For well over 100 years, May Day – or May 1st – has been the day of resistance and celebration for workers all throughout the world.  It is a day when workers quit their slaving away and pour into the streets to demonstrate the power of unity.  In many cases, May Day has been a launching point for massive working-class fight-backs.

While May Day was born out of Chicago after the 1886 Haymarket Massacre of workers by the police, us workers in North America have been denied this tradition by having our ‘Labour Day’ pushed into September, diverting our class from celebrating and struggling with the international working class.

In the face of global economic crisis, migrants have no other choice but to organize
Migrante Canada, December 18, 2009

Migrante organizations in Canada join migrants around the world in celebrating International Migrants’ Day and renewing our commitment to struggle for the rights and welfare of all migrants. As the Canadian state grapples with its own economic and political crises, migrants along with the Canadian working people persevere in their resistance to attacks on their rights. 

Canada is one of the major destinations of Filipino migrants. It is also one of the countries with the worst track record in terms of labour and immigration policies. Labour and immigration rights especially those of migrants have been eroded and continue to be eroded. This year alone was marked by a series of US-style immigration raids, deportation of the undocumented and the sick, curtailment of migrants’ rights to organize through their anti migrant labour policies. Canada continues to do this while expanding its Temporary Foreign Workers Program, one that is designed to import cheap foreign labour without protection and without access to permanent residency.