In cities across the US, including Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York City, Denver, Boston, and Los Angeles, thousands of workers took to the streets to mark International Workers’ Day and the broad and growing opposition to the Trump administration.
Happening Now: Thousands of protesters gathered at Boston Common this May Day to rally against the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. pic.twitter.com/8otIT8SHP3
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) May 1, 2025
Workers also took to the streets in cities across the US South, including Raleigh, South Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, some of the most hostile states to organized labor and workers rights, where many workers make far lower wages than the rest of the country.
This #MayDay, workers across the South – from North Carolina and Atlanta and beyond – showed up to demand an end to the billionaire agenda and stand up for e/o, better schools, better pay, and better futures. We are many, we will win!!#MayDay2025 #MayDayStrong #UnionsForAll pic.twitter.com/egWMuagZ8f
— Union of Southern Service Workers (@RaiseUptheSouth) May 2, 2025
May Day’s US origins
International Workers’ Day is commemorated every May 1 as an annual worker’s holiday of special importance to organized labor, social movements, and organizations and political parties on the left around the world. But the fact that this holiday originated in the United States to mark the Haymarket affair in Chicago – is one concealed within the US itself, where May Day celebrations have been suppressed for decades. While most of the world commemorates May Day as a holiday and a day off work, in the US it is not a federally recognized holiday, nor is it generally marked as a workers’ day. In 1955, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared May 1 to be “Loyalty Day,” a day to reinforce patriotism within the country that evolved out of the political environment of the Red Scare.
In 2025, Trump seems determined to revive this Red Scare-type atmosphere. Since 1955 US Presidents have issued “Loyalty Day” proclamations on May 1, but the statement issued by the second Trump administration is particularly blatant: “First proclaimed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955, Loyalty Day was inaugurated to directly counter commemorations of May Day – which was frequently celebrated by communist groups – and to serve as a beacon of hope to all those still blighted by the horrors and injustices of communism and tyranny.”
Trump declares “solidarity with the innumerable people across the world currently under captivity by communist leaders,” while continuing to do “the work to restore justice in our courtrooms, order on our streets, and respect for our laws.”
As the Trump administration furthers policies such as mass deportations, a crackdown of free speech on college campuses and beyond, the arrests of activists and labor leaders, threats to social programs and collective bargaining rights, May Day demonstrations across the country took up the mantle of uniting the opposition to all such policies. May Day marches and rallies took up a decidely anti-Trump character this year.
Happening Now: Thousands rally for May Day against Trump billionaire agenda in Foley Square #newyorkcity pic.twitter.com/7GSV9jiwYO
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) May 1, 2025
Thousands of Philly workers rally for May Day
Senator Bernie Sanders, who himself ran for president on a socialist platform in 2016 and 2020, addressed a crowd of thousands gathered on May 1 in the heart of Philadelphia, saying that Trump’s presidency “has made it very clear what we are talking about when we talk about oligarchy.”
“Oligarchy is a president, who when he gets inaugurated, he doesn’t hide it, right behind him are the three wealthiest people in America: Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg. And right behind them are 13 other billionaires who [Trump] has appointed to head major government agencies.”
Sanders also denounced the Trump administration’s continued funding of Israeli forces, saying that, “instead of spending trillions of dollars a years on the military, instead of giving billions of dollars to Netanyahu and his horrific war against the people of Gaza, we can cut military spending and build five million units of low income and affordable housing.”
Organized workers from various sectors of the economy had a strong showing on May Day in Philadelphia – from healthcare workers organized with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to hotel workers with UNITE HERE, to graduate students organized with the United Auto Workers (UAW), and many others. Organized labor has played an important role in the first three months of the second Trump administration in standing in the way of various policies, taking legal action against mass layoffs of federal workers, which has triggered the administration to strip collective bargaining rights away from nearly one million government workers.
According to Richard Hooker Jr. the Secretary Treasurer and Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, Trump is a “dictator.” In an interview with Peoples Dispatch, Hooker referenced Trump’s termination of the collective bargaining agreement for 50,000 employees at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) back in March. “Any attack to any worker is an attack to all workers,” Hooker said. “Today it’s them, tomorrow it could be you.”
Hooker and other Philadelphia union and faith leaders were later arrested following a march of thousands after participating in a civil disobedience action, sitting down together in the street on the intersection of Broad and Vine streets. Demonstrators chanted labor slogans such as “get up, get down, Philly is a union town!” and held signs reading “Workers over billionaires” and “Stop the billionaire takeover!”
Philadelphia police arrested 70 protesters for obstructing the streets, some of whom continued to chant slogans while being led away by police in zip-ties, including shouts of “Free Palestine!”
Workers present at the May Day rally in Philadelphia also made connections between Trump’s anti-worker policies to his administration’s targeting of immigrants for deportation. Aicha Tahirou, a hotel worker at the Radisson Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia and a member of UNITE-HERE, told Peoples Dispatch that she joined the demonstration because “we deserve healthcare, we deserve better wages, we deserve to live peacefully with our families, no matter where they come from, if they were born here or not.”
“It doesn’t matter your color, immigrant, born here, or not, they just have to let us live in peace. Right now, we are scared, a lot of people are scared,” Tahirou said.
