An article about the cost to employers of the 2006 May Day immigration protests, which involved walkouts and sick-outs.
Thousands of businesses across the country closed their doors May 1st -- some because there were no workers, others because managers preferred to avoid a fight with their employees that they could only lose. Many more worked short-staffed.
In Latino barrios throughout Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and Miami, thousands of restaurants, warehouses, newsstands, and money transfer services were closed. Many McDonald's outlets cut hours or shut down.
In Los Angeles, hundreds of sweatshop garment factories were closed. The strike paralyzed construction sites and industrial food production plants across the country.
"It was one thing to march," said Armando Navarro of the California-based National Alliance for Human Rights, referring to the earlier wave of immigrant protests. "Now we're going to hit Ôem where it hurts Ð in the pocketbooks."
Cargill, the country's second-largest beef producer, closed seven meat-processing plants employing 14,000 workers. Tyson, Perdue and other meatpackers followed suit. Tens of thousands of farm workers stayed out of the fields, and the American Nursery and Landscape Association estimated that 90 percent of the half million workers in its industry took the day off.
According to Jack Kyser, an economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., the economic impact of the strike could total $200 million just in Los Angeles County. No one has done similar calculations for the rest of the country, but the total would have to run more than a billion dollars.
While several companies threatened to fire or discipline workers who took off work for the day, and some carried out those threats, many employers' associations urged caution -- warning that such actions could lead to further actions.
"Law firms have been advising their clients that the immigrant labor boycott is protected by the National Labor Relations Act, even though it isn't specifically a union action," reported the May 2 Wall Street Journal, which had real-time coverage of the May Day actions in its online edition.
Originally appeared in Industrial Worker (June 2006)
Comments
Are these two short articles…
Are these two short articles from the Industrial Worker the only articles on libcom about May Day 2006? I remember Hieronymous writing some really good stuff about it, but maybe that wasn't a specific article, I might be thinking of bits from here and here:
https://libcom.org/article/oaklands-third-attempt-general-strike
https://libcom.org/article/mexican-workers-take-matters-their-own-hands
Idk if Hieronymous still posts here but if he ever does feel like writing up his thoughts on May 2006 as a proper article that'd be great. Anyway, here's a Crimethinc article that'd be worth adding to the library at some point:
https://crimethinc.com/2025/02/05/the-day-the-emigres-struck-back-remembering-may-day-2006
Good memories of the time…
Good memories of the time before the Great Reaction, 2020.
R Totale wrote: Are these…
I lurk sometimes, so thanks for the kind words about my accounts of an event from almost 2 decades ago. The May Day immigrant general strike in 2006 was one of the high points in my life. I never wrote an article proper, but could easily cobble my notes -- and posts on those threads -- into an historical article for libcom.
This is such a fortuitous synchronicity because a couple days ago I was re-reading this incredibly insightful and fact-laden, although dry and academic, account of those 2006 walk outs and the actions preceding them: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/rallying-for-immigrant-rights/hardcover
I'm pretty busy these days, but you've prompted me to do what I've wanted to do since Trump got elected, which is to write up an account of how a one-day strike of up to 8,000,000 immigrant workers got Congress to back down on the Sensenbrenner Act (HR 4437) back in 2006.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see something similar on May Day 2025, especially in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Denver. I really hope so!