Lively meeting launches May Day 2010

An energetic and promising meeting to launch May Day 2010 was hosted by the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and its leadership at their union hall in New York on Feb. 18. The meeting was sponsored by the May 1 Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, which has organized major marches on May 1 every year since 2006.

Organizers at the meeting counted 97 people in attendance, with every region of the world represented — from Africa, Asia, and Central and Latin America, including Haiti, to the African Diaspora in the U.S. Participants included members of a number of community, social justice, workers’ and political left organizations, as well as individuals representing unorganized labor, women and youth. Women played the largest role in the organization and facilitation of the meeting.

Many were moved by the sight of a meeting that expressed so much unity, as well as the desire to participate in class struggle, working-class internationalism and multinational solidarity. The meeting not only discussed organizing for May 1 in the context of immigrant and worker rights, but also in the context of the day’s radical anti-capitalist and socialist traditions. May Day is annually honored around the world as International Workers’ Day on May 1.

Youth and student activists in the March 4 National Day of Action to Defend Education coalition in New York are enthusiastically taking up the building of May Day 2010.

To get involved with the May 1 Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights, visit www.may1.info.

— LeiLani Dowell