Struggles merge on Labor Day in the Bay Area

In a significant show of solidarity, organized labor, undocumented immigrant workers and their supporters filled the

Photos: Bill Hackwell

streets of Oakland, San Francisco and San Jose, making this year’s Labor Day more representative and inclusive of all workers than in previous years.

The total number marching for workers rights in Bay Area events was somewhere around 40,000. In San Jose, 25,000 people marched more than three miles along Santa Clara Blvd. to City Hall.

In Oakland, over 6,000 marched four miles from the predominately immigrant Fruitvale District of east Oakland to the federal building downtown.

In San Francisco, immigrant workers and their families joined union workers, sharing each other chants for basic workers justice and job contracts. Hotel workers from Unite Here, Local 2 placed their members along the march route on Market Street in front of the hotels they have targeted to strike. People who live in the Bay View Hunters Point district brought signs calling for

an end to the racist displacement taking place in their community.

While nowhere as big as the historic immigrant rights demonstrations that took place in the spring, this Labor Day was a reminder that the movement is alive and is forging new allies in the workers’ movement.

The Republicans and Democrats alike are making it clear that they will shelve any pending immigration legislation before the November 2006 elections. They are doing this, in part, out of fear that millions of people may go back to the streets if they revisit the issue.