Harper’s Weekly, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As mentioned in our previous email, the Chapter Officers are planning exciting and fun outdoor in person events with catered food to help us meet one another and build community.

Please RSVP to our first Berkeley CSU/PTRLA International Workers’ Day (May Day) Lunch and Social Picnic:

When: May 1, 2023

Where: MLK Civic Center Park, (2151 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley, CA 94704)

Food (empanadas) will be catered by Berkeley’s Cafe Buenos Aires, founded by Diana Days, a prominent Argentine Trans woman, in 2018, and recognized as one of the “best empanadas in the Bay Area.” Vegetarian and Vegan options will be made available.

May first is International Workers’ day, a commemoration of the 1886 Chicago Haymarket Affair, the holiday that the U.S. government, City Management, and the union bureaucracy don’t want you to celebrate. On that day in 1886, workers went on strike as part of the broader struggle for the 8-hour work day. The Chicago police, working on behalf of the capitalist bosses, turned a peaceful strike into a bloody massacre. The day is celebrated internationally as a day for and about organized working people, but there’s a reason most U.S. workers don’t know about it. In 1891 the U.S. government decided it didn’t want Americans to join in solidarity with workers worldwide, so it created a separate and tamer “Labor Day” holiday in September to further divide workers.

The first step in organizing and building worker power is workers getting to know one another. See you there!