May 1, 2:54 p.m.
The Daily Illini spoke with Gus Wood, an assistant professor in the School of Labor & Employment Relations at the University, about the significance of May Day.
DI: Just a brief summarization of what you were talking about, sir.
Wood: Sure. So today is May Day, and May Day, of course, is what we call the real Labor Day because it’s in honor of the workers who were massacred by the Chicago Police at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It’s a day that around the world, people recognize that workers are always fighting for their rights to humanity and the right to make decisions for how they live their lives.
It’s a very special day across the world, and so I was speaking about the history of how that came about and how it was related to the recent suppression of protesting in different parts of not just the United States but across the world.
DI: Is there anything else you would like to say on the subject matter that you maybe weren’t able to touch on in your speech, or just anything in general that you think The Daily Illini should hear from you?
Wood: Well, the first thing is I want to thank The Daily Illini for being out here and really just doing a great job covering such an important moment on our campus. When I was a graduate student here and was one of the presidents of the GEO (Graduate Employees’ Organization) Union, it was something that was kind of not expected. When we saw an injustice, we protested. We saw that there was a problem in the world or a problem on campus, we protested. We had the right to speak out. So it’s incredibly discouraging that this recent crackdown of protesting both here and across the world devalues not just the humanity of the students and others who are protesting, but it devalues our very mission as a university of higher learning where we’re supposed to embrace the things that our students are learning, the things that our students are exercising and understanding when they see injustice in the world. So we’re here to support our students, and we’re here to support their exercising of their rights.
