Filipino workers join May Day march in LA

Screencap from Pilipino Workers Center video/Facebook

LOS ANGELES – Filipino workers marched with thousands of union members and immigrant-rights supporters on the streets of downtown Los Angeles Thursday for the first of multiple marches celebrating 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, then marched east on Olympic and north on Los Angeles Street for an early afternoon rally outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street.

According to the Service Employees International Union, the march was 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.”

Screencap/Pilipino Workers Center video/Facebook

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.

There were no reports of any disturbances or arrests associated with the march.

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. (With CNS report)