An alliance of New Mexico immigrant groups and unions on Wednesday urged New Mexicans to walk out of work and school on Friday in what organizers called an “outpouring of power.”
May 1 marks International Workers’ Day — a holiday celebrating the use of strikes to enact the eight-hour workday — but a demonstration slated for 3 p.m. in the heart of Albuquerque will also show opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and war policies, organizers said Wednesday.
Albuquerque is one of about 3,000 demonstrations nationwide for May Day Strong, which builds on the “no work, no school, no shopping” January protests to resist the federal government’s immigration policy following the crackdown in Minnesota. At least five New Mexico locales, including Albuquerque, appear planning to participate.
In a news conference held Wednesday outside the Teamsters Local 492 office, various labor and immigrant group members posed with parasols painted with slogans such as “people over profit” and waved paddles emblazoned with “workers over billionaires.”
Jerry Thorn, an organizer for Teamsters, said nearly 40 groups are sponsoring the Albuquerque event at Civic Plaza, including unions, immigrant groups and democracy organizations.
Neidi Dominguez, the executive director of labor group Organized Power in Numbers, criticized the Trump admissions rhetoric on immigration.
“The labor movement cannot advance while ignoring the assault on democracy and immigrants in this country,” Dominguez said. “And pro-democracy movements cannot ask working people to defend abstract principles about voting or showing up to the polls while people cannot afford housing or paying their bills or just making ends meet — we need both.”
Dominguez said New Mexicans can do just that come Friday.
“We’re going to show what we can do together and remind people that we have collective power,” Dominguez said. “When we come together as working people, as immigrant workers, as blue collar workers, there’s no sign stopping us, because we’re the majority.”
