May Day in the Bay Area CA
Four comrades were able to participate in a march in the Fruitvale District of Oakland for May Day. The march was sponsored by Oakland Sin Fronteras https://oaklandsinfronteras.wordpress.com/. Members included Antonio Salas, Jenna Tuttle, Tina Phillips, and Zachary Mingue Sohn. Members met at Fruitvale Plaza at 3pm on May 1st to gather. The march was 3 miles long down a large street to San Antonio Park where food and drinks were served by local groups and speakers spoke on important issues. Attention was paid to immigrant labor and labor unions. Many red and red and black flags were present.
The spirit of the march was very lively with many chants, lots of people holding signs and banners, people playing music, multiple drum circles, and a diverse crowd. It was a hot spring day and some marchers were getting sun fatigued in the long march, including Tina Phillips. Comrades stepped up to help provide drinks and buying popsicles, which was very much appreciated and shows true socialism in action. Some members also participated in a local collective's project to raise awareness and consciousness of unpaid "invisible" labor, by wearing screen printed shirts that others wrote the free labor we did today on the back.
Invisible labor is done mostly by women and this was an effort to demonstrate this important sector of labor not often acknowledged. As socialists, we believe unpaid labor should be paid, especially when done for others. And men need to step up and share in the care work that dominants unpaid labor. Socialism can bring us the time for all to fully participate in care work; society's most important work. Local member, Tina Phillips, wrote an article for the May Day edition of The Socialist highlighting unpaid work in conjunction with attending some planning meetings for the collective. Other members also participated in these meetings, such as Jenna Tuttle, Zachary Mingue Sohn, and Ian Morrison, who was ironically stuck at work during this May Day event. With our efforts we hope we showed we honor all labor, paid and unpaid. We appreciate all the efforts of our Local members and look forward to organizing more events together.
