Mayday in Hamilton, Ontario with Common Cause

north america / mexico | anarchist movement | news report Monday May 05, 2008 00:49 by Alex - Common Cause

Mayday was celebrated in Hamilton this year with the second annual "Mayday 2008: A Festival of Liberation" held from April 26 to May 3. The festival was organized by the Sky Dragon Community Development Coop (Hamilton's major hub for all things left) and co-ordinated with the Hamilton District Labour Council, the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre, and Hamilton Artists Inc.

Common Cause Hamilton participated by organizing several events. As part of the week long series of discussion groups and film screenings, we organized a showing of the documentary, Grass Through Concrete, which chronicles the hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful struggle to stop the building of a major highway through Hamilton's urban forest, the Red Hill Valley.

We also organized an anarchist discussion group called "Love, Rage, & Revolution; Exploring Anarchism in the City." Turnout was small for both events though we did connect with several people who we hadn't met before. The main event was the Street Festival held on May 3.

Despite the rain, lots of people turned out for the live music, workshops, vendors and food provided by the Bread and Roses Cafe. Hamilton Common Cause had its own table and we displayed our new distro for the first time which includes a small set of pamphlets from Anarkismo.net and from the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland. We handed out copies of all Linchpin issues, the anarchist book fair poster and sold a small number of pamphlets.

Common Cause Hamilton also attended the separate May 1 rally organized by the United Steelworkers locals 1005 and 7135. The theme of the march was "Protest the Massive Loss of Manufacturing Jobs" and "Fight for the Dignity of Labour." About 500 people attended, mainly union members. The march snaked through Hamilton's shrinking industrial core and ended with a BBQ. A couple of Common Cause Hamilton members joined the march and distributed the latest issue of Linchpin.

All in all, a very active first Mayday from Common Cause Hamilton.