Thousands of San Francisco workers rallied yesterday at Civic Center and Embarcadero Plaza in celebration of International Workers’ Day.
This year’s celebration marked the 135th anniversary of the official recognition of International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day. The event is commemorated by Chicago laborers who lost their lives fighting for an eight-hour workday.
“It’s called May Day because of a brutal clash at Haymarket Square in the 1890’s, where people were fighting and dying for the eight-hour workday,” Stanford graduate student Clare Chua said. “It is also called International Workers’ Day because it started in the United States, but everyone around the globe began to take notice.”
Multiple political organizations put together the rally at Civic Center, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Bay Resistance, Mission Action, Jobs with Justice, Indivisible and the San Francisco Labor Council. The organizers called for students across all levels of education to walk out and support laborers.
San Francisco State University Student Union member Brian Yan attended the rally to fight for and commemorate laborers, past and present.
“We’re seeing attacks on immigrant workers, on workers all around the world,” Yan said. “Today is a day where we stand up and assert our rights. The attacks on our universities are also attacks on workers at our universities.”
Chua praised the turnout among younger generations and spoke to the importance of educating youth on worker solidarity.
“As someone in the student contingent, it’s really encouraging to see students, especially high schoolers, here,” Chua said. “My job as a student organizer is to make sure that student voices are empowered and help them understand how our futures are tied together with workers.”
The Federal Reserve has released data that displays the wealth disparity in America. The top 1% of Americans own an estimated $55.92 trillion in wealth, while the bottom 50% of Americans own $4.31 trillion in wealth.
Isaac Santiago, an organizer with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, cited wealth inequality as his driving force for his advocacy.
“I’m here in the name of affordable housing, public housing, just general access to housing,” Santiago said. “Also making sure that people who were born and raised here, or people who are low income, can live in San Francisco without struggling.”
Brittany Hewett, a union steward with Service Employee Union Organization 1021, demanded changes to the presence of ICE, the ongoing wars, and for the wealthy to pay their fair share.
“Number one is ICE out of everywhere, number two is not another dime for the war machine, and number three is billionaires and corporations pay their fair share,” Hewett said. “My goal is to get as many people engaged in the movement as possible to make sure that we can pass Prop D in June. It’s a measure that would instill basically a tax for the largest corporations in San Francisco.”
Across May Day rallies and protests in the United States, the sentiment that the wealthy should pay their fair share echoed. Santiago brought the message to San Francisco, criticizing San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie for his policies and catering to the rich.
“I know right now that the current mayor doesn’t care about us. He doesn’t care about people of color or low-income people,” Santiago said. “That’s why he’s cutting all our public services, making it harder for people to live in San Francisco and leaving it only to the billionaires who can live here.”
In the United States, American approval of unions has been on the rise and is at levels last seen in the 1960’s, but American union membership has been on the decline, with only 10% of wage and salary workers being members of unions.
Izzy Schulte, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, hopes that the large congregation of workers will increase participation in unions and send a message to the rich.
“The rampant reduction of workers’ rights that has occurred in this country is a big issue. Most workers used to be unionized, but at this point, it’s sitting at like 10% of all workers,” Schulte said. “We need to get workers organized into unions so that we can fight for a better future.”
Amazon Teamsters union member Josh Black highlighted the importance of being in a union and being empowered by worker solidarity.
“I came into organizing just in the last two to three years, and it’s been amazing. Just the fact that we now have a voice in the warehouse is crazy,” Black said. “About a week ago, there was a gas leak in the warehouse, and we were immediately able to mobilize because we’ve organized the workers.”
Yan personally hopes that the rallies not only celebrate the past achievements, but also what is possible when laborers unite and fight back.
“May Day is always a day to bring people together, to bring workers, students, people all across the world together, to celebrate victories of the labor movement,” Yan said. “May Day is also meant to show that another world is possible and that we keep fighting for a better one.”
