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B&H Workers Protest. Photo: Scott Heins/Gothamist |
According to news reports, thousands of immigrants and their supporters marked the
“Day Without Immigrants” on May 1 with rallies, marches, and job actions in some forty U.S. cities. The protests in New York were almost certainly the largest since 2006 but not as large as the massive marches that year. New York’s 2017 protests were different in two other ways: in a higher level of participation by native-born supporters, and in a focus on ongoing struggles of local workers—at the Tom Cat Bakery, for example, and B&H Photo.
It is unclear whether employers will be firing workers who took the day off without permission, as happened in some places during the February actions. At least two groups of affected workers—in Michigan and on Long Island—are resisting by filing charges against their employers with the National Labor Relations Board.—TPOI editor
Thousands of Immigrants to March in May Day Protests Across the U.S.
Tom K. Wong, a professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, said the Trump administration's focus on immigration is generating more support for immigrant rights advocates. "Every pivot back to the issue of immigration gives the immigrant rights movement another opportunity to make its best pitch to the public," he said.
Amy Taxin and Steve Peoples, AP via Time
May 1, 2017
(NEW YORK) — Several hundred teachers picketed outside Philadelphia schools early Monday as thousands more immigrants and union members across the United States prepared a series of strikes, boycotts and marches to protest President Donald Trump's immigration policies.[…]
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Latino Immigrants, Workers Rally on May Day for ‘Day Without Immigrants’
By Marissa Armas, NBC News Latino
May 1, 2017
Thousands of Latino immigrants, activists, workers and allies took to the streets on Monday to join in on the national "Day Without Immigrants" strike. People in more than 40 cities across the country marched and protested in what organizers said is a response to President Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies.[…]
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B&H Photo Workers Strike on May Day to Protest Their Jobs Moving to New Jersey
By Emma Whitford, The Gothamist
May 1, 2017
Hundreds of warehouse workers employed by the electronics and photography company B&H Photo Video launched a one-day strike Monday, May Day, demanding that their employer roll back a plan to relocate roughly 330 Brooklyn jobs in Bushwick and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to a new facility in New Jersey.[...]
Workers: Firm fired us after ‘Day Without Immigrants’ protest
By Víctor Manuel Ramos, Newsday
April 18, 2017Some immigrant workers on Long Island said the protest in February dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants” turned into days without jobs, after a Melville distribution and warehousing company fired them for missing work.[…]
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Workers Fired After ‘Day Without Immigrants’ Protest Stand Up to Ex-Bosses
About 20 Michigan employees have taken their case to the National Labor Review Board.
By Kate Abbey-Lambertz, Huffington Post
May 2, 2017
About 20 former employees of a Michigan manufacturing company have banded together to dispute their firing, which occurred one day after they participated in national “day without immigrants” protests.
The employees, almost all of whom are Latina women, were fired in February from EZ Industrial Solutions in Chesterfield, Michigan. They filed a charge with the National Labor Review Board later that month, the Detroit Free Press first reported Sunday.[…]
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