A familiar scene played out in Los Angeles on Friday, May 1: Hundreds of people protesting and cheering on the calls made by labor and community leaders as part ofMay Day demonstrations across Californiaandnationwide.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leave. No war in Iran. But on May 1, a particular kind of message was emphasized — dignity for workers.
The MacArthur Park area was flooded with people before noon, the same area where community and labor organizers gathered to call for people to come out for a rally and march on May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.
“We the people are the power that will ensure that our elected representatives respond to our needs, our vision for a better life: good paying jobs, affordable housing and ICE and Border Patrol out of our communities,” said Angelica Salas, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights executive director.
CHIRLA was among the organizations present. So were other unions and community organizations — and a California governor hopeful,Xavier Becerra.
Salas said that people are marching for the scores of people in the nation without legal status.
“They need protection, and the only protection that they need is permanent residency with a path to citizenship,” Salas said.
Too many working people have been pushed to the brink under the Trump administration, said Yvonne Wheeler. She’s the president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. She continued to highlight the role immigrants have in the U.S. to a crowd on May 1.
“How does arresting a street vendor make our country safe? How does dividing working people make us stronger? It doesn’t.”
May Day protests in California, captured in photos
March to California's Capitol
Hundreds of people marched on the streets of Sacramento in hopes of having their voices heard by state leaders regarding the need to treat workers with dignity.
The ability to comfortably live in California has become more difficult for the average resident, as the cost of living and the dollar's diminishing value have increased over the last year, said Theresa Rutherford, president of SEIU 1020.
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Rutherford and many others from the SEIU 1020 wanted to express this frustration and the need for state leaders to address the affordability crisis within California, as well as the growing need for health care as hundreds of workers lost their benefits as part ofPresident Donald Trump's tax bill.
"We have to stand up as a community, we have to stand up as laborers and we have to make sure that at the end of the day our community is served," said Rutherford.
"If we don't protect and look out for one another, then we have no country, we have no democracy. Then what do we have? We have nothing."
A key message of May Day, labor leader says
People — working people — need to be treated with dignity and respect. It’s the principal May Day message to Trump and the administration, David Huerta, president of SEIU United Services Workers West, said to the USA TODAY Network on Thursday, April 30.
SEIU-USWW, which says it represents tens of thousands of workers in California, was among many unions and organizations calling for people to participate in May Day; Huerta said what’s unique about May 1 is that it’s been driven by grassroots organizations.
There will be other key messages to come out of May Day: It’ll demonstrate how people are organized, and how they’re going to “build towards winning in November,” Huerta said, referring to the midterm elections in which Democrats and Republicans are battling to make gains, and ultimately secure control, in Congress. However, it’s not just about winning elections, but rather a “mandate for changing this country,” Huerta said.
For Huerta, November won’t just be about rejecting an administration that has “demonstrated its corruption” and “its hostility towards working people.” It’s about defeating that agenda and building a new one that centers working people going forward, he said.
May Day is about power; it’s about letting those most vulnerable among the immigrant community feel it in a time where there’s been a sense of fear, and it’s also an opportunity for working people to come together, “across difference,” to demonstrate it, according to Huerta.
He said immigrant workers across the nation have been attacked under the Trump administration.
“We saw the direct attack on working people through the H.R. 1 that passed and the dismantling of programs that are so vital to working people across the country,” Huerta said, referring to Trump’s major tax and spending law signed last year. “This is an opportunity for working people to really flex that muscle that we have through our labor and really get prepared and get ready to defend this democracy come November.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:May Day protests take over California, from Los Angeles to Sacramento