International Labor Day, also known as May Day, is observed annually on May 1st and is celebrated worldwide to honor both the struggles and victories of the working class.
May Day’s often considered to have its origins in the United States with the Haymarket Affair in Chicago. From May 1 to May 4 in 1886 workers went on strike for the eight-hour work day, where the peaceful protest eventually got violent as someone threw a bomb at Chicago police, resulting in the police firing into the crowd resulting in 11 deaths and wounding dozens more, according to Illinois Labor History Society. The Haymarket Affair has become recognized globally as symbolic for both worker’s sacrifices and the continuing fight for labor rights.
Stockton, too, has a significant history of labor rights movements throughout the 20th century, with agricultural workers and immigrant laborers playing a pivotal role in the struggle for better wages and working conditions.
One of the most notable figures in Stockton’s labor movement is Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers labor union, UFW, in 1966 with Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong, a Filipino labor organizer also based in Stockton.
Huerta not only organized farm workers, but talked to lawmakers and lobbied for more legal protections for workers.
Dr. Sarah Seekatz, history professor at San Joaquin Delta College, describes the harsh conditions Huerta witnessed the farm workers in Stockton experiencing that lead to the need for labor reform, which include no access to bathrooms, no water, growers pitting racial groups against each other, women experiencing sexual harassment and assault, exposure to toxic chemicals, and child labor.
“The conditions that she’s seen in farmwork are really bad. People think of farm work as unskilled, but it is highly skilled, and the conditions that she would’ve seen, and that the people she worked with would’ve seen or experienced themselves, are very low pay for very difficult work,” said Seekatz. “She’s watching farm workers, because she grows up in a community that’s full of lots of different farm workers, so growing up in Stockton, she knew that farm workers weren’t only Mexican American, but she saw Filipino farm workers, Japanese farm workers, all kinds of different people, and I think that’s really important for us to remember as she’s organizing folks.”
The Filipino American community also played a major role in Stockton’s labor movements. Itliong, who had a long history of labor organizing prior to moving to Stockton, was essential in the creation of the UFW, and played a major role in the Stockton Asparagus Strike in 1948 and the Delano Grape Strike from 1965-1970 along with Huerta and Chavez.
“At the end of the day, a lot of what these labor leaders were calling for, a lot of what these folks that started to lead these labor pickets and organizing movements like Itliong, Chavez, [Philip] Vera Cruz, were to be the mouthpiece of the larger communities’ call for dignity,” said Dr. Bernard Remollino, Delta College Asian-American history professor. “Going back to May Day, International Workers Day as a commemoration and a way to reflect on what the needs are, in asking for an eight hour work day, in fighting for a weekend, in fighting for ventilation in factories, in fighting for time and a half, there’s this larger call for people to recognize workers as human beings, not just as fodder in these industrial capitalist machines.”
The fight for labor rights is still alive and well today, the Western Farm Workers Association union advocates for farm workers in Stockton and across California.
“Workers’ rights matter just as much here in Stockton in the past just as much in the present. A lot of the time, it feels like it’s old history and we don’t inherit these things, or we don’t inherit these issues, but we need to take up the torch,” said Maro Bello, president of Unifying the Education of Marginalized Communities, UEMC, a social activism club at Delta College.
May Day’s not just something of the past, but alive in every American who demands better working conditions and better wages that every single person deserves.
