On May Day, workers rally for issues that impact all of us.

It’s May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day. Pam Marino here, considering how now more than ever workers have some critical causes to fight for, causes that impact all of us, whether or not we belong to a formal union.

May Day was first celebrated here in the U.S. in 1886, when an estimated 300,000 workers around the country walked off their jobs protesting for an eight-hour workday, higher wages and safer workplaces.

Today, in downtown Salinas, around 100 people from a coalition of local unions plus their allies demonstrated for workers, but in this precarious time we live in they were fighting for more than just better contracts.

A lack of affordable housing, immigration, impending cuts to Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California), and the danger we face if democracy collapses, were all on the table as the people marched carrying signs and chanting slogans from SEIU headquarters on Monterey Street through downtown to the old Monterey County Jail where union organizer Cesar Chavez was once jailed.

“On this May Day, let’s remember why we are here. To uplift the stories of our communities, our workers and our immigrant communities,” Lidia Almaca, a caregiver and member of SEIU 2015, said to the crowd in Spanish, through a translator.

“Our country was built by immigrants and it continues to be this way, centuries later,” she said. “Right now we can’t forget what is happening, our immigrant community is under attack. Our country would not be able to stay afloat without the work of our immigrant community.” The very immigrants that are being demonized by the White House, she said, are the same ones who pay taxes.

The 5-2 vote by the Salinas City Council on April 22 to rescind four renter protection ordinances, including the county’s first rent stabilization measure, came under attack, with Joel Hernandez Laguna, executive director of Center for Community Advocacy, urging people to put pressure on the council to change course in two upcoming council votes. 

Alicia Metters, a social worker with the County of Monterey and a member of SEIU 521, told the crowd it was important to stand together and fight for what is right.

“We gotta stand together, I don’t care what we look like, I don’t care where we came from or what we’re doing, we have to stand together,” she said. She mentioned the need to fight for the rights of federal workers, under attack by the Trump Administration.

“We stand as one with federal workers, because an injury to one is an injury to all of us,” she said.

The May Day demonstrations continue nationwide on Saturday, May 3, including at Laguna Grande Regional Park, 1249 Canyon Del Rey Blvd., Seaside. A partnership of groups—Indivisible Monterey Bay, 50501 Monterey and Unite Monterey County—are organizing the protest, which runs from 11am-2pm. There will be music, speakers, a couple of food trucks and music.

Sounds like a party, but it has a purpose—organizers say they are focused on speaking up for immigrants and marginalized communities, “an end to the billionaire takeover and corruption under the Trump Administration,” full funding for public schools, health care and housing, protection of Medicaid and Social Security and fair wages. More information is available at MayDayStrong.org.