Overview
- This year's May Day saw thousands of actions across the United States that centered workplace rights while linking them to immigration policy, anti-war demands and solidarity with Palestinians.
- United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, speaking in Chicago, invoked the Haymarket martyrs and urged workers to fight on, calling May 1 the real Labor Day.
- International Workers’ Day traces to the 1886 push for an eight-hour workday, after which Chicago authorities charged 31 people, eight were convicted, three were imprisoned and five were executed, with Louis Lingg dying by suicide in his cell.
- Coverage notes that in 1894 President Grover Cleveland made the first Monday in September the official U.S. Labor Day, a move described as intended to diminish May 1 observances.
- Reporters highlight that immigrant workers revived May Day’s visibility with 2005–2006 megamarches, and unions and immigrant groups again formed the backbone of this year’s multilingual crowds.