Hundreds of demonstrators march through downtown in support of workers
By SUNNY LIU — city@theaggie.org
On May 1, hundreds of Davisites and UC Davis students converged in Central Park as part of a planned May Day demonstration. The protest is among hundreds of similar May Day demonstrations and strikes across the country defending labor rights. The demonstrations in Davis this May Day also demanded protection for immigrants and an end to President Donald Trump’s assault on democratic institutions.
The event was organized and sponsored by a number of community organizations, including the Davis Faculty Association, Indivisible Yolo, Democratic Socialists of America-Yolo, Sister District Yolo, Davis College Democrats, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement-Sacramento and the American Federation of Teachers at UC Davis.
Kelly Wilkerson, an organizer for the event representing Sister District Yolo, explained the purpose of the event.
“It’s May Day, which is international workers day, so that was our focus,” Wilkerson said. “Davis Faculty Association and some other unions were here, […] so that’s one reason why we’re here. And then we’re here for all the other reasons, you know, our rights and my particular sign is pro-child anti-Trump. I’m really horrified by what’s happening. And so, you know, so it’s kind of all of the above.”
Antonio De Loera-Brust, the director of communications for the United Farm Workers Union, commented on his organization’s view on the need to foreground immigrant labor when discussing labor rights in general.
“The Latino working class [is what] really makes Yolo County run,” De Loera-Brust said. “Whether you think about the fields and the ag’ [agriculture] all around in Yolo County, that’s really our bread and butter. Or whether it’s, you know, all the kitchens in Downtown Davis, right? Every time UC Davis students order DoorDash, right, it’s probably an immigrant Latino worker making that meal. It’s often immigrant workers who are delivering them, right? So for us, we wanted to participate, to really elevate just the visibility of that workforce that doesn’t run Davis, but makes Davis run.”
The event kicked off at 5 p.m. with speeches from various sponsors and local labor organizations. Soon after 5 p.m., the group, many with homemade signs, marched around the downtown area. The protestors chanted slogans through 4th Street, G Street and then back through 2nd Street. Many roads along the march route were closed off to traffic due to the number of protesters and audience members present.
Wilkerson described the audience during the march.
“It’s great because there’s a lot of people on G Street for the Big Day of Giving, so we kind of had a built-in audience,” Wilkerson said. “Sometimes you have a march or parade and there’s no one watching, but we did have [a large audience].”
After the protesters returned to Central Park, the organizers gave a few concluding remarks and future announcements. De Loera-Brust encapsulated the sentiment expressed by multiple labor groups and protesters at the demonstration.
“An attack on one worker is an attack on every worker,” De Loera-Brust said. “When any group of workers is afraid to speak out because they’re afraid of getting deported, that makes them less likely to report unsafe working conditions. That makes them less likely to report wage theft, and that makes not just their lives worse, but that puts every other worker, including U.S. citizen workers in the same danger. […] That’s our message that if we want to fight for workers. We need to fight for immigrant workers, too.”
After the event, Steve Murphy, the co-chair of Indivisible Yolo and an organizer for the event, spoke about the scope and size of the May Day demonstration.
“[We are] part of the national movement, the national days of action,” Murphy said. “There’ll be another one in June, but this one was all about labor, all about solidarity, labor and the immigrant community. So getting all three generations of Davis out: the student population, the adults, the seniors like myself, getting all […] three of those generations all up and getting incredibly invigorated [is important]. [It is] really important that we get everybody in Davis because it’s not a student issue, it’s not a faculty issue, it’s not a senior issue, it’s all of us. That’s what the goal was and I think we accomplished that today. […] There were over 800 people [attending].”
Viki Montera, who was affiliated with one of the organizations sponsoring the event, spoke out further about why she thought so many people turned up and the size of the event.
“[With] all the energy, people need to express themselves,” Montera said. “There’s a lot of anger, frustration and we’re waking it up. […] Some people here said this is the largest [demonstration] that we’ve seen since the ‘60s in Davis. […] We’ll take them all. There [were] more [attendees] than we thought. We [originally] thought maybe 300 [people would attend.] [During the march, we] stopped traffic and everything.”
The May Day demonstration lasted over an hour. Information on related future demonstrations and actions can be found on the social media accounts of Indivisible Yolo or Sister District Yolo.
Written By: Sunny Liu — city@theaggie.org
