Multiple grassroots organizations, workers and families came together to celebrate May Day at Cesar Chavez Park in Long Beach on Sunday.
“Today is an international day to celebrate workers and worker struggle in history and in the future,” said Andy Gabriel, an emcee for the event. “And so we’re here today gathered in solidarity, despite all the differences that we come from, our different organizations, socioeconomic groups and all the other things that people may think divide us.”
May Day has been a time to celebrate the cause of workers’ rights since the late 1800s.
May 1, 1886 marks the day the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada decided on an eight-hour workday, at a time when it was common to work 10 to 16-hour shifts.
Three days later, workers in Chicago demanding the new eight-hour workday were attacked by police, which led to the Haymarket Affair, a violent altercation between strikers and police that resulted in fatalities on both sides.
A proposed bill was recently introduced to the California legislature that would make a 32-hour workweek the standard for companies that employ over 500 people.
“We’re all here for one reason. We’re all workers and we’re all here in solidarity,” Gabriel said.
Speakers discussed an array of issues such as worker’s rights, immigrant rights, housing, unions and more.
Sheila Bates of the Long Beach chapter of Black Lives Matter spoke about the long history of police assistance in union-busting activities, and said police associations should not be considered the same as unions.
“Unions work not only for their own members, but they also work for working-class people across the world and across the country,” Bates said. “That is not what police do. Police work for their own and they protect their own.”
Union busting was also discussed in regards to the ongoing attempts of Starbucks employees at two locations, one in Long Beach and one in Lakewood, to form the first Starbucks unions in Southern California. Employees at the two locations will be able to vote on whether or not they want to unionize until May 13, when votes will be counted.
According to Tyler Keeling, an employee at the Lakewood Starbucks location at 4833 Candlewood St., he and fellow Starbucks workers have faced pressure from corporate higher-ups to stop unionization efforts.
“They saw management show up and try to scare the workers and make them feel like, ‘Hey, you doing this is wrong,’” Keeling told the crowd. “It’s terrible. We’re seeing it everywhere. We saw my manager doing it, my district manager doing it. We’re seeing it in every store that files [to unionize.]”
