On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined in the studio by Armando Ibarra to celebrate International Workers Day or May Day, a day that has long been one of working class mobilization. Initiated in Chicago in 1886, May Day commemorates organized workers’ strength against oligarchs of the past and present. 

While workers’ movements have made great gains since that first May Day, today’s plutocrats haven’t ceased in their efforts to take away workers’ gains. Across the country today, people are taking to the streets again, demanding dignity and fair treatment. Many events are organized to highlight the centrality of immigrant laborers to the labor movement, like the Voces de la Frontera Day Without Immigrants and Workers events. Ibarra also clarifies that we can’t talk about immigration without talking about American imperialism.

Ruff and Ibarra talk about the social terrain in Wisconsin, including how dependent the dairy and agriculture industries are on Latin American immigrant laborers without authorization. Despite this reality, these communities are heavily policed and viewed as inherently criminal. Ibarra reflects on the protests of 2006, when millions of people took to the streets in response to federal legislation that would have criminalized immigrants without proper authorization and those who aided them. 

Armando Ibarra is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School for Workers. He’s the co-author of the award winning book, The Latino Question: Politics, Labouring Classes and the Next Left.

Featured image: a Worker’s May Day Rally in Chicago in 2018 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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