May Day!

As most of you probably know May 1st ,or May Day, is the International Workers Holiday. Although the holiday was born out of the 8 hour workday struggle in the United States and the subsequent crackdown on anarchist and socialist labor leaders it is not officially recognized in the United States as a holiday. It has, in fact, been cynically redubbed both Loyalty Day and Law Day by reactionary politicians trying to obscure the history of class struggle in the US and the importance of the day for the working class. For many years though we have been organizing and participating in small May Day demonstrations in the United States in order to celebrate the importance of the day. This year, then, we were excited to be living in a country that recognized May Day and looked forward to experiencing it as a fully recognized and celebrated holiday.

Since Jon has been working with the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) here we had been planning on celebrating the day with them. After some planning and discussion it was decided that we would make a banner for May Day, which would illustrate the common struggle of workers in the US and Bangladesh. The banner would then be signed by workers here with May Day messages and later will be carried at events in the US. Of course it is pretty cheap to have banners made here since everything is on a banner, but we decided to make it ourselves, which is really more our style. Jon also helped draft a statement on behalf of his union, the IWW, to be read by the president of the NGWF at the May Day rally here in Dhaka.

Here are some pictures of us making the banner (as well as the aftermath of the banner on our table...) and the final product hanging in the NGWF offices.

The day before May Day we decided that would all go down to the demonstration to continue the tradition of dragging Atticus out to protests, rallies, demonstrations, pickets, etc., which began when he was around six months old. Unfortunately, the night before both Atticus and Sam were up most of the night sick. So Jon headed down to the demonstration himself. (Although, he was admittedly wondering if he should as he had also felt a little sick the night before.) He also ended oversleeping because the alarm did not go off and then on his way to the demo his CNG driver got pulled over. Despite all of these seemingly bad omens the day ended up being great.

Shortly after being pulled over the CNG headed through Tezgoan industrial area, which has many garment factories. As he passed through Jon saw garment workers marching down the street, chanting and pumping their fists. Later he passed busloads of workers wearing their red headbands and carrying their red flags. Finally as he got nearer the area where the NGWF rally was to be held he saw marchers streaming into the area from all directions. ‘Wow’, he thought, ‘this is way bigger than the United States for sure’. He wondered if the mobilizations would be big this year because over the past several days there have been ongoing strikes and street blockades by garment workers demanding an increase in the min. wage (which is a paltry 1,662 taka a month - or about 23 US dollars).

May Day here in Dhaka is almost indescribable. There is such a sense of excitement and quite a lot of chaos as well. Upon arrival at the rally area, Jon noticed more busloads of workers rolling in as well as streams of marchers. The intersection where the rally was being held just continued to get more and more crowded with marchers and bands. Although the messages being sent were serious, the area had a festive atmosphere. Finally, the rally started. As the speakers spoke, more marchers joined in while others just sort of marched around the area with their flags and bands. What is crazy is that although there are marches everywhere in the area, blocking up many of the roads, the roads are still open so there is still the usual crazy Dhaka traffic (though less today since it is a holiday) sharing the road with the marches and rallies.

Jon listened to the speakers and walked around the area taking pictures of the happenings. People were incredibly friendly and excited. All the young guys were especially excited to see a white guy taking pictures of the actions apparently (One asked if Jon was with the BBC world Service). For most of the day Jon had group after group of young men posing for him in front of the camera or showing off for the camera, which was great and made the day a lot more fun. He was happy to have them read greetings from the IWW at the rally as well.

After the rally the NGWF march headed out. Jon took pictures of the march for a while, but was soon distracted by the dozens of other separate marches and groups zigzagging through the area. Each party and union seemed to be having their own rally/march in this section of town. Eventually Jon just ended up walking around the streets taking in the various sights. At one point he was approached by a bunch of young men carrying a picture of Sheik Mujib (the father of the country) wanting their picture taken. After complying they all surrounded him and shook his hand and hugged him asked where he was from (which is sort of the usual question). After losing interest in Jon they eventually ran into the middle of the road and stopped a bus so they could get on and be rowdy on the bus. Shortly after that Jon was hoisted into the back of a big cargo truck so he could take pictures of the folks enjoying a rally from inside the truck. While walking back to the NGWF offices he encountered several other characters. A dancing hippie with a tambourine wanted his picture taken. After the dancing hippie, there was a man who had painted himself up in red and had slogans written on him. Of course, it is May Day after all, so all sorts had come out to celebrate. It was a fun day all in all and Jon is happy to have spent a May Day here in Bangladesh. Workers here have plenty to be aggrieved about. Hopefully the slogans being chanted today will lead to some real changes in how workers here are treated. Enjoy the pictures below and Happy May Day!

NGWF May Day Poster. The demands are: No More Fires, No More Gatelock, No More Worker Death, and 5,000 Taka min. wage. In February, 21 workers died in a factory because the front gate was locked from the outside and the only people able to open it had fled, leaving the workers to burn inside.

Buses arriving full of workers

The boy with the flag kept following Jon around wanting his picture taken, but everytime he would pose for a photo others would force themselves into the photo.

Garment workers from Mirpur where there has been several days of unrest.

Bus making its way through the crowd in the intersection

These guys were just hangin' out until they noticed the camera...

Enjoying the rally from the back of the truck

NGWF Marching

Young guys who wanted their picture taken

Same group running into the road and stopping the bus