For the second year in a row, the focus of workers’ rights and labor on May Day in Seattle will move out of the Central District and into the city’s downtown.
Organizations rallying and marching to mark the international day for workers are gathering Wednesday in Westlake Park, the El Comite activist group said:
This May 1st, we honor the historic struggles of workers around the world. Labor Day celebrates solidarity and the fight for justice, remembering the achievements and sacrifices of those who have fought for decent working conditions.Date: May 1, 2024Hora: 10:00 amLocation: Westlake Park – 401 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101Join us in Seattle to march in honor of global solidarity for workers and immigrants to continue fighting for a world where all our rights are valued and respected.Together let’s inspire change and respect for all workers and immigrants!
CHS reported last year on the move away from the traditional march from the Central District with a new route reversing the patterns with a downtown start.
Many groups are again planning to gather at the end of Wednesday’s march in the Central District’s Judkins Park.
The 2024 march and rally for labor rights will connect with other causes and actions underway.
Nearby at Powell Barnett Park along MLK Way, organizers say hundreds of asylum seekers from Congo, Angola, and Venezuela are now camping while they await funding and support for housing.
Meanwhile, University of Washington students have added their encampment to a growing movement of pro-Palestinian protest camps on campuses across the country.
On Capitol Hill, the scene of many chaotic May Day nights over past years as police attempted to throttle protests by pushing them into the neighborhood’s streets, Starbucks continued what has become an annual rite in boarding up the windows of its Melrose roastery.
Happy May Day, Capitol Hill (thanks for the holiday pic, CHS reader) pic.twitter.com/d9u33yLJiU
— jseattle (@jseattle) May 1, 2024
Seattle City Hall is also marking a decade since Seattle boosted its minimum wage. In 2014, the city imposed the new higher wage law championed by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant and embraced by then-Mayor Ed Murray which called for increasing pay rates gradually with different levels for large and small employers, and for employers who provide some other kinds of compensation for their workers. In 2015, CHS looked at the first wave of large employers reaching the $15 minimum wage mark.
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Cosplay Communist day came and went without much fanfare this year. All the Antifa A-team were already busy smashing things at Columbia, UCLA and Portland. Seattle’s lack of a real Starbucks Smash-a-palooza was probably the unintended result. Proving yet again, the number of truly violent left wing people in this country is quite small compared to everyone else. Would be trivially easy to silence if we were actually half of the “Fascist State” the LARP Leninists like to believe we are.