May Day
Featured State News

May Day Workers Solidarity March In Durham Challenges ICE, City & McDonald’s

Phyllis Coley @phyllis_coley

Durham, NC – May Day, International Workers Day unites workers and oppressed peoples across the world in struggle for liberation. Just as workers struggled in 1886 to win an 8-hour work day, workers in Durham and around the world today are struggling for:

  • No to ICE raids, mass incarceration and police brutality
  • No to $3 million for more police
  • End sexual harassment #MeTooMcDonalds
  • Raise the Wages: $15/hr and union rights for all
  • No to racism and restructuring of City worker jobs
  • US Hands off Venezuela, No to Trump’s wars at home/abroad & militarization of the border

Durham Workers Assembly and 16 other labor, migrant and community-based organizations, along with concerned citizens, will rally today (May 1) in downtown Durham. Marchers will gather at 5:30 pm at Los Primos (1109 Main Street), hold an opening rally, and then march down Main Street. Short rallies will be held at the new police headquarters, City Hall and McDonald’s. Hundreds of people are expected to march with colorful signs & banners.

Rally & March Schedule:

5:30pm – 6:15pm: Opening Rally at Los Primos, focused on immigration

6:30pm – 6:45pm: Rally at new Police HQ, focused on police brutality & prisons

7:15pm – 7:45pm: Main Rally at City Hall, focused on labor

8:00pm – 8:15pm: Closing rally at McDonald’s on Morgan St., focused on labor

More on this event can be found at https://unions4durham.org

Statement from Durham Workers Assembly:

We demand that the $3 million proposed by City Council for hiring 72 more police be spent on affordable housing, living wage union jobs, mental health care, and education. We demand that money be reinvested to support worker organizations, to build unions and fight back against employers. Rather than this money be spent to protect the rich and owners, at the expense of all the exploited communities that have the right to call Durham home, especially the displaced Eno people, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi nation, Tuscarora nation and Catawba nation.

We demand that the trillions made by the workers across the country, not be spent by Trump, the Pentagon, and corporate profiteers on war. Instead, it should be spent on the people’s needs.

We support Black, migrant, trans, queer, and indigenous people. No where is the exploitation of these workers more apparent than in the US prison system. We support the liberation of all prisoners. We stand with Kanautica Zayre-Brown, against her systematic torture and the state’s attempt to rob her of her identity, freedom and dignity. She is a Black trans women held at a Warren County men’s facility. We support state workers fighting for trans-inclusive health care.

40% of all women workers in low wage jobs face sexual harassment. McDonald’s workers are reclaiming their power and organizing against this epidemic as part of Fight for $15 and a Union. We stand with them to demand safety and dignity on the job. #MeTooMcDonalds.

Workers in the City of Durham are organizing against the structural changes that are causing a work speed up, more force overtime and increased licenses and degrees. With position vacancy rates as high as 11.1% in Water Management and 15.3% in Public Works, we should all be concerned about understaffing and over-working the current employees. We stand against the white management structure engaged in racist hiring and promotions. We support the Durham City Workers Union, chapter of UE local 150, and the movement to repeal the Jim Crow ban on public sector collective bargaining.

This is why we say “No Walls in the Workers Struggle.” No walls on the border. No prison walls. No walls to divide workers. As the Durham working class, we reclaim our city! Join us on May Day we march together!           

Endorsers:

NC Raise Up – Fight for $15

National Domestic Workers Alliance, We Dream in Black

UE local 150, NC Public Service Workers Union

Phillip Randolph Institute, Durham chapter

NC Poor People’s Campaign

Raleigh-Durham Industrial Workers of the World (Raleigh-Durham IWW)

Duke Grad Student Union, SEIU

Fighting for Im/migrants and Refugees Everywhere (FIRE)

Comite Accion Popular

National TPS Alliance

Stop Killing Us (SKU)

Youth Organizing Institute

NC Green Party

Workers World Party

Northern Piedmont Local of the Socialist Party-USA

Miguel Staten, uncle of DeAndre Ballard