International Workers Day 2023: ORGANIZE NOW!

“Organize Now for a Just and Peaceful Future” is the theme of the Connecticut People's World International Workers Day celebration and rally to be held on Sunday May 7 at 4 pm at the New Haven Peoples Center 37 Howe Street and live streamed. The event will highlight the upsurge in worker organizing and solidarity underway in Connecticut and nationally.. .

The celebration will kick off with a powerful slideshow of May Day Around the World, highlighting workers across continents standing up for justice and democratic rights against multinational corporate greed as they march on May Day.

Essential workers and others are saying “enough is enough” as they join together to demand respect and increase their power. While workers struggled to make ends meet during the pandemic, the 12 billionaires in Connecticut seized $15 billion in new wealth.

A round table discussion will feature members of Local 33 Unite Here, the union of graduate teachers at Yale now negotiating their first contract after 35 years of organizing to win recognition; Starbucks Workers United, which has won union elections at 300 stores nationwide including two in Connecticut; 1199 Healthcare union representing 2,000 group home workers preparing to strike for living wages and benefits, and highway service plaza workers organizing with SEIU 32 BJ against wage theft and for union recognition..

These courageous workers will tell their stories and exchange experiences about how to build unity for democratic rights and union representation. The event will stand in solidarity with their campaigns.

A call to action will highlight the Equity Can't Wait rally at the state capitol on May 17 being organized by the Recovery for All coalition in support of an agenda for racial and economic equity to provide needed funding for public education, health care, housing and human needs by taxing the rich their fair share.

Since 1889 workers in most countries have taken to the streets with their demands on May 1, founded to commemorate the 1886 massacre of workers during a protest in Chicago's Haymarket Square for an eight hour work day. In the United States unity with immigrant workers has brought the celebration of May Day back to the streets. Marches will be held in Hartford and New Haven on May 1.

The history is told here: https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/may-day-made-in-the-u-s-a/