Happy May Day

This year, on International Workers' Day, more workers are sounding the SOS than in the past one hundred years.

As we watch unprecedented raids and deportations of migrant workers in Canada, as we watch hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost, as we watch people losing their homes, we struggle together to try to build a better world.

At a May Day dinner I was at last night, one of the speakers talked about how his organization does not use the popular expression "good enough to work, good enough to stay" to talk about migrants. Because they believe all people are good enough to stay.

So on this May Day I am thinking about the people who have been rejected and mistreated by the world of work, about the people who live in terror of losing their jobs, and all those people working, in whatever ways they can, for a better world.

So I offer you two things. You've seen this before, but the prayer to San Precario is most fitting today. More on San Precario here
.
Saint Precarious,
Protector of the precarious of the earth,
give us paid maternity leave
and protect chain store workers, call centre angels
and all flexible employees hanging by a thread.

Give us paid leave and pension contributions,
incomes and free services,
and keep us from being fired.

Saint Precarious defend us from the bottom of the network,
pray for us temporary and cognitive workers, and
Extend to all the others our humble supplication.

Remember those souls whose contracts are coming to an end,
tortured by the pagan divinities
the Free Market and Flexibility,
those wandering uncertain, without a future or a home,
with no pension or dignity.
Grant hope to undocumented workers
and bestow upon them joy and glory
until the end of time.

MAYDAY

And also, I wish more people knew about Saul Williams, because I think he's just great.

You might enjoy this song today - Act III, Scene II (Shakespeare). My favourite line: The Ides of March is always at hand.