SEATTLE — Marchers gathered in Seattle to advocate for immigrants' and workers' rights on May Day.
A march co-sponsored by four Seattle labor organizations, El Comité, UFCW 3000, MLK Labor and the May 1st Action Coalition, began at Judkins Park on Dearborn Street with the route finishing downtown.
“It’s always really energizing to see groups come together, all different types of groups, different industries joining and saying let’s unite and let’s fight for more protection,” said Carino Barragan, one of the marchers at the event on Sunday.
Despite the May Day March being much smaller the past couple of years due to COVID, the mission was still the same, focused on fighting for workers and immigrant rights.
“We are on the verge of true transformational change in the way we approach work and the way we approach our society,” said Jason Chow, who attended Sunday's march.
In most countries, May 1 is known as International Workers' Day or Workers' Day. May Day is not officially recognized as a holiday in the United States. However, many treat it as a nationwide day of striking. Thousands turn out for protests and marches in Seattle and other major U.S. cities.
For the last 20 years, the May Day March For Workers & Immigrants Rights has been the largest May Day event in Seattle. The march was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic but was brought back in 2021 and 2022.
Recently, workers' rights have been in the spotlight as employees for multiple major Washington-based companies have voted to form unions nationwide.
Employees voted to form the first Starbucks union at a location in Buffalo, N.Y., in December of 2021. Locations across the country soon followed suit, including multiple stores in and around the Seattle area. Employees at an REI store in Manhattan also voted to unionize earlier this year.
Amazon's first union formed in a Brooklyn warehouse in March, however, the company has filed an objection with the National Labor Relations Board seeking a re-do election.
A warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., has held two union elections after the NLRB voted the company unfairly influenced the first one. However, the outcome of the second election is still up in the air. Hearings over 416 challenged ballots that could decide the vote are expected to begin in the coming weeks.
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