One hundred and thirty-five years after its designation by a collective of unions and socialist groups in 1889, May 1 is still celebrated worldwide as International Workers’ Day.
The holiday commemorates historical workers’ rights efforts and provides an opportunity to further modern movements. This year, a workers’ rights rally was held at Bernie Milton Pavilion on the Ithaca Commons. Colorful tables set up by local organizations including Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Sciencenter Workers’ Union provided everything from informational packets to cookie decorating materials. The rally also featured speeches from Alderperson Kayla Matos, Cornell student organizer Maggie Pacheco, and activist Ben Barson.
Ithaca’s chapter of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), established in 2021, hosted this year’s May Day rally. While most of their work has been focused on supporting local unions like Starbucks Workers United, the organization has also begun an initiative to pass just cause employment legislation in Ithaca. Under New York State’s current at-will employment law, employers can terminate an employee with no notice and no justification. Just cause employment, an alternative to at-will employment, provides workers with protection from termination without warning by requiring communication from employers to their employees. A petition urging the Ithaca Common Council to pass just cause employment legislation in the city was available to sign at CPUSA’s table, already with nearly five hundred signatures. Chair Adam Hart has high hopes and feels that the initiative is on track to succeed with the support of multiple Common Council members.
First Ward Alderperson Kayla Matos, elected to Common Council in 2023, delivered a speech at the event, which described her personal connection to the struggle for labor rights, growing up with a mother who worked long hours to support her. After former Alderperson and Solidarity Slate member Jorge DeFendini’s Common Council term ended last year, Matos and her fellow First Ward Alderperson Phoebe Brown have continued his efforts by working towards completing the law drafting process for just cause employment legislation. The law, as it is written now, would require employers to give notice and reason when dismissing an employee. Matos and DeFendini have stated that the legislation will define appropriate reasons for termination including misconduct, violation of company policies, and poor performance.
However, the law would also require employers to provide workers with constructive feedback and time to improve before firing them for unsatisfactory performance. The Solidarity Slate, a progressive group of candidates for Common Council, supports just cause legislation. The Solidarity Slate’s vision for the enforcement of just cause legislation includes the establishment of a volunteer commission made up of community members that would mediate disputes between employers and employees, issuing rulings on the argument that can be used as evidence in the case of a lawsuit between the parties.
Aside from just cause legislation, the May Day rally also advocated for unionization as a means of protecting workers’ rights. Matt Sullivan, an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) with Bangs Ambulance, informed rally attendees about the pushback he and his coworkers have experienced from their employer in attempts to unionize. Seeking transparency and more say in company processes, employees have struggled to negotiate with management. When they tried to unionize in October of 2022, voluntary recognition of their union was denied, and their demands for a forty hour work week, improved safety protocols for ambulance drivers, and increased pay were met with Bangs’s dismissal. EMT organizers are now working on getting a contract signed after employees voted in favor of unionization. Sullivan worries that as EMTs are met with poor treatment, turnover will increase and emergency medical care will become less accessible to Ithacans who need it. “I grew up here, this is my community, and I want to see it served correctly […] I didn’t feel like my concerns about that were being addressed,” he said. He and many of his coworkers feel that the formation of a union would provide them with an opportunity to give back to their communities. Similar sentiments are shared by the Sciencenter Workers’ Union, whose representatives at the rally commented on how their unionization process revealed a strong sense of community among supporters of the Sciencenter.
Many speakers at the rally also addressed the killing of upwards of thirty-five thousand Palestinian civilians in the ongoing war in Gaza. As students and workers nationwide engage in peaceful demonstrations against the war, issues of workers’ rights come into play as protesters are punished and arrests are made. Maggie Pacheco, bargaining committee member for Cornell Graduate Students United (CGSU), claimed that Cornell University’s harsh discipline of unionized workers involved in on-campus protests was illegal. Reading a press release from CGSU, Pacheco stated, “We are expressing our serious concern about the fact that Cornell’s actions towards graduate workers for protest stomp on workers’ rights, stomp on academic freedom, and stomp on freedom of expression on campus.” The press release also condemned Cornell’s January 2024 enactment of an interim expressive activity policy, which effectively allows the university to shut down any protest that violates a set of guidelines including “reasonably limiting cost to the university” and “preserving campus aesthetic values.”
Dr. Ben Barson, musician and Africana studies researcher at Cornell, also remarked on the funding of the war in Gaza and its impacts on the working class in the scope of an escalating climate crisis, saying, “At a time when the world’s workers must transcend national borders and fight for a rapid eco-socialist transition to limit the scale and suffering of this emerging catastrophe, instead, the world’s capital, its resources, its captains of industry are turned towards the morbid and horrific investment in mass death and AI-powered genocide.” Many other speakers addressed similar issues, and some attendees and performers wore keffiyehs, traditional scarves that have become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
With a clear focus on intersectionality in the fight for workers’ rights, the rally demonstrated how people disadvantaged by class and working status experience layered difficulties, from climate change to food insecurity. Speakers at the rally emphasized the importance of taking action in the fight for workers’ rights. They called on attendees to take action by signing petitions, voting, and continuing to be a part of rallies and other organized advocacy events.
May Day Rally on the Commons. Gabriel E.