This blog is cross-posted at StewartAcuff.com
It’s May Day, the global celebration for workers and unions. We celebrate the struggles and victories of our foremothers and forefathers. We celebrate our Solidarity! We celebrate our work together today for a better country and a better world.
Unfortunately, long ago the American government selected Labor Day to undermine May Day.
But we still celebrate May Day in America!
DON’T FORGET! I’m the May Day reader and Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life in Organizing is the May Day book tomorrow night May 2nd, 2013 at Busboys + Poets at 6:30 pm at 2021 14th Street NW Washington, DC, USA.
If you live in or around Washington, DC or will be in Washington May 2nd, please come to the reading! The venue is a wonderful bookstore, coffee house, restaurant, and bar. IT IS THE VENUE in Washington for book readings and poetry. My sponsors are The Institute for Policy Studies and Teach for Change. We will have a great time and a great discussion.
But we have more, much more work and struggle ahead of us. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has just released study on creating GOOD JOBS. They call for greater unionization rate, gender equity on the job, better access to college, universal healthcare and a universal retirement system that goes beyond Social Security.
There is so much hardship and suffering amongst our people: at least 15-20% unemployed if you count those who’ve quit looking for work, more and more wage and benefit cuts, more foreclosures, and more people fired for trying to organize a union.
Brothers and sisters, we are all called to a fight to alleviate or end poverty, create jobs that would create sustainable non-carbon energy, rebuild our infrastructure, and restore collective bargaining and union organizing. Meanwhile the Koch Brothers want to buy the Tribune Company and its seven major newspapers.
It is critical that we greatly ramp up organizing and mobilization of unions and progressive organizations.
And we must be willing to start fights against injustice, even if we’re not certain we can win them right away. We must move more Americans into action for a better country. We gotta raise more hell about hungry kids and out of work parents and too many jobs at minimum wage and an economy that only benefits the wealthy.
Let’s use this May Day to renew our call and our commitment to a righteous struggle for the future of our country and for quality lives for our kids.
Image Source: Photo by Judy Seidman of League for Industrial Democracy, Poster by Anita Willcox (1932) via Wikimedia Commons
CLICK HERE to download 18 Essential Qualities That Every Organizer Must Have FOR FREE!