Over 3,500 May Day actions are planned across the US this Friday.
As President Donald Trump continues his barrage against immigrant and workers rights in his second term, tens of thousands of union members and workers across the US are preparing to hit the streets this Friday to celebrate May Day.
“ Trump is absolutely – as a person in power – an existential threat to the labor movement, to working people across the country, and this is part of that response to that threat,” Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Daniel Bauder said in an interview.
He added, “ I think that the labor movement is reconciling with the decline that we have faced since the Reagan administration combined with Trump’s accelerationism into an authoritarian or fascist form of government in the United States has really woken up rank and file union members. It has had them reconnecting with our roots as a much more active and militant movement, and highlighting or coming home to May Day.”
Born in the aftermath of the Haymarket Affair, May Day – or International Workers’ Day – dates back to May 1886 when thousands of workers gathered at Chicago’s Haymarket Square to rally for an eight-hour work day.
Strikes were called throughout the country on May 1, 1886 with unarmed workers and Chicago police officers clashing on May 3, resulting in the deaths of six workers.
They then held a demonstration the following day at Haymarket Square, where someone in the crowd threw an explosive, killing seven police officers, who returned fire killing four workers.
“ Since then, May Day has been globally known as International Workers’ Day, but in the United States, it hasn’t had as much activity within the labor movement because of the emergence of Labor Day as a holiday during the [Grover Cleveland] administration,”Bauder said.
While Labor Day, which marks the unofficial end of Summer each year, is a national holiday meant for celebration, May Day is meant to be a day of action for the Labor movement.
“May Day has been more associated with movements for the rights of immigrants and migrants, and so in Philadelphia we are trying to bring it back to its roots as a day of remembrance for working people,” Bauder said.
There are over a dozen rallies planned throughout Pennsylvania alone on Friday, including demonstrations and marches in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Lancaster, among other areas.
These rallies are part of the May Day Strong coalition, which consists of national labor unions and progressive and immigrant rights organizations, and plan to hold over 3,500 demonstrations across the country.
In Philadelphia, demonstrators will focus on fully funding public education and calling on lawmakers to tax millionaires and billionaires to fund public services, while a rally in Harrisburg will call on Gov. Josh Shapiro to end state collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“If your net worth is not approaching a billion dollars, come join us on May Day,” Bauder said.
