At Seattle’s annual May Day rally and march, hundreds of people filled downtown streets Wednesday to show support for worker and immigrant rights — while calls for peace in Gaza were front and center.
Stories of labor wins, calls for better pay and a push for greater worker dignity often shape the annual event. On this year’s International Workers’ Day, its 135th anniversary, about 300 demonstrators centered the fight for safe and stable housing for migrants and asylum-seekers, maintaining minimum wage for gig workers in the city, and solidarity with Palestine.
While workers in the U.S., from nurses to electricians, continue to fight for better working conditions and rights here, the country’s labor movement intersects with all fights for global liberation, speakers and attendees said.
“We have Starbucks Workers United here. We have rank-and-filers at the museum who are organizing,” said Jorge Torres of the limited energy electricians of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 46, who are currently on strike.
“What’s different about this year is that we’re in the middle of a change happening in this country among the working class,” he said. “Workers in various industries are doing their own kind of organizing. I think that’s inspiring people in established unions to start fighting more, to form relationships.”
Some wore T-shirts with the appearance of bloodstains, others draped in kaffiyehs, a checkered scarf that serves as a Palestinian national symbol.
“It sickens me to see this genocide,” Ken Workman, a council member for the Duwamish Tribe, said of the events in Gaza. “It’s the same thing that happened to us as Native people.”
Workman said he came to the rally to ensure everybody feels like they belong, especially in the context of current events. “Gʷhi gʷhi i dəkʷ,” he said, welcoming people to Seattle.
The crowd that initially gathered at Westlake Park included those representing health care, janitorial, education, airline, farm and museum workers, in addition to unions and advocacy groups like MLK Labor, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, Community to Community Development, the Seattle Democratic Socialists of America and the International Migrants Alliance. Yellow baseball caps signaled solidarity among Casa Latina workers, while those from OneAmerica showed up in matching teal T-shirts.
These groups arrived hoping to highlight many of the past year’s ongoing fights locally and nationwide for workers’ rights, including efforts in support of immigrants and migrants, said Yesenia Gonzalez, an organizer with the May 1 Action Coalition, which helped plan Wednesday’s event.
Greater immigration reform, like unemployment insurance for undocumented immigrants and better access to work permits, is on the coalition’s list of demands, said Gonzalez, who also represents El Comité and the Latino Community Fund of Washington.
“[Latino workers] are some of the biggest contributors to the economy of this country,” said Hilda Magaña, director of the child development center at El Centro de la Raza in Seattle. She joined the rally to speak out behalf of teachers and others in early childhood education, particularly immigrants.
By 11:30 a.m., the group was on the move, making its way toward Belltown with people hoisting up signs that represented the many priorities of the day: “Boeing gets rich, Palestinians Die,” “Immigrants rights = workers rights = human rights” and “Save the glaciers, abolish ICE.”
Organizers led call-and-response chants as dozens of unions and other advocacy groups spilled into the street.
“We are here because it’s an important day for the workers, for the community, for the Hispanic community,” said Josue Valdivieso, a student support advocate for El Centro de La Raza. “It’s an important day because we are in hard times. There’s a war. There’s violence in our society. We are here to show that we are together working for better communities, for better salaries.”
As the group neared the Amazon Spheres, chants shifted focus to ones that named Jeff Bezos and called for eliminating corporate greed. While the crowd paused to listen to more speeches demanding the the retail giant cut ties with Israel and improve warehouse working conditions, dozens of demonstrators participated in a “die-in,” laying face-down and on their backs at Seventh Avenue and Lenora Street.
Labor movements in the U.S. are “interconnected” to those in other countries and must honor the demands of Palestinian trade unions, including a call to stop building and transporting weapons to Israel, one speaker said.
Workers from nearby buildings wandered to windows and terraces to see and photograph the demonstration. Most left after a few minutes.
Susan Zeman, a cardiac nurse at Swedish Medical Center on First Hill, carried a yellow-and-red flag with a peace symbol during the march and pointed to some similarities in workplace violence among hospitals here and overseas.
“Health care workers in Gaza are facing extreme versions of what we see every day,” Zeman said, referencing the frequent assaults she and co-workers experience on the job. “I’ve lost track of how many health care workers in Gaza have been killed.”
As the group passed the Hyatt Regency, where the American Gas Association is hosting a conference, organizers led a chant to end the use of fossils fuels: “Time to ditch the AGA.”
Once the crowd circled back to Westlake, final speakers took the podium.
Sydney Lankford, a longtime union organizer who was fired from the Redmond HomeGrown sandwich shop, described how a 100-plus day strike earned her and her team her reinstatement, a livable wage and health insurance.
“Food service workers across Seattle, Washington and the world deserve to win all that we want and so much more,” Lankford said.
The march wrapped up with a song by Rigor Coloma, a Filipino recording artist. The music was inspired by a “couple of individuals who passed away trying to give their family a good way of life,” including Filipino maid Flor Contemplacion, who was killed in Singapore, and Susana Blackwell, who was killed by her estranged husband in Seattle.
A Migrante Seattle banner in front of Coloma read, “Manggagawa at migrante nagkaisa para sa marangal na buhay” — translated from Tagalog to read, “Workers and migrants united for a dignified life.”