Wobs Join May Day Actions
Submitted on Wed, 06/29/2005 - 2:03am
Industrial Worker - June 2005
The march was sponsored by Se Hace Camino Al Andar/Make the Road by Walking, a community organization that sponsors a workers' rights group, Trabajadores en Acción/Workers in Action. The workers' group is also supported by members of the IWW's New York City GMB, who turned out for the march with banners and puppets.
Knickerbocker Avenue is the main shopping thoroughfare in Bushwick, and its merchants are notorious for paying sub-minimum wages, mandatory overtime without overtime pay, and other abuses. A recent report documents wages as low as $3.10 per hour and sexual harassment of women workers. Employers have been quick to fire any worker who dares to complain about conditions. Lawsuits sponsored by Make the Road by Walking have won significant back-pay awards for individual workers, but have had little effect on general conditions.
RWDSU President Stewart Applebaum addressed marchers from the back of a truck, declaring that sub-minimum wages were not acceptable, and demanding that employers obey wage and hour laws. “Thirty years ago,” he said, “50 percent of the businesses on Knickerbocker Avenue were union shops, and the RWDSU was a part of that.” He did not say how the current shameful conditions had come about in the face of that union presence, but promised that the RWDSU would do everything in its power to see that Knickerbocker workers received “a union wage.”U.S. Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez also spoke, insisting that wage and hour laws be obeyed. She did not explain why the laws were not already being obeyed, or why the government was not enforcing them.After the march, a contingent of workers from Make the Road by Walking joined Wobblies for a bus ride to Manhattan, where a rally sponsored by the Million Worker March was underway at Union Square. The police at Union Square were not smiling. When a member of MWM announced that a truck carrying workers from Make the Road had been stopped and ticketed, and charged that the incident was deliberate harassment, the police cut power to the rally's sound system.
It remains to be seen what Workers in Action can accomplish on Knickerbocker Ave. Clearly, lawsuits, boycotts and marches will not bring decent wages and working conditions to a work force made up mostly of undocumented immigrants.
Economic power is necessary, and the IWW has been working with the group for more than three years to encourage a union presence on the street. The RWDSU's sudden interest in the neighborhood brings more resources to the effort, but has also created new tensions within Make the Road by Walking, as members worry that their campaign may be taken out of their hands, and community solidarity may be replaced by bureaucratic control and legalistic strategies.
Wobblies and friends in Santa Barbara gathered for a May Day picnic in Oak Park. A good time was had by all. We grilled meat and veggie burgers, ate the wonderful sides and salads that people brought, and drank beer and soda. A few fellow workers even played croquet in an attempt to reclaim this game for the people.
The conversation was lively. We sold a few calendars and handed out some IWs. As the afternoon waned, Luis Prat broke out his guitar and played several tunes including his song, “The Right to be Lazy.” After years with no event marking May Day in Santa Barbara, we honored it in style. Many of us would like to make this a yearly event.