May Day Rallies Confront Billionaire Assaults

Hundreds of thousands of people across the United States rallied, engaged in civil disobedience, or struck on May 1, International Workers’ Day, joining hundreds of thousands around the world. Overall, actions organized by the May Day Strong coalition numbered more than 1,300 across all 50 states in over 1,000 cities and towns, extending into Saturday, May 3. The unifying cry was “Workers Over Billionaires.”

In Philadelphia, 5,000 rallied with Senator Bernie Sanders at City Hall and later engaged in civil disobedience blocking the entrance to the main highway, which resulted in arrests of UNITE HERE Local 274 hotel workers, Teamsters in Local 623, and other union members and community allies.

As I reported for In These Times, "Shafeek Anderson, a seven-year worker at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, said he was motivated to participate because of the spiraling cost-of-living crisis and its impact on his co-workers, many of whom are low-income single parents struggling to make ends meet.”

“We can’t really make a living wage, and we can’t live a life where we can actually flourish,” says Anderson. ’I’ve seen a lot of my co-workers talking about the struggles that they have in their day-to-day lives, the prices of things being unaffordable.”

This was Anderson’s first civil disobedience action, and he said it was “nerve-wracking. But at some point, you’re gonna have to fight for what you believe in.”

“We have just seen that, especially in the South, it’s time that we unionize,” said Katie Giede, a Waffle House worker in Georgia where hundreds rallied. They started marching at Liberty Plaza, then went to an OSHA office and an ICE office, ending at Atlanta’s City Hall, “because conditions keep getting worse and worse.” “The little guys are left at the bottom and the billionaires are left to become trillionaires, and we've had enough of that.”

HEALTH CARE IN CRISIS

In California, nearly 60,000 workers struck at the University of California system. Chey Dean is a staff research associate at UC San Francisco, working in drug discovery for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's as part of the institute for neurodegenerative diseases. “I'm actually kind of considered like a legacy member, because the recruitment and retention crisis is so severe and their turnover is so high that seven years is considered like a really long time in my research lab and in most research labs at the university,” said Dean.

“What that means for our research is that the drug discovery process takes longer when you have whole teams that turn over. The cure for tomorrow for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's is being held up because we can't keep our lab staffed.”

Sonya Mogilner, a clinical social worker at UC Davis Medical Center, says the state of California is “sitting on $28 billion just in a slush fund for a rainy day.” “If this is not a rainy day, I don't know what is.”

Hundreds of nurses struck in Louisiana for a new contract. Hailey Dupre says she and co-workers have only grown stronger since they organized their union, but the University Medical Center in New Orleans has moved to wallop them and destroy their resolve. But issues at work persist.

Workplace violence, including assaults on nurses and guns left in restrooms, has been a galvanizing issue. To address workplace violence, Mogilner says UMC needs more recruitment and retention of nurses.

LOCKHEED MARTIN STRIKE

A thousand members of the United Auto Workers also struck at Lockheed Martin, the country’s largest defense contractor, in Florida and Colorado.

“May Day was never just a celebration, a rally, or a march,” wrote UAW President Shawn Fain in The Nation magazine. “It was also a day for strikes — for economic action at the workplace and beyond that would keep corporate America in check, and keep workers’ strike muscle strong.” In Tennessee, hundreds rallied in support of Volkswagen workers fighting for a first contract.

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In Chicago, between 7,000 and 10,000 came out to decry the assaults by Trump’s administration, from attacks on social services and federal programs to illegal detentions of immigrants and Palestine activists to firings of federal employees. They demanded an end to funding Israel’s genocide and better-funded public schools and environmental justice.

“Teachers across the country are advocating for contracts that better our students’ learning and working conditions and school building environments that benefit everyone,” said Ayesha Qazi-Lampert, chair of the American Federation of Teachers’s Climate and Environmental Justice Caucus and a member of the Chicago Teachers Union’s Climate Justice Committee. That’s especially important as wildfires, hurricanes, and heat waves become ever more recurrent.

IMMIGRANTS STAND UP

In St. Louis, Missouri, the new anti-Trump organization 50501 held a May Day rally to protest against th administration at Gateway Arch National Park. Shana Shaw, UAW Local 2250 member, came out with her co-workers to rally in defense of the constitutional right to due process.

“The more Americans that stand up and wake up, the better of a nation we're going to be,” she said. “We don’t follow the Constitution anymore. We have a Congress that is standing blindly, and people are disappearing—children and husbands and wives. They're just gone. If we don't say something now, there's going to be nobody left to say something for us.”

In Iowa City, 600 immigrant workers wearing construction uniforms, Catholic priests, community supporters and local elected officials marched under the banner of “Aquí Estamos [Here We Are]: March for Immigrant Dignity and Justice” and proceeded through city streets to a public rally. Participants called to disband the 287(g) ICE Task Force in Iowa, stop racial profiling and deportations, and defend immigrant families and essential workers.

Yadira Castillo told the assembled crowd that she fled Honduras because of violence. “I left my country with my three kids, my husband and our lives packed in a backpack,” Castillo said in Spanish. “The only thing we want is to work and raise our children in a safe community.”

Alejandra Escobar, an immigrant from Columbia and an organizer with the faith-based community group Escucha Mi Voz (“Hear My Voice”) spoke about Trump’s attacks on immigrants.

“Immigrants have become the scapegoats to advance MAGA politics, and yet too many supposed allies are afraid of taking a stand, for immigrants or even for themselves,” said Escobar in Spanish. “I have been living in this country for the last 15 years. This means that I have been building this country alongside you for the last 15 years.”

UNITY TO STOP THE MUSKS AND TRUMPS

The Baltimore Teachers Union, Baltimore NAACP, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees rallied at McKeldin Square in downtown Baltimore. Maryland is home to 160,000 federal workers, which represents 6 percent of all jobs in the state. The Springfield Education Association rallied in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. Teachers spotlighted ongoing contract fights and a Holyoke receivership struggle. Like other rallies nationwide, there was a strong worker focus.

New York City hosted two rallies in Union Square and Foley Square. They drew crowds of 6,000 people in total from immigrant nonprofit organizations like Make the Road NY, the Workers’ Justice Project, Desis Rising Up and Moving, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and unions like the Transport Workers Union, the AFT, the Hotel Trades Council, Painters, Laborers Local 79, Communications Workers Local 1180, UAW grad and legal service workers, Retail Workers, and federal workers (AFGE, NTEU, and IFPTE).

Chris Dols, president of Local 98 of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, told a crowd of thousands in New York City how when he first started working at Federal Plaza during Trump’s first term and he remembered overlooking Foley Square and watching the anti-Trump resistance movement in 2017 taper off.

“And I remember thinking if only we saw the labor movement enter this movement, if only federal workers would enter this movement, then the power of those who resist the racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and all the oppressive and nasty ideas of Donald Trump could be united alongside workers and their unions, then we’ll have a movement that can stop the Elon Musks and the Donald Trumps, and they’ll never come back. Well, they are getting a second chance, and so are we.”