Posted 8 years ago on May 1, 2012, 4:34 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Legalize! Organize! Unionize!

We want to be heard! We need to be heard! We will be heard!

We are here to celebrate May Day. We are here to celebrate our power as people who have found unity of purpose. Today we assert our power as working people. We declare our solidarity with all people of the world. We affirm our rights to economic security, to meaningful work, to health care, to public services, to safe and healthy communities, to free, quality public education from pre-K to college, and to civil liberties. Today, we stand in solidarity with all who take popular action to secure such rights, as we begin to form genuine alliances that challenge a system that breeds inequality.

We are here to decry the rampant growth of social, political and economic inequality. We seek an end to an era wherein a handful of political and economic elites govern in the name of democracy. We want an end to assaults on our human rights. We want an end to tax breaks for the rich. We want an end to the attacks on our right to organize. We want an end to the mass incarceration of people of color. We want an end to all wars and an end to the militarization of our foreign policy. We want an end to our current political system that is bought and paid for by 1%- ers. We want legalization, equal rights, civil rights, and a path to citizenship for immigrant working families. And we want citizenship to mean, as it should, that all people are to be treated justly and equally by their government.

Recall that for over a century May Day has been a time when the stirrings of spring lead people of good will towards visions of revolutionary renewal. The powerful wish to take these dreams away from us. They never will. And so it is on this Mayday, in the wake of a growing planetary uprising for justice, we dare to look forward to a world when the borders that divide us will be made meaningless, to the birth of genuinely democratic culture of communities managing their own resources for the common good, and where the value and dignity of no human being on this planet is considered inferior to any other.

We the people, including organized and unorganized workers, employed and unemployed, public and private, documented and undocumented, here, today, re-commit ourselves to being in solidarity with all people of the world. Our revolutionary spirit will only grow and deepen.

We are here to announce that "Another world is not only possible, but is on her way." We are Tahrir Square. We are Santagma Square. We are Puerta Del Sol. We are Wisconsin. We are Ohio. We are New York. We are Puerto Rico. We are Los Angeles and Oakland and a multitude of cities across the country and the world. We are the 99%! Our time has come.

Let freedom spring!

¡Si se puede!

--joint declaration from May 1st Coalition, Labor union representatives, La Fuente, New York Immigration Coalition, New Immigrant Communities Empowered (NICE), El Centro de Inmigrante, National Institute for Latino Policy, Mothers on the Move, National Lawyers Guild, Occupy Wall Street Immigrant Worker Justice Working Group, Occupy Wall Street en Espanol, Occupy Wall Street Latin America, National Lawyers Guild, Community Farmworker Alliance, Adelante Alliance, Jornaleros Unidos, Restaurant Opportunities Center-NY, Domestic Workers United, New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Laundry Workers Center United, Brandworkers International, Independent Workers Movement, La Peña del Bronx, Centro Guatemalteco Tecun Uman, Philippine Forum