Reports are that 150,000 in Chicago marched for a Just Immigration Reform and an end to the government raids launched in the last year by the Bush Administration. That one was a huge demonstration by any standards. The march and rally I went to in Denver had somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000 participants by my estimate, and started off very spirited.
The march route was way too long, though, as it wrapped from Lincoln Park to Cuernavaca Park, and that ultimately made the march a somewhat grueling experience for many participants. Overall though, it boasted the sprits of most of the marchers to come together in the streets in such large numbers.
May Day 2007 has to be counted as a big success as many have become quite demoralized by the Immigration Raids like the one in Greeley, Colorado at the Swift plant there. The numbers showed that despite all the obstacles that now confront immigrants, they still have the ability to mobilize huge numbers of people and that these workers make a huge impact on the US economy. Without continual immigrant labor, the US economy would collapse and come to a standstill.
How sad though to see, that native American workers of non-Hispanic background seem to no longer mobilize themselves much for any defense of their rights. It would have been much better for the Colorado unions to have participated in the May Day rally held by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. They should be ashamed that they did not. ‘Workers United Will Never Be Defeated’, but the Colorado labor movement played dead at this May Day. Shame on you, Denver Unions!
“Workers United Will Never Be Defeated”. Marx? Stalin?
So what’s your point, JT? Is it that workers should rally behind the flag of capitalism, which supposedly has brought them a rosy life all over the universe?