkey (photo Umit Bektas-Reuters)

Manila, Philippines--workers demand immediate wage increase, burn President Benigno Aquino III in effigy (photo Aaron Favila-AP)Jakarta, Indonesia (photo Irwin Fedriansyah-AP)

Hyderabad--All India Trade Union Congress (photo Mahesh Kumar A.-AP)

Mumbai--Striking Air India pilots (photo Vivek Prakash-Reuters)

Katmandu--Supporters of CP (Maoist) and activists of Nepal Trade Union (photo Binod Joshi-AP)

Baghdad--Members of the Iraqi Communist Party (photo Khalid Mohammed-AP)

Basra (Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq--uslaboragainstwar.org)

Cairo, Egypt--May Day in Tahrir Square (photo Khalil Hamra-AP)

Lahore, Pakistan--Union workers rally (photo K.M. Chaudary-AP)

Madrid, Spain (photo Arturo Rodriguez-AP)

Moscow, Russia--members of the Left Front (photo Ivan Sekretarev-AP)

Lisbon, Portugal--Against the IMF, for Leftist Unity (photo Armando Franca-AP)

Caracas, Venezuela (photo Ariana Cubillos-AP)

Havana, Cuba--Students in Revolution Square (photo Enrique de la Osa-Reuters)

Mexico City--Workers protesting labor law "reform" burn image of Labor Secretary Javier Lozano (photo Marco Ugarte-AP)

Houston (thefirecollective.org)

Houston (thefirecollective.org)

Dallas (labordallas.org)

San Antonio (blogs.sacurrent.com)

Atlanta, GA--Protesters urge Gov. Nathan Deal to veto anti-immigrant legislation (photo Rich Addicks-AP)

New York--rally for jobs and immigrant rights (photo Seth Wenig-AP)

Los Angeles, California (photo L.A. County Federation of Labor)

Milwaukee--Voces de la Frontera has been organizing big May Day marches since 2006 (photo Tom Lynn-Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

Milwaukee--This says it all (photo Tom Lynn-Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)

(TxLAW note:  U.S. Labor Against the War played an active role in this conference, partnering with Iraqi union reps in a workshop on what’s going on in the Iraqi labor movement and its struggles with the Iraqi government.  Check out labourstart.org.)

Online Activists Gather from Around Globe to Jumpstart Labor Movement

By Stuart Elliott, from In These Times, July 13, 2010

Benedicto Martinez Orozco marches in support of McMaster University workers during the LabourStart conference, held from July 9 to 11 in Ontario, Canada.   (Photo by Stuart Elliott)

More than 200 people from 28 countries attend LabourStart’s first public conference

HAMILTON, ONTARIO—Sometimes it’s hard to understand the importance of an event or an organization when you’re involved in it. As a volunteer correspondent for LabourStart.org and a participant in its “Act Now”  campaigns, I obviously think LabourStart an important project. But I really didn’t really comprehend its potential until I attended the first public LabourStart conference at McMaster University’s School of Labour Studies in Hamilton, Ontario.

“As unions confront a 21st century global capitalism, which is imposing a race to the bottom to union-free environments, unions must use new technologies to create a new labor internationalism,” said Eric Lee, founding editor of Labour Start. “The mission of LabourStart is to promote those technologies and to practice a consistent internationalism.”

LabourStart is an international labor news and campaigning site, run on a shoestring and powered by nearly 800 volunteer correspondents. Every day  the site publishes links to labor news in 23 different languages, and its news feeds appear on more than 800 union websites. It conducts e-mail campaigns in eight different languages.

There was some trepidation among LabourStart leaders about whether an Internet-based, low budget union news and campaigning site could attract an audience of union activists oustide its most committed corespondents. Particularly since, unlike the recently concluded ICTU conference, this was not a delegated meeting.

But the conference was able to attract over 200 participants from more than 28 countries. Attendees ranged from presidents of national unions, to representatives of Global Union Federations, to local union officers, to staffers, to grassroots activists.

Adam Lee of United Steelworkers International thanked LabourStart for its “tremendously effective” campaign on behalf of Vale nickel miners strikers, who settled a year-long strike just days before the conference began. On the first morning of the strike, which began in July 2009, more than 1,000 emails were sent to the Brazil-based multinational company. Two-thirds were from outside Canada, in eight languages from 80 countries, Lee said, It provided a “real boost” to the workers. And Brazilian workers for Vale were able to win a better than expected contract because the company didn’t want to take on two international campaigns at the same time.

Robin Alexander, director of international affairs for the United Electrical workers union, said that when she got an appeal from workers at PEMEX, Mexico’s state-owned petroleum company, the first place she turned for help was LabourStart.

As Lennon Ying-Dah Wong, a union leader from Taiwan, spoke on a panel about China, I loooked to my left and saw Benedicto Martinez Orozco, co-president of the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo. Michael Eisenscher of US Labor Against the War, Amjad Ali of the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra (Iraq), and Erin Radford of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center spoke on a panel about unions in Iraq. Other panels were devoted to Mexico, Eastern Europe, and Iran.

Unfortunately, some people were unable to attend the conference—but the reasons why are enlightening. A leader of Bangladeshi textile workers union canceled his visit because of a monumental campaign in his home country—more than 50,000 workers there are on strike, protesting the lowest wages in the textile industry.

Representatives of independent unions in Egypt and Algeria were, at the last moment, denied visas by Canada. (AFL-CIO Solidarity Center representatives  ably filled in at a workshop on the revival of unions in those countries.) The ham-handness of Canadian authorities may backire. Derek Blackadder, national representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said that there was so much outrage at the exclusion of the Egyptian and Algerian unionists and so much excitement about their pioneering work that Canadian unionists will be exploring ongoing solidarity work on their behalf.

Of course, connecting disparate unionists, spread across different levels of different unions, to unite in international solidarity is no easy task. But LabourStart’s global network of 800 correspondents and 70,000 Act Now e-mail activists will continue to be a part of that effort, which must be a central component of the future of the labor movement.