May Day Rallies Confront Billionaire Assaults

[Omaha Steve]

Members of the Painters union (IUPAT) rallied with 6,000 others in New York City on May 1. In over a thousand rallies around the country, demonstrators united against a dictatorship by and for the rich. Photo: Jenny Brown

https://labornotes.org/2025/05/may-day-rallies-confront-billionaire-assaults

May 02, 2025 / Luis Feliz Leon

Hundreds of thousands of people across the United States rallied, engaged in civil disobedience, or struck on May 1, International Workers’ Day, joining hundreds of thousands around the world. Overall, actions organized by the May Day Strong coalition numbered more than 1,300 across all 50 states in over 1,000 cities and towns, extending into Saturday, May 3. The unifying cry was “Workers Over Billionaires.”

In Philadelphia, 5,000 rallied with Senator Bernie Sanders at City Hall and later engaged in civil disobedience blocking the entrance to the main highway, which resulted in arrests of UNITE HERE Local 274 hotel workers, Teamsters in Local 623, and other union members and community allies.

As I reported for In These Times, "Shafeek Anderson, a seven-year worker at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, said he was motivated to participate because of the spiraling cost-of-living crisis and its impact on his co-workers, many of whom are low-income single parents struggling to make ends meet.”

“We can’t really make a living wage, and we can’t live a life where we can actually flourish,” says Anderson. ’I’ve seen a lot of my co-workers talking about the struggles that they have in their day-to-day lives, the prices of things being unaffordable.”

FULL story at link above.