Hundreds turned out yesterday on a warm spring day at Washington Square Park in New York City for the 2017 May Day event. The history of May Day:

Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don’t realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.

In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to gain the 8-hour work day. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places and inspired such books as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Jack London’s The Iron Heel. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labor was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class.

6TH ANNUAL IMMIGRANT WORKER JUSTICE TOUR
Rally and March | 12:30 PM Washington Square Park

12:30-2:00 Rally at WSP
2:00-4:00 Tour through downtown

ON INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY,
WE STRIKE.

WHEN WORKERS, IMMIGRANTS, WOMEN, MUSLIMS, BLACK AND BROWN, INDIGENOUS, QUEER AND TRANS COMMUNITIES FACE EXPLOITATION, CRIMINALIZATION, INCARCERATION, DEPORTATION, EVICTION, VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT, WE STRIKE.

At 1:30 students from NYU were set to do a walk out in protest of NYU not signing on to become a Sanctuary City for refugees and people escaping war in their countries. NYU Sanctuary is walking out Monday May 1 at 1:30pm to protest the fact that NYU has made no substantive policy changes for people affected by the Trump government’s white nationalist agenda. This walkout is part of a national movement.