Public Employee Press

May Day rallies hit anti-immigrant Arizona law

DC 37 members demonstrated in Times Square and Foley Square May 1, joining immigration rights activists nationwide in demanding comprehensive legal
reforms and protesting a new Arizona law that invites discrimination against Latinos.

The DC Executive Board voted unanimously May 12 to condemn the law (SB 1070) as racist and unconstitutional.

Protesters marched in dozens of cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles, where the crowd mushroomed to 50,000. Since 2006, U.S. immigration rights advocates have been pressing their cause on May Day, the holiday celebrated worldwide as International Workers’ Day.

As activists organized for this year’s rallies, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer angered protesters and swelled their ranks by signing the anti-immigrant bill into law on
April 23.

SB 1070 makes it a crime — subject to immediate arrest — for immigrants to be in Arizona without carrying their federal registration documents and lets police question people about their immigration status based merely on suspicion.

Opponents said the law would encourage police to target people based on their skin color or accents.

SSEU Local 371 President Faye Moore led a large group of members in the New York City protest, and Local 372 Executive Vice President Santos Crespo addressed the May Day rallies. “The governor of Arizona wants to deny the opportunity enjoyed by her own great- grandparents, who came here 118 years ago, to workers seeking the same things her family came for,” he said.

DC 37 calls Arizona law unconstitutional

The DC 37 resolution condemning SB 1070 acknowledges immigrants as an integral part of the United States and calls on unions nationwide to oppose the Arizona law because it is unconstitutional and mandates racial and ethnic profiling. A boycott of Arizona is being organized, and the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Immigration Law Center are planning a lawsuit against SB 1070.

At the demonstration in Chicago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson encouraged the boycott, saying, “Arizona has become the new Selma.”