Kay Mann
Posted May 27, 2026
Approximately 5,000 separate actions took place throughout the country (for a report of May Day actions around the country, see the Solidarity webzine “May Day Strong 2026: A Brief Roundup”). Although the size of the actions in terms of participants fell short of the expectations of many, the dynamics surrounding the May Day demonstrations involve encouraging signs for the development of the U.S. labor left and an independent mass working-class-led anti-Trump movement.
Over the past year, three centers of resistance to Trump’s war have emerged. These are the No Kings! demonstrations, of which there have been three massive demonstrations, the most recent being last March 28. No Kings! is a top-down organization led by NGO leaders with deep ties to the Democratic Party. The second center of resistance was the heroic anti-ICE mobilizations, most notably in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and finally the union-led May Day Strong coalition.
There was considerable enthusiasm in radical circles in the months and weeks before May 1. MDS video planning meetings attracted as many as three thousand participants, including high-ranking union officials from large teachers’ unions not known for militancy, like Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a teachers’ union of 1.8 million members. The other large teachers’ union, the nearly three-million-member National Education Association (NEA), is also part of MDS. High school students from the Sunrise Movement reported on their organizing for May Day school walkouts, as did organizers planning boycotts of businesses like Enterprise car rental and Hilton hotels that have rented vehicles to and housed ICE agents.
The size of the actions fell short of the hopes of the organizers. The street demonstrations were far smaller than the No Kings! demonstrations, but as big or perhaps a bit larger than most May Day demonstrations over the last few years. 10,000 marched in New York City on May Day, as opposed to 50,000 at the No Kings! demonstration on March 28. Around 2,000 rallied in Milwaukee on May Day, while several tens of thousands attended the No Kings! march.
Encouraging Trends
The modest size of the actions and the fact that many unions endorsed the actions, but few mobilized their members into large union contingents or called on their members to strike, could be interpreted as the failure of the working class and its organizations to take the lead in the anti-Trump movement represented by the No Kings! and anti-ICE movements. But a closer look at the overall dynamics of May Day, MDS, and the history of labor political action in the U.S. suggests encouraging trends for the development of a mass militant labor response to Trump’s ultra-reactionary assault on immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the environment, democratic rights, and ever-increasing imperialist military assaults.
The coalition issued three demands: “1) Tax the Rich: Our families, not their fortunes, come first. 2) No ICE. No war. No private army serving authoritarian power. 3) Expand democracy, not corporate power. Hands off our vote.” These were class-struggle-based demands putting opposition to ICE and, therefore, defense of immigrants and defense of democratic rights at the fore at a time when both are under serious attack.
The May Day street demonstrations, though much smaller than the No Kings! demonstrations, reflected the same broad front of issues and organizations. Banners and signs were anti-ICE, pro-Palestine, anti-fascist, and defending democratic rights. There were some union contingents, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and many teachers’ unions. A traditionally conservative construction workers union was at the head of the New York City march. Socialist groups like DSA, the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Solidarity, Socialist Alternative, and others had visible presences with banners and contingents.
Significantly, the May Day demonstration in Minneapolis, a city of 370,000 (500,000-600,000 including its “twin city,” St. Paul) that became the center of ICE resistance last winter, drew 10,000 marchers — similar in size to the demonstration in New York City, a city of eight million. This suggests that the anti-ICE movement has created a general dynamic of mobilization that is meshing with the general opposition movement to Trump. Furthermore, the anti-ICE mobilization in Minneapolis on March 23 saw an estimated full quarter of the population take the day off, an impressive de facto strike that MDS certainly found inspiring and suggests great potential for future mass political strike action.
Teacher Strikes and Student Walkouts
Although there were not mass labor strikes, at least twenty school districts cancelled classes in New York City following their teachers’ announcement that they weren’t available for work because they would be attending the May Day “Kids Over Corporations” march.
In Wisconsin, after seventy percent of the teachers in Madison and Milwaukee declared their intention to take the day off, the school administration canceled classes. Even in the conservative anti-union state of North Carolina, the Board of Education, in its biggest city, Charlotte, voted to call off school on May 1 due to the number of staff absences expected that day. The North Carolina teachers’ union mobilized teachers from around the state to march on the legislature, demanding higher taxes on corporations for more school funding.
Chicago teachers and their union, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), convinced the school district to make May 1 an official day of civic education, arranging field trips for students to learn about civil rights, resulting in a de facto student, teacher, and staff walkout with great educational value for Chicago’s largely working-class and people-of-color population. This became especially relevant in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision to eviscerate the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed to ensure Black political representation.
May Day and Labor Day
Until the last few years, May Day demonstrations were mostly organized and usually attended by far-left socialist groups with little if any union endorsement. Though May Day as an international working-class holiday has its roots in the Chicago Haymarket affair of 1886 and the struggle for an eight-hour day, U.S. unions have traditionally celebrated Labor Day, which occurs at the end of the summer, an official holiday that serves to depoliticize the working-class holiday. In fact, in the 1950s President Dwight Eisenhower issued an order that May Day be officially declared “Loyalty Day” an order Trump reissued during his first term. So, May Day as a union-sponsored day of political protest is a relatively recent development, and many unions and sectors of the working class have yet to embrace it as a working-class holiday of social and political protest.
Propaganda for Mass Strikes
The slogans of the demonstration — “No Work, No School, No Shopping” — were novel, intending to send a broad and powerful message of mobilization and resistance. Mass participation in the no-work part — essentially a call for mass strikes or, as some saw it, a general strike — was unlikely given this stage of the U.S. class struggle and structural barriers such as union contracts that prohibit strikes for the duration of contracts, and reactionary legislation like the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act that outlaws secondary or solidarity strikes. But raising the slogan for this year’s May Day action introduces the idea to a much broader layer of the unionized and un-unionized working class. It will serve to help revive and amplify the call issued by Sean Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), for a general strike in 2028 to demand a national health care system, though Fain has done nothing to advance the strike. Nevertheless, many workers in some areas called in sick, or otherwise did not work, but these were not coordinated by the unions. The “No School” portion saw student walkouts throughout the country. The preparations, publicity, and the mobilizations themselves amplify the labor left.
The MDS coalition overlaps with other centers of radical labor organization, such as the networks connected to the Labor Notes newsletter and biannual conferences. The leading role played by teachers’ union and the Chicago Teachers Union, in particular, reflects both its militant leadership and membership and its nexus between militant unionism and defense of immigrant students and families threatened by ICE terror and puts it in the vanguard of the militant wing of the U.S. labor movement and the general anti-Trump movement.
The U.S. May Day actions may be the last mass nationwide demonstrations for the next few months. The high-stakes November “midterm” elections will certainly see much militant organizing energy diverted towards electoral campaigning for Democratic Party candidates. But the groundwork laid in the last months of organizing and propaganda and the development of new networks and organizations augurs well for the development of a radical working-class-led anti-Trump movement and the growth of a militant labor left in the U.S.
This article appeared on the International Viewpoint website on May 21, 2026, here.
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