Posted May 5, 2026
MAY DAY STRONG, a coalition of unionists, community and left activists, reported over 5000 separate actions this May Day. Attempting to push the envelope, MDS encouraged “no work, no school, no shopping” to celebrate the 1886 struggle for the eight-hour workday.
Earlier this year Minneapolis’s March 23 Day of Action in opposition to ICE terror provided a model for action to alter the balance of forces that have put billionaires in the driver’s seat. It is estimated that on that day fully one quarter of the city’s working population skipped work.
This May Day highlighted teachers across the country as leaders in the movement to defend their rights as workers, and the rights of their students as deserving of a good education whatever their legal status. Perhaps the clearest expression of teacher leadership on May 1 came in the thousands who marched through downtown Raleigh, NC.
At least 22 NC school districts cancelled classes given their teachers announcement that they weren’t available for work because they would be attending the “Kids Over Corporations” march. The North Carolina Association of Educators mobilized teachers from around the state to march on the legislature, demanding higher taxes on corporations for more school funding.
In Wisconsin, with seventy percent of the teachers in Madison and Milwaukee informing their respective school districts that they were taking the day off, the districts canceled classes as if it were a snow day.
Chicago teachers convinced the school district to make May 1 an official day of civic education, arranging field trips for students to learn about civil rights. This became especially relevant in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Although May Day 2026 saw uneven participation by unions, their official endorsement opened the door to a wider section of the population. Left presence was also strong, pushing a broad agenda of labor and social issues.
The day was diverse in the actions’ commitment to social justice with not only walkouts, pickets, block parties, marches and rallies, but also picnics and car caravans. May Day 2026 may not have led to implementing “no work, no school, no shopping” but it did result in producing a diversity of tactics and a broader reach of the highly segmented population.
A partial roundup from comrades and friends follows.
Austin, TX:
Texas is in the bottom 20% of states in union density. Then Austin is about 20% beneath the state’s figure. On top of that, it had been pissing rain for days. So we didn’t expect a repeat of the 1936 victory in Barcelona here in the capital of the Lone Star State.
Nonetheless, a few hundred people showed up from a decent number of unions and leftist outfits to celebrate May 1. Speeches were thankfully short and mostly from rank-and-file members talking about their union or socialist organization. Speakers included couple of political candidates running for city council (officially non-partisan), and a better-than-average left-leaning Democrat running for the Texas legislature.
There were three workshops on immigrants; the history of May Day centered around the strikes of 1886 and the following attacks on immigrants, labor and anarchists; and young labor leaders.
Although the attendance wasn’t large, demographically, there was certainly a better representation of Latino and Black people than generally come to leftish events. It was also far better in this regard than the various No Kings/Indivisible/50501 rallies. The young rep from the Central Labor Council, which provided the sound system, opened the mike to all the groups involved, including a young woman from the Austin for Palestine Coalition who gave the best talk.
The event was sponsored by the AFL-CIO CLC, clearly pushed by left and younger delegates. Several unions had booths: NALC, IBEW, AFSCME, Education Austin (merged AFT-NEA local for public school workers), TSEU (Texas State Employees Union – a CWA affiliate) and United Workers of Integral Care, also a CWA affiliate of workers at a privatized agency providing “low-cost healthcare and social services.”
Present were members of the Workers’ Defense Committee (immigrant workers’ center) and YALL, Young Active Labor Leaders, set up with the Texas AFL-CIO to encourage young union members. At least in the past, YALL has had a substantial overlap in membership with DSA.
Also present were the Austin for Palestine Coalition and Austin Against Apartheid, a Palestine solidarity project funded by the local Austin DSA. There was also a group called Vocal, whose speaker described them as building strike preparation. Several leftist groups also had booths. DSA was present, not only in its own booth but also as union members in several of their booths.
There didn’t seem to be any organized attempts to get the day off. It would be tough in such an anti-union state, especially since many if not most of the union members in Austin belong to public sector unions, and so are prohibited from negotiating with their employer over any issue and of course forbidden to strike.
Bay Area, CA:
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there was a wide range of May 1st actions. These included San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Alameda and numerous other East Bay sites. Labor turnout was greater than the previous year, with contingents from SEIU 1021, NUHW, California Nurses Association and teachers’ unions but also increased presence from the building trades.
![](/files/NYC-Huddled-Masses.jpeg")
Student walkouts in San Francisco and San Jose started off the day. Both San Francisco and Oakland airports were scenes of actions. In Oakland, a car caravan drove to the airport, part of an ongoing campaign to demand an end to military shipments to Israel.
The protest at the San Francisco Airport was linked to both ICE presence and workers’ wages. Speeches were in English, Spanish and Tagalog. The picket of about 400 (we did go through the International terminal departures area at one point) lasted a number of hours. It was composed primarily of unions members, with the added presences of San Francisco DSA and the Sunrise Movement. Almost two dozen were arrested, including labor officials and local electeds.
The afternoon march (2 to 4 p.m.) was mostly community, climate and peace groups such as Sunrise Movement, Bay Resistance, Immigrant rights groups, some unions, housing rights activists and students who walked out of class. This march left the SF Civic Center area but never met up with the labor-focused march that assembled at the foot of Market Street at the Embarcadero. The later march went to the Civic Center (leaving around 5:15 p.m.) It was amiably decided among organizers to have the two marches since labor wanted to be later in the day for workers while others wanted an earlier time for students and those who did take the day off.
At all the events there were signs against the Iran war and in support of Palestine along with other issues. Since it is election time, there were also some labor-supported candidate’s signs. Many anti-ICE banners and signs declared that money should be earmarked for education/health care not for war. Each of the two marches were probably in the 2,000-3,000 range. About 60% of the participants were people of color from many different Asian nationalities and Latinos. These were good building actions and while modest in comparison to the No Kings marches, these were more class conscious.
With different organizations driving the various events, diverse issues were emphasized. In Oakland the work of Oakland Sin Fronteras strengthened the presence of immigrant rights while Palestine Solidarity was more central to the Alameda rally. Participation was more multiracial and youthful than at No Kings events. As the marches went by, bystanders kpomrf as they marched and chanted in the streets.
Chicago, IL:
Two strikes of Higher Ed workers helped mark May Day in its birthplace. At Loyola University Chicago, a large Jesuit institution with three large campuses around the city, part-time and non-tenure track employees walked out following a 90% strike vote in April.
Faculty Forward LUC Union, an SEIU Local 73 affiliate, chose May 1 (during finals week) to begin striking, as the University stopped bargaining days earlier. Workers’ demands include wages and parental leave. A large contingent of full-time AAUP faculty and LUC students joined the pickets.
At University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) grad workers in a Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO, Local #6300 AFT/IFT) struck for living wages after a year out of contract. Unlike part-time faculty, who often supplement income with other work, GEO members work full time teaching and studying and are dependent on University wages.
The May Day picket line was enlarged by hundreds of supporters from the Cook County Teachers Union (CCTU), representing other full- and part-time faculty from colleges around the city. This group included a contingent from the seven-campus Chicago City Colleges full-time faculty IFT Local 1600, soon to be out of contract.
City Colleges management under Chancellor Juan Salgado (appointed by infamous Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel; and also a Class-C director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) also faces opposition from its part-time faculty NEA/IEA local, which has worked out of contract for two years. (There are two additional union locals at Chicago City Colleges’ community college system: maintenance and custodials in SEIU Local 73, and non-credit faculty in an AFSCME local.)
Other May Day events included an immigrants rights rally, and a large rally and march organized by the Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU negotiated an MOU for teachers and students to attend and participate on a school day (as sensationally reported in local media), thus the rally and march was energized by more than 2500 noisy and excited Chicago Public School students.
Detroit, MI:
Detroit’s main May Day rally at the Roosevelt Park renovated train station site — sponsored by Metro AFL-CIO a first — had about 1000, more than twice the normal turnout for May Day demos in Detroit.
It was much more racially diverse than prior May Days too, which is in part due to the fact that the organized left is a lot whiter than organized labor in general, but also due to the involvement in the planning and building the demonstration by various AFL-CIO constituency organizations (A Philip Randolph Institute, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance). Having said this, Latinx participation seemed lacking.
There was not an “official” march — ostensibly because a permit could not be obtained, although really I think it was more related to skittishness on the part of the Metro AFL-CIO leadership regarding centering anti-ICE demands. About half the crowd marched a mile to the ICE office for a speech and then downtown to the Federal Building for more speeches and chanting.
Instead of marching, some left the rally early to join a practice picket by Teamster nurses at Corewell, a hospital chain in southeast Michigan where nurses recently took a strike authorization vote. They are fighting for their first contract.
There were numerous other May Day and labor centered events in southeast Michigan yesterday. In the morning 100 people turned out at a May Day/contract expiration rally for the GEO graduate student workers’ union at the University of Michigan. The inside/outside march went through several campus buildings.
Madison & Milwaukee, WI:
Two thousand marched on May Day in Milwaukee. In Madison, where most teachers took the day off and the school system was shut down, there were 3000. The immigrant workers’ rights organization Voces de la Frontera was the main organizer of both events, billed as “A Day Without Immigrants: A Day for Solidarity, Truth and Power.”
Speakers at the Milwaukee event included the executive director of Voces, president of the Milwaukee teachers’ union, president of the Milwaukee Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and the son of Salah Sarsour, the Milwaukee Islamic Society president held in ICE detention.
The organized left had a substantial presence in the Milwaukee march, including banners and contingents from FRSO, PSL, DSA, Solidarity and SAlt.
New York City, NY:
May Day Strong was smaller than the No Kings protests, it seemed, but still a success. It also consisted of several activities. In the morning there was a demonstration outside Jeff Bezos’ apartment demanding a contract for Amazon workers. Picketing Amazon corporate offices in midtown was next.
Meanwhile Sunrise shut down every entrance to the New York Stock Exchange (resulting in arrests).
At noon lawyers and court personnel demonstrated outside the Courthouse in lower Manhattan as part of “Law Day.”
In the late afternoon a rally and march, with various assembly points, endorsed by the Central Labor Council, capped the day. At the Washington Square rally Mayor Zohran Mamdani reminded everyone that workers built the city and still keep it going. Other speakers, from Alexandra Ocasio Cortez to representatives from Laborers Local 79 and an immigrant rights organizer set the militant tone for the march.
The overall theme march was the demands to tax the rich and to support immigrants. Unions as well as Latino workers centers, women’s domestic workers, immigrant justice and left groups marched and chanted. Union members with their jackets, banners and printed signs might have been outnumbered by clever homemade signs and many Palestinian flags. As befitting International Workers’ Day, there were also demands for union recognition, higher wages, and safer working conditions, but also opposition to the U.S. war on Iran.
A construction union – Laborers Local 79 — led the May Day march! They, along with PSC (teachers at the city colleges), were the largest union contingents. Also present were in large contingents were hotel workers, SEIU 32 BJ (building workers) with smaller AFSCME, UAW, OPEIU, CWA contingents.
Another large contingent last year was the UFT (teachers), whose relative absence this year was a mystery. There was no Amazon teamster contingent. The Carpenters, who had a decent presence at the No Kings Rally last month, were absent. The same with the Painters union. Also missing were the Hospital Workers 1199.
Last year the largest union contingent was the Transit workers (TWU). But this year they chose to hold a contract rally about a half mile south of Foley Square, where the march ended. (There about 1000 people – small for a contract rally — turned out to hear many uninspiring talk with no mention of May Day.)
For this May Day, DSA emerged from a lukewarm attitude towards mass demonstrations to work hard to build it. Calls to turn out members were made earlier in the week and signs were printed with specific slogans” “Dignity Not Detention,” “We are the Many,” “Abolish ICE,” “New York is a union town.” A DSA contingent of 150-200 marched.
Pittsburgh, PA:
The event was sponsored by Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), with some union involvement, including the United Steel Workers. There were about 300 people in attendance, with union members outnumbered by members of left groups. There were 25 from DSA, small clusters from PSL, Socialist Alternative, Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Revolutionary Communists of America (former Workers International League).
Salt Lake City, UT:
Over 500 Utahns participated in the May Day rally at the City-County Building in downtown Salt Lake City. The demonstration focused on stopping ICE oppression, on workers’ rights and immigrant protections, opposing billionaire government as well as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and Lebanon. The rally was much smaller than recent weekend No Kings demonstrations and it was rhetorically and visually more radical with a strong Party for Socialism and Liberation presence.
The organizing coalition was manifest with Democrat Party leaders known as members of AFSCME and UEA/NEA speaking, e.g. John Arthur was a recent “Teacher of the Year” and is a Utah state legislator. There were speakers from CWA Local 7765, Mormons With Hope mormonswithhope.org, a local Palestine solidarity movement “the 71% Coalition,” and the Salt Lake DSA.
Salt Lake DSA has done the difficult petition gathering work to get Taylor Paden, a CWA Local 7765 activist, on the ballot for the Utah state senate District 13 Democrat Party primary contest in June. The crowd responded enthusiastically to Taylor’s speech. District 13 is a substantially working-class area of southern Salt Lake City and neighboring suburbs.
DSA’s geographic growth was marked by DSA members in Ogden, next major city north of Salt Lake, organizing a small May Day rally there.
Syracuse, NY:
May Day in Syracuse was underwhelming. The local newspaper put size at a generous 400, much smaller than the 3000 at the last No King’s Day that stretched along a suburban strip mall boulevard on a Saturday. Although 15 groups nominally endorsed it, it seemed that Indivisible was unwilling to share in the organizing. Clearly Indivisible’s suburban base did not come into the inner city on a work day.
The Central Labor Council endorsed, but didn’t mobilize their members, not even union officers. No union pushed the No Work part of this May Day mobilization. The only other person with a union jacket or sign was another retired Teamster I know. The leader of the central labor council gave a rah-rah speech without any concrete demands. He has been an SEIU staffer since graduating college.
The only speech substantive speech was the director of the Workers Center of Central New York and a Green Party member. She talked about the wage theft immigrant workers face and about their board and rank-and-file members who have been targeted by ICE for detention and deportation.
The Greens are having a meeting on the housing affordability/homelessness crisis in Syracuse and used the May Day event to organize for it.
In a city that is majority Black and Brown the crowd was almost all white, and mostly of retirement age. That is a reflection of the suburban-based Democratic-oriented leadership of Indivisible in Central NY. But no elected officials, all Democrats in Syracuse, were there.
One participant had a pole mounted with the U.S., Canadian, and Ukrainian flags. He said Canada’s flag was there because Trump had threatened to invade it like Russia invaded Ukraine. He comes out to Invisible events but is not part of any group.
Vancouver, BC Canada:
Called by the Vancouver District Labour Council, May Day 2026 had no real presence from unions. The MC was from Workers Solidarity Network, a Labour Council and BC Federation of Labour supported community organization that does education events about unions. Some officials from the Labour Council were present but did not speak.
The crowd of 100 included a left and international presence. Most notable was a big banner from a domestic migrant worker support group connected to the Communist Party of the Philippines. At least three Iranian groups turned out members, all carrying signs decrying both the war and the Islamic Republic.
The most interesting speakers represented important and current struggles: from the domestic migrant workers group, who are fighting reactionary reforms being brought in by the Carney government, and from the janitor’s union at the airport, which has been fighting for a new contract for over a year.
Despite the inadequacies of this year’s event, reviving Mayday rally and march — and one called by the labour council – hopefully represents a step forward.
Vermont:
There were at least 17 “Workers Over Billionaires” May Day events in Vermont with the largest one in Williston, organized by the Vermont May Day Strong Coalition.
The Coalition was formed in March 2025 as a labor/left organizing center to attempt to mobilize and transform the organized labor movement and social movement allies into a class struggle force. Over 100 attend general meetings; a core group of 30 or so militants are labor activists, members of Green Mountain DSA, PSL, and Tempest.
It has organized mass rallies and marches involving over 1,000 participants since May Day 2025 and organized class struggle contingents for No Kings Day rallies and a Peoples Summit. MDS Coalition also held several Strike-Solidarity Schools to build union and rank-and-file capacities. Each event is seen as steps towards build working-class organization and muscle, with slow progress.
These events are also structure tests, and the results are mixed. Most Vermont unions endorse the big rallies and marches, but only a minority, mostly in the social service, healthcare, educational, and food co-op sectors, have shown the will and capacity to bring out their members.
The fact is that numbers at these rallies are not growing. Just an estimated 1300 participants (mostly working class, young, white, but with a significant number of migrant farmworkers) attended the May Day 2026 march and rally in Williston.
The Indivisible/No Kings Days milieu have pulled back, mostly as they focus on supporting Democrats in the November elections. An additional tension is that this leadership is unwilling to confront the issue of Palestine, prominent in Vermont May Day Strong Coalition activities.
The May Day 2026 event began with a rally featuring union speakers, celebration of new union organizing, and calling on attendees to connect with a number of organizing initiatives.
These include the May 30 Solidarity/Strike School, working with Migrant Justice (a terrific and effective organization founded and led by immigrant farm workers), a Workers Circle (a worker to worker organizing/mentoring space), an AFT-led healthcare “bargaining for the common good” campaign, a Tax the Rich campaign, organizing to make Vermont cities and towns commit to working to end Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.
Following the rally, there was a march to an ICE data center (which shut down for the day) and then to a mass picket at a Hannafords supermarket, which was part of Migrant Justice’s Milk with Dignity campaign.
Leave a Reply