{"id":39495,"date":"2026-05-02T16:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T14:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=39495"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T14:11:11","slug":"a-moment-of-reckoning-4000-may-day-demonstrations-across-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=39495","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A Moment of Reckoning\u2019: 4,000+ May Day Demonstrations Across US"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .<\/p>\n

An article by Stephen Prager from Common Dreams<\/a> (licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)<\/p>\n

In thousands of locations across the\u00a0United States,\u00a0workers\u00a0and students are taking off from work and school and swearing off shopping on Friday as part of a national May Day\u00a0protest.<\/p>\n

May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and\u00a0unions\u00a0organizing the events, said more than 4,000 actions, from marches to pickets to displays of peaceful\u00a0civil disobedience, were underway.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

It is yet another nationwide display of coordinated resistance to the Trump administration\u2019s agenda, including its war in Iran and its use of US\u00a0Immigration\u00a0and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to attack immigrant communities, issues that were at the forefront of\u00a0March\u2019s \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests.<\/p>\n

Six young protesters with the\u00a0Sunrise Movement\u00a0were taken into\u00a0custody\u00a0<\/a> after blocking a bridge in Minneapolis in what they said was an act of \u201cnonviolent noncooperation\u201d to \u201cstand up to the war in Iran and against ICE terrorizing our neighbors and our cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens more Sunrise protesters in Portland held a sit-in in the lobby of a Hilton hotel that was housing top officials with the Department of Homeland Security, leading to\u00a0eight arrests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s May 1st, it\u2019s workers\u2019 day,\u201d one of the protesters was recorded saying while being led away by police. \u201cDon\u2019t forget that you have power.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New York, over 100 activists\u00a0lined up\u00a0<\/a> outside\u00a0every entrance\u00a0<\/a> to the New York Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan, banging drums and chanting \u201cNo ICE, no war!\u201d where they were met by a flood of cops.<\/p>\n

In the spirit of May Day, a global day of\u00a0solidarity\u00a0among workers, Sulma Arias, the executive director of the\u00a0social justice\u00a0organization People\u2019s Action, said Friday\u2019s \u201cWorkers Over Billionaires\u201d\u00a0protests\u00a0are just as much about confronting injustices as about building an alternative.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the \u2018No Kings\u2019 demonstrations, we showed what we\u2019re against. May Day is the day we\u2019re making clear what we are fighting for,\u201d Arias said. \u201cWe are for\u00a0affordable housing\u00a0for low-income people. We are for free\u00a0healthcare\u00a0for all. We are for utility laws that ensure every home stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer at costs that a person on a fixed income can afford. We are for the right to a fair and equal vote for Americans from every race and in every state. May Day is our day to assert and defend our rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite\u00a0claims\u00a0by President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0that the US is entering an economic \u201cgolden age\u201d under his leadership, a\u00a0Gallup poll\u00a0<\/a> released this week found that 55% of Americans said their finances were getting worse, the highest number ever recorded in more than 20 years of polling, and even higher than in the doldrums of the Great Recession.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nQuestion related to this article:<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
\n 
\nWhat is the contribution of trade unions to the culture of peace?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(article continued from left column)<\/p>\n

A coalition of labor unions across several major cities, including\u00a0Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, has\u00a0coordinated\u00a0<\/a> what has been called an \u201ceconomic blackout,\u201d which includes avoiding buying from private sector retailers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we say \u2018workers over billionaires,\u2019 \u2018billionaires\u2019 is not just this amorphous figure, right? They\u2019re real people,\u201d said Jana Korn, the chief of staff for the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, in an\u00a0interview\u00a0<\/a> with The Real News Network. \u201cIn Philadelphia, we\u2019re kind of a poor city. We don\u2019t have that many billionaires, but we have one. The CEO of\u00a0Comcast\u00a0is the only billionaire that lives in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo why should we, as a city, accept that they take and take from us? And then with that money, what do they do? They\u00a0donate\u00a0<\/a> to Trump\u2019s ballroom project,\u201d she continued. \u201cPeople in Philadelphia are struggling… Our\u00a0transportation\u00a0system barely works. We\u2019re at risk of having 17 schools\u00a0close down\u00a0<\/a> this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some labor organizers have described economic boycotts,\u00a0undertaken\u00a0<\/a> as part of prior mass protest movements against the second\u00a0Trump administration, as an act of building strength for something larger, such as a\u00a0future general strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think really for us in the labor movement,\u201d Korn said, \u201c[the boycott is] about how do we build the capacity to really disrupt, to strike when necessary, to shut things down when we have to. And that\u2019s something that we have not been called to do as a labor movement in a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other unions have used May Day to confront their own employers directly. In New Orleans, hundreds of nurses at University Medical Center announced that they were beginning a\u00a0five-day strike\u00a0<\/a> after attempting to negotiate a contract for more than two years.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0New York City, Amazon workers unionized with the Teamsters assembled on the steps of the public library before marching to Amazon\u2019s corporate offices to demand the company cut its contracts with ICE, which has used its cloud computing services to\u00a0target immigrants<\/a>, including some Amazon workers and contractors.<\/p>\n

Matt Multari, who has worked as an Amazon driver for a year and a half,\u00a0told Mother Jones\u00a0<\/a> that he joined the protest to \u201cdemand the one thing that\u2019s worth fighting for in this life: respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said, \u201cMay Day is a moment of reckoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigrant communities\u2014from farmworkers in our fields to nurses in our hospitals, from\u00a0refugees\u00a0fleeing war to families who have built their lives here for generations\u2014are under siege,\u201d she said. \u201cThey want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWorkers and immigrants\u2014documented and undocumented, native-born and newly arrived,\u201d she said, \u201cwill stand together in the streets because we know the truth: there is no workers\u2019 rights without immigrant rights, and there is no justice for working people here while our tax dollars fund devastation abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

– – – – – –<\/p>\n

If you wish to make a comment on this article, you may write to coordinator@cpnn-world.org with the title “Comment on (name of article)” and we will put your comment on line. Because of the flood of spam, we have discontinued the direct application of comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . . An article by Stephen Prager from Common Dreams (licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) In thousands of locations across the\u00a0United States,\u00a0workers\u00a0and students are taking off from work and school and swearing off shopping on Friday as part of a national May Day\u00a0protest. May Day Strong, a coalition of … Continue reading \u2018A Moment of Reckoning\u2019: 4,000+ May Day Demonstrations Across US<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,91],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-39495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democracy","category-north-america","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39499,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39495\/revisions\/39499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}