Tag Archives: workers rights

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

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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 →

Glo’s Diner — now with organized workers in its new home above Capitol Hill Station — ready to open in May

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The Glo’s crew and what we presume is a “negotiating table” — now organized (Image: Restaurant Workers United)

Opening… soon

When it opens in May in its spacious new home above Capitol Hill Station on the edge of the AIDS Memorial Pathway plaza, Glo’s will be a new place. There will be loads more room for customers and espresso and breakfast cocktail service.

And its workers will be unionized, organized together to improve pay, benefits, and working conditions.

“There are ideas about how our workplace can improve,” cook and organizer Sean Case tells CHS. “We believed we were the people to decide that.”

Restaurant Workers United, a worker-led union for restaurant, bar, and cafe workers, announced this week that Glo’s ownership voluntarily recognized the unionization effort, “forming the first independent restaurant union in Seattle in several decades.”

Case said employees at the now 37-year-old diner value and respect Glo’s and that the conventional wisdom pitting ownership vs. workers needs to wither away.

“We all love Glo’s — but anyone knows the industry has serious problems. People are underpaid, the work is on hard on the body, tons of exploitation.” Continue reading →

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

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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

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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 →