Report on the Freehold March
March Leads to Gains for Day Laborers
**150 people attended the rally and marched -- through the rain -- to the muster zone. We had great press coverage -- Univision, National Public Radio, El Diario, Hoy, Asbury Park Press, Freehold News Transcript
**We successfully linked together the attacks on immigrant communities and the resistance movement that is fighting back and winning. We also emphasized the need for a joint movement -- immigrant and native born. There were signs about this, lots of speakers talked it and we even had a chant -- free, free the detainees--immigrants, citizens, UNITY!
**We had about 50 day laborers marching with us and were joined by at least 30 members of the latinocommunity who were not day laborers. I love it when the baby strollers start coming out.
***A lot of people came from New Brunswick out of the peace and justice/independent media/ and student movement there.
**The national day laborers organization was represented by some incredible people who want to hold national days of action between the coasts.
**Most important we are building a sustainable movement between immigrants and native born. We need to continue to develop our relationship with the workers in Freehold and everywhere else that immigrant workers stand up and fight back!
**Everyone got a copy of Workers Democracy with the NJ CRDC insert and we got favorable remarks from a lot who read parts on the march. The day laborers were pouring over it and getting translations of some of the English.
**This march won real gains for the day laborers. Immediately after the march, the fear that kept the contractors away was broken and the number of jobs available to the workers jumped by a factor of FIVE. The gain was sustained through the entire fall working season. The laborers' hiring hall system has kept contractors to laborer-imposed job standards and rates.
Leaflet text for March follows:
MARCH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL!
STOP THE ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS!
END DETENTION AND TORTURE!
FREE ALL THE DETAINEES NOW!
Within the United States, thousands of immigrants, both undocumented and permanent residents, are now being illegally detained without charge, subjected to attacks by dogs, to beatings and to humiliations, torn from their homes. In Freehold, immigrants have begun to fight back, resisting efforts to drive them out of town and organizing for their right to work and to raise working and living standards. But immigrants can only win through unity with all who live here.
Abuse and torture are inevitable in any system of arbitrary detention. Only the protections of the Bill of Rights – no detention without charge, no forced questionings, no double jeopardy, no secret proceedings or "military tribunals"– stand in the way of police-state tactics. When these protections are flouted, torture results.
The detentions here are part of a War OF Terror on immigrants, depriving them of their ability to protest their living and working conditions. To end terror, to end torture, ALL the detainees, here and abroad, must be freed.
First they came for the immigrants, but
ALL OF OUR RIGHTS ARE ON THE LINE!
MARCH IN FREEHOLD
ASSEMBLE:
COUNTY HALL OF RECORDS 1E. MAIN ST.
Sunday, July 18TH 2:00 PM
Monmouth County Residents for Immigrants’ Rights, New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee, Workers Committee for Progress and Social Welfare Endorsed by: Central Jersey Coalition to Stop Endless War, Central Jersey Coalition for Peace and Justice, Ever Reviled Records Workers Collective, Families for Freedom, NJ Solidarity Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, NJ Workers Democracy, Union County Peace and Social Action Committee
More information: 732-492-1852, 609-406-7857, elerner@igc.org or http://www.nj-civilrights.org
