The spirit of Mayday is beginning to take hold in the United States. Several towns and cities have begun to hold regular events to celebrate the day. This year I was invited to participate in the celebration in Troy, New York, a famous early industrial city along the Hudson river north of New York City. I was invited by Jon Flanders, railroad worker (now president of his local, remarkable given that he is openly radical) and long-time activist. I stayed with Jon and his wife Nancy, an electrical worker and also a fine activist. Jon showed me the sights in Troy, Albany, and the small town of Cohoes. He even took me up onto a railroad bridge and then up a steep ladder to the "office" of the worker who controls the tracks on the bridge and the drawbridge mechanism. The operator explained his work in considerable detail, which was of great interest to me. Most people like to talk about their work. It is just too bad that our work is controlled by others. If it were controlled by us and done for the good of a society of equals, the acts of cooperation that make a workplace hum would make even unskilled work interesting and exciting.
Mayday events began on Sunday, April 30 with a picnic in a pretty state park. There were speeches, poems, and songs plus picnic food, kids, and dogs. I was most impressed with some students from SUNY-Albany (local university) who told us about their struggles against sweatshops, not just in terms of trying to get their school to stop buying sweated goods but also their efforts to help organize the food service workers at the college. Their food service provider is Sodexho-Marriott, a notoriously anti-union employer also deeply involved in the private prison industry. That week there had been a confrontation between the students and their supporters and the campus police, during which the police committed acts of violence including throwing a student down a flight of stairs. Several students were arrested and one was charged with felony assault. This latter student is also a good poet and he recited without notes several of his poems. Several hundred dollars were collected at the picnic and at the event next day for the students' legal defense. (Perhaps Jon can tell us what happened at the preliminary hearing held on May 2). I was amazed at the knowledge and courage of these students and also the leading role played by women in the student movement. This whole student movement is of great importance and we older radicals should encourage it and help it along and especially try to link it up with the labor movement while at the same time trying to steer it away from labor's nationalism.
After the picnic, we went that evening to an old and lovely music hall in Cohoes and heard some good folk singing, lots of stirring union songs and some original pieces too.
The Mayday event was held in the Cohoes music hall and was well attended. There were several speakers, including one of the students, historian Daniel Walkowitz (SP?), the state AFL-CIO president, researcher and labor educator, Kate Bronfenbrenner, and myself. Of great importance was the fact that the state AFL-CIO actually supported and helped finance the event. This shows that organized labor realizes that it must at least tactically ally itself with all sorts of militants, people it would have had no use for just a few years ago. Not that organized labor is actually moving left (Kate said that the State AFL-CIO director was visibly upset at some of my remarks!), but now is the time for us to build a labor left, to help shape labor's future and to protect ourselves if labor leaders move to the right again.
Mayday events should become part of the labor culture again. They offer great potential for the rebuilding of a left social movement. Preparing for them puts people into contact with one another (It is remarkable how many leftist there are out there, people who have not abandoned the radicalism of their youth. Also, there are lots of former members of various left parties,which teels me that their party experiences were not all bad.), makes people aware of their history, and offers possibilites for organizing various types of radical actions.
I want to thank Jon for inviting me. Now I have to try to organize a Mayday event in my own town! Or at least get another invite to an event next year.
Michael Yates