Cuba’s government called on millions of its citizens to turn out today for May Day celebrations designed as a crescendo in the campaign to return 6-year-old Elián González to his homeland. In Havana alone, hundreds of thousands were expected to crowd the Plaza of the Revolution for the first speech by President Fidel Castro at a May Day celebration in many years. The gathering this year is also unusual in that it is being described as an “open tribute,” the government term used to describe the mass concentrations regularly held to press for Elián’s return to Cuba.

Burma’s opposition National League for Democracy called in a May Day statement today for the military government to end the use of forced labor and recognize the result of the country’s last election 10 years ago. The party, led by 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, said the country had suffered economic collapse since the military came to power in the early 1960s. It urged the ruling State Peace and Development Council to honor the May 27, 1990, election result by immediately convening a parliament and to respect workers’ rights by ending forced labor and allowing independent trade unions.

In New York, a rally is planned today in support of immigrants’ rights. Organizers of the demonstration are demanding general amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. They say these workers are being exploited. They have no rights and no benefits. Members of union, community, religious and immigrant groups are expected to participate in the rally, which will take place in the New York City Hall area. Already, hundreds of police have mobilized in riot gear.

In Los Angeles on this May Day, the actors who make commercials for radio and television are going on strike. It’s the first major Hollywood strike since writers walked off the job 12 years ago. The 135,000 actors belong to the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Advertising companies want to scrap the network fee system that pay actors every time an ad runs; instead, they want to adopt the flat-rate pay system used for cable commercials. No talks are scheduled. Agencies say they’ve been stockpiling commercials in anticipation of a strike, and they’ll try to produce new ads using nonunion actors.

American Red Cross workers in Connecticut went out on strike early today after overwhelmingly rejecting the relief agency’s latest contract offer. About 75 strikers set up a picket line outside the Red Cross headquarters in Farmington shortly after midnight. The strike, the first by Red Cross workers in Connecticut in 25 years, may reduce daily blood collection in the state by 80%, but any shortfall will be made up from a national inventory, this according to a Red Cross spokesperson. The strike involves about 200 employees who conduct blood drives around the state.

A death row inmate in Yellow Springs, Ohio, gave Antioch College’s graduating class a taped lesson in civil rights as hundreds protested nearby. Students last month invited journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1981 of killing Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner, to give the commencement address at the small private college about 15 miles east of Dayton. He didn’t talk about his case, the death penalty or the policeman involved in his six-minute audiotape speech. Rather, he softly spoke of the impact one person can have on the world, the topic students had requested, using Nelson Mandela, Malcolm, X, W. E. B. Du Bois and Angela Davis as examples. Just yards away, near the outdoor ceremony, blue, yellow and orange police tape marked off separate spaces where Faulkner’s supporters and Abu Jamal’s supporters quietly demonstrated.

This news from Oregon: Sports apparel maker Nike, rejecting demands that it follow labor standards espoused by the University of Michigan, has said that it has ended talks on the renewal of a six-year contract to supply the school’s sports teams. It was the third time in a month that labor standard demands have emerged as an issue in sponsorship and donations for Nike and its chief executive, Phil Knight. Nike, which has come under increasing attack over the working conditions of employees in factories or its contractors’ factories in Third World and Asian countries, has repeatedly said it has improved the working conditions of people who make its shoes and apparel all over the world.