• Buffalo May Day Stands Up for Rights
Buffalo May Day Stands Up for Rights
Workers, students and rights organizers joined together for the Buffalo May Day March and Rally May 1. Despite rain at the start of the march and during it, the militant spirit defending the rights of all shown through. Among the chants were Healthcare is a Right, Fight, Fight, Fight! Housing is a Right, Fight, Fight, Fight! Education is a Right, Fight, Fight, Fight! The march started on the Eastside in Masten Park and marched to Buffalo General Hospital, where a brief stop was made to support workers there. Participants denounced the massive concessions being demanded of the workers, including cuts to pensions and benefits and work rules changes. They emphasized that concessions are not solutions and that the attacks on healthcare workers are an attack on the healthcare of patients. Everyone was encouraged to follow developments and join in defending all the healthcare workers facing attack across the city. Chanting Hey hey, ho ho, Paying the Rich has got to go! and Healthcare is a Right, Fight Fight Fight! Marchers proceeded to the Westside, down Allen Street and then Virginia. People along the way came out and applauded their support. Others responded to the chants in Spanish, La Salud Es Un Derecho! and La Educacion es un Derecho, and Si Se Puede! (Healthcare is a Right, Education is a Right, Yes We Can!)
On reaching the Mattina Health Clinic, which is threatened with closure, participants took their stand, to Keep Mattina Open! Whose Clinic? Our Clinic? Who Decides? We Decide! They then marched to the Waterfront Nursing Home just behind the clinic to join workers there. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was holding a picket and marchers and workers stood together, rejecting the attacks on rights by Kaleida and insisting that Mattina and Waterfront remain open. As one sign put it, Quality Caregivers = Quality Care and the people of Buffalo demand nothing less! Speakers from locked out Blue Cross Blue Shield workers union, Office and Professional Employees International Union, OPEIU Local 212, Communications Workers of America CWA Local 1168, and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement spoke, emphasizing the stand of All for One and One for All and the importance of standing up for worker and immigrant rights.
May Day and SEIU marchers then went back to Mattina Clinic to emphasize the importance of keeping it open and refusing to accept the dictate of Kaleida trampling on the rights of workers and patients alike. Speakers from Buffalo Forum, UB’s Graduate Student Employee Union, organizers demanding a ban on the dangerous hydrofracking done by oil and gas monopolies and CWA1168 all spoke. Participants enjoyed anti-war songs and raised their solution to the current anti-worker and anti-social attacks by governments at all levels: No War Funding = No Cuts, No Layoffs! Stop Paying the Rich and Fund Our Rights! Whose Rights, Our Rights! Who Decides? We Decide!
Everyone then enjoyed a great meal prepared and donated by local stores on the east and west sides. And then of course it poured down rain!
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