In honor of the International Worker’s Day, known commonly as May Day, the ‘Occupy’ movement is calling for a nationwide strike called ‘A Day without the 99 Percent’, to bring the fight for immigration reform into fold.
Rallies and demonstrations have been organized across the country in order to protest for better working conditions, fair pay, as well as immigration reform. The AFL-CIO, for example, is protesting ‘American Reclamation’, a commercial recycling trash-sorting services, which they accuse of treating immigrants “like garbage” by employing them at poverty wages, in hazardous working conditions, without benefits, and firings.
“The labor conditions were not good back then, people were being exploited and you had a huge disparity in income. And that’s what we’re facing right now,” says Pete Dutro, May Day protest organizer in New York City.
May Day honors the working class’ struggle for fair labor laws, and is a nationwide holiday related to the Haymarket massacre, which occurred on May 4, 1884 when both police and protestors were killed by a bomb thrown into the crowd that had been protesting for an eight hour workday.
The ‘A Day without the 99 Percent’ is modeled after the 2006 immigration protests called ‘A Day without Immigrants’. Participants are encouraged to skip school and work, in order to show their support.
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