Digital May Day 2021 wrap up

This past International Workers’ Day, we celebrated with another successful Digital May Day! We want to share the recorded collection of the celebration on Twitch for anyone who missed it or wants to rewatch it.

The event kicked off with music, a couple of exclusive podcasts, clips from previous May Day street actions in Ottawa and a panel discussion from our fellow workers in the Ottawa-Outaouais general membership branch.

The first podcast we streamed was exclusive before we posted it on our site. Fellow Worker D of the Ottawa-Outaouais IWW interviews longtime Montreal Activist and Anarchist Jaggi Singh on COVID-19, capital and cops.

We broadcasted a new podcast called Boot Party, which included our member ToolUsingMammal with spaceprole and as_a_worker of The Antifada podcast. Topics ranged from joining organizations and the IWW, mutual aid, music and politics.

We were also excited to share the Ottawa Anti-Imperialist Alliance and Ontario Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines virtual May Day celebration that included speeches and live music from Himig Masa, Ottawa IWW’s Heavysnack, and Fen Racketa member of Loon Choir.

The Burning Hell, our fellow workers from PEI, held a live May Day performance of their amazing indie rock sound, however technical difficulties lead us to host their catalogue of music videos over our stream instead.

Finally, we closed off the night with a live panel discussion among three of our fellow workers on the union organizing subplot of the mainstream TV show Superstore. We discuss do’s and do not’s when organizing a union on the job, what’s realistic and not in the show’s depiction and the importance of having positive union representation in popular media.

An archive of our 2020 Digital May Day events is still online. Fellow Worker Starr interviews FW Ahmad about her articles on Canadian labour law around unions and the Rand Formula and shortening the 40-hour workweek. The interview also goes on to talk about Ahmad’s band The Apparatchiks, her history of union activities and horror movies!

It was a fun and busy day for our branch and we’re looking forward to engaging in more, similar digital events. Be sure to follow the Ottawa-Outaouais IWW on Twitch and turn on notifications for when we’re back on!