Tag Archives: may day

May Day 2024 in Seattle: Workers’ rights rally and march from Westlake, CD refugee and UW protest camps, and plywood on the Capitol Hill Starbucks roastery

Posted on by

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, 2024
Hora: 10:00 am
Location: Westlake Park – 401 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98101
Join 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. Continue reading →

May Day 2023 in Seattle: Workers’ Rights march and hopes for another peaceful May 1st on Capitol Hill

Posted on by
 

$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻 
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍 

 

UPDATE: Tradition!

Marchers in 2022

After years of Seattle Police and demonstrator conflict, one of the few signs that May Day came and went on Capitol Hill last year was the annual installation of plywood on the Starbucks Roastery.

In 2023, a Capitol Hill Starbucks has been boarded up for months in a corporate conflict over public safety and unionization but the preparations in Seattle indicate expectations, again, for a calmer May 1st.

In the Central District, Seattle’s annual May 1st March and Rally for Immigrant and Workers’ Rights will take place but the plan this year is to march a reverse course — from downtown to Judkins Park starting at 11:30 AM at the Federal Building on 2nd Ave.

“Join us for the annual May 1st March and Rally for Immigrant and Workers’ Rights!,” the translation from organizing community group El Comité reads. “The day is approaching and we need your support, we need your voice and your strength to advocate for our community. We know you have other things to do that are important but this day is as important as it is your family, your friends and your community rights on stake. Join us on Monday May 1st for a day of unity and collective community power to support our most needed people.
Join our annual March and Rally in support of the Immigrants and Workers!”

After the march, groups are planning to rally in Judkins Park starting around 1:30 PM. Continue reading →

May Day 2022 in Seattle: Workers’ rights, signs and marches, ‘zero arrests’

Posted on by

With most pandemic era restrictions lifted and turnout buoyed by recent labor victories in the city, hundreds marched from the Central District Sunday to mark May Day 2022 in Seattle.

The annual event organized by civil rights group El Comite grew closer to past proportions after COVID-19 concerns reduced attendance at the 2021 rally and march for workers rights.

2021 also saw arrests during May Day protests away from the workers march including on Capitol Hill where a “black bloc” group marched on Broadway and became embroiled with law enforcement after a large contingent of police responded and moved on the crowd outside the E Olive Way Starbucks following reports of property damage. Continue reading →

Seattle May Day 2021: Multiple arrests on Capitol Hill and a smaller workers rights march under pandemic restrictions — UPDATE: Overnight unrest

Posted on by

(Image from the Capitol Hill Seattle Facebook Group showing SPD making arrests on E Olive Way)

Seattle’s May Day march for workers and immigrant rights was a much smaller event in 2021 due to the pandemic

Multiple arrests on Capitol Hill and as protesters gathered late in the day in Cal Anderson Park overshadowed Seattle’s annual May Day march for worker and immigrant rights.

UPDATE: SPD says 14 people were arrested as of 7 PM Saturday night. Additional arrests were made in continuing unrest overnight.

CHS reported here on the 2021 march that stepped off from the Central District around noon Saturday in an effort organizers said was part of a push for worker rights along with “Health Care, Inclusive Immigration Reform, Public Safety Reform, Homelessness, Housing and Jobs.” “For us to make considerable gains we must ensure the right to organize,” organizers from El Comite wrote.

A few hundred people were part of the main march — a much smaller crowd under continuing pandemic restrictions. Meanwhile, the day was also busy with several other marches and demonstrations crossing the city and Capitol Hill including a protest calling for the end of war atrocities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia where a conflict continues to grow and groups of antifa protesters.

The city said Friday “unrestricted events” like marches can’t adequately be controlled for the number of participants and social distancing so it did not issue permits and was not officially closing streets or providing planned Seattle Police “First Amendment support” for May Day demonstrations but a spokesperson said City Hall is aware of “multiple events” planned to take place over the weekend.

Protests away from the march remain a concern for city officials and large global chains that are frequently targeted like Starbucks and Nike after past clashes spiraled into riots as police moved in on crowds over property damage and to clear streets. The city has been mostly quiet following the large march in recent years. But in 2016, clashes in downtown, Belltown, Pioneer Square marred the day while 2015 marked the last time May Day protests, property damage, and Seattle Police crowd control efforts were centered on Capitol Hill.

Saturday, a anti-capitalist and anti-cop group dressed in “black bloc” marched on Broadway and became embroiled with law enforcement just before 2 PM after a large contingent of police responded and moved on the crowd outside the E Olive Way Starbucks following reports of property damage. Continue reading →

‘There is no going back to normal’ — Annual workers rights march returns for Seattle May Day 2021

Posted on by

Seattle May Day marchers in 2018. The city has had a run of mostly peaceful May Days focused on workers rights and immigration

Officially, the City of Seattle isn’t issuing permits for marches and rallies due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions but organizers of the annual May Day march here say they will again take to the streets Saturday.

“Join us on May 1st as we take the message to the streets that ‘there is no going back to normal!,'” organizers from El Comité write.

The city says “unrestricted events” like marches can’t adequately be controlled for the number of participants and social distancing so it isn’t issuing permits and officially closing streets or providing planned Seattle Police “First Amendment support” but a spokesperson says City Hall is aware of “multiple events” planned to take place over the weekend including Saturday’s march.

The 2021 May 1st march is being planned to begin at noon outside Iglesia de Santa María at 20th Ave S and Weller. The traditional step off point at St. Mary’s Church this year will begin a march through the city that organizers say will remind people of the need to organize for civil rights even through the struggles of unrest and pandemic in the past year:

As workers, we have entered 2021 with eyes wide open after having witnessed the murder of George Floyd, the caging of children in our southern border and the most massive racist outpouring since the civil war. Asian communities along with Native, Black, Latinx, and Immigrants have suffered brutal and cowardly attacks. 2020 has exposed that the nature of the present system needs to change. Health Care, Inclusive Immigration Reform, Public Safety Reform, Homelessness, Housing and Jobs must be a priority. Yet, for us to make considerable gains we must ensure the right to organize!

May Day and its place in pro labor and workers rights marches and protest has remained a major annual event in the city with El Comite’s efforts at the center of the day. Continue reading →

Masks, plywood, and a workers’ rights caravan: May Day 2020 in Seattle

Posted on by

Seattle’s tradition of a May Day celebration of worker and indigenous rights will continue despite COVID-19 restrictions — but there will be no marching.

Immigrant rights activists will gather at the annual rally and march start point Friday outside 20th Ave S’s St. Mary’s Church for a “Caravan to Olympia” hoped to “bring the plight of the undocumented to light,” organizers at El Comité and the May 1st Action Coalition announced: Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Seattle May Day 2019 marches for immigrants and workers — with stops at The Chateau, new youth jail… and the Broadway Whole Foods

Posted on by

With reporting and pictures by Alex Garland

With a third straight year of a mostly calm and peaceful day of awareness and protest, May Day in Seattle has evolved into an annual march for immigrants and workers mixed with a tour of the latest progressive hotspots around the Central District, Capitol Hill, and downtown like the The Chateau apartments, the county’s youth jail, and, yes, the new Amazon Whole Foods at Broadway and Madison.

2019’s May Day March for the Rights of Immigrants and Workers again crossed Capitol Hill and again brought out a massive and heavily equipped police presence, boarded up windows at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, and a small, mostly insignificant party of trolling “counter protesters to the neighborhood’s streets. But the years of clashes between protesters beyond the march and police that frequently ended up pushed back up Capitol Hill appear to be — for now — a thing of the past. Continue reading →

Seattle May Day 2019 brings 20th annual march for immigrants and workers to Capitol Hill — and expectations for another ‘riot’-free year — UPDATE

Posted on by

Seattle’s 20th annual May Day March for the Rights of Immigrants and Workers will again cross Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon and — for a second straight year — it appears that any planned protests separate from the annual workers rights march won’t be taking place on Broadway.

“This year we march once again to reclaim our struggles as immigrants, workers, and without borders,” organizers from El Comite write about the 20th year of the massive march. The crowds will begin gathering at noon on Dearborn before setting out on a trek across the city to downtown:

We are here because of the insecurity, crime, and corruption unleashed in our countries by bad governments with the support and intervention of the U.S. We are here because of political repression and exploitation of workers and the dispossession of our natural resources and territories. We are here refusing to be victims of the few who benefit from this system and the impoverishment, displacement and death that they wreak upon on our peoples.

Walk with me for justice,
Walk with me for immigrant rights,
Walk with me for labor rights,
Walk with me because this is our struggle!

A quick perusal of the latest edition of our latest this week in CHS history post will catch you up on the recent history of May Day chaos and violence that has broken out on Capitol Hill over the years, sparked by clashes between police and groups from beyond the workers and immigrants rights movements. Damage, injuries, and arrests were typically limited but ugly moments including vandalism against small businesses and the use of dangerous “flash bang” grenades by police left many in the neighborhood unsympathetic to any of the sides in the clashes. Continue reading →

Just another calm, quiet May Day on Capitol Hill

Posted on by


2018’s immigration rights march


With reporting and photos by Alex Garland

Unless you count a Patriot Prayer photo op in Plymouth Pillars Park, Capitol Hill was again spared the ravages of a May Day riot as marches and protests fanned out across Seattle Tuesday amid a heavy police presence and a smaller than expected turnout for the city’s annual immigration march.

Police interventions were few, blast bombs went undeployed, and even the Amazon Spheres came through May Day 2018 unscathed — though one man was arrested Tuesday for trying to throw a rock through the glass Bezos balls, Seattle Police said. Continue reading →

With planned protests off Capitol Hill, 2018 May Day in Seattle will center on March against ICE, Bloc the Juvi — UPDATE

Posted on by

May Day protests around the Capitol Hill area have centered on 12th Ave’s youth jail in recent years

Will these characters show up again in 2018?

El Comite’s annual march — annually peaceful, annually colorful

It’s been a long time since May Day turned into a “riot” on Capitol Hill but given the neighborhood’s place as a gathering point for protest, SPD tactics in the past that resulted in a push of large crowds out of downtown and up the Hill, and the new focus on 12th Ave’s youth jail, the neighborhood remains on watch every time May 1st rolls around.

This year — the first May Day under former federal prosecutor Jenny Durkan’s mayoral watch, expect another day of heavy police presence and television helicopters.

The foundation to the day — and the first amendment activities most everyone can get behind — remains the annual Marcha Y Manifestacion Anual del 1o de Mayo organized by immigrant labor rights organization El Comité. In 2016, the route changed to include Capitol Hill. In 2018, the march that will again be joined by thousands has more significance than ever — calling out U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Washington:

El Comité and the May 1st Action Coalition are calling on all workers and all social justice advocates to come out on Tuesday, May 1st 2018 (International Workers’ Day) for the 19th Annual May Day March for Immigrant and Workers Rights. We are using the march to publicly expose ICE activity in Washington State and to hold the Department of Licensing accountable for having facilitated ICE harassment against community members by way of sharing information about motorists. The March in Seattle on May 1st is among several coordinated events happening in communities across the State of Washington, including Yakima, and Tacoma.

Continue reading →