This May Day, International Workers’ Day, we are calling every worker, organized and unorganized, employed and unemployed, to hit the streets!
On May 1, workers, students, immigrants, and families in over 1,000 cities nationwide will join May Day actions. They will march, rally, and refuse business as usual to demand one thing: Workers Over Billionaires. Some will take the pledge: “No Work. No School. No Shopping.”
May Day Strong, the coalition leading this year’s actions, includes demands of taxing the billionaires so working families, not big business, come first; no ICE; no war; no private army serving authoritarian power; expand democracy; hands off our vote.
Workers over billionaires is an important slogan. The biggest beneficiary of the Trump regime is monopoly capital itself—the financial oligarchy of trillion-dollar corporations and billionaires who rig the political system, bust our unions, profit from division and war, and bankroll MAGA fascism.
Why is this May Day so crucial?
Because working people are under the most intense assault in generations. We are producing more wealth than workers ever have in history. Yet, as many of us are painfully aware, our wages have flatlined, and layoffs are rising. The share of value returned to us as wages has hit a historic low. Full-time work has grown precarious, and the prices for essential goods and services continue to skyrocket. The rich are getting richer, and we continue to lose ground.
And now, the same Big Tech monopolies driving rapid automation through the adoption of AI—which analysts say will displace 25% of working hours—are leading the charge to strip our basic democratic rights in service of the anti-democratic MAGA agenda.
The attacks on our labor movement are intensifying. Last year, the Trump regime launched the largest union-busting campaign in recent history, stripping collective bargaining from 1.3 million federal workers. They have gutted the National Labor Relations Board. They have purged over 300,000 Black women from the workforce by demolishing DEI and affirmative action. They have escalated ICE raids to terrorize immigrant workers into silence.
This is the crisis our working-class faces and this is why we need to come out as strong and unified as possible this May Day. For us, it is not a single event but another launchpad for continued mass organizing.
What are we demanding?
This May Day, the Communist Party USA Labor Commission calls for a working-class program that can unite the multiracial, multi-gender, multi-generational working class and our allies—civil rights, women, youth, LGBTQ, immigrant defense, and peace movements.
- Six-hour day, no cut in pay – automation and the adoption of AI should make life better and more secure for workers, not less. Share the wealth we produce.
- Equal pay for equal work – across race, gender, and immigration status.
- Break up the big monopolies!
- No union-busting – pass the PRO Act!
- Tax the rich! Fund jobs, housing, schools, and healthcare.
- Cut the military budget, close the bases, end the forever wars!
- Hands off Cuba! No war on Iran!
- Boycott Target and all corporations that have backed away from equal opportunity.
- No ICE, no raids, no occupation of our cities – defend immigrant workers as our own.
These are not just slogans but concrete demands we can fight for and win now that also build the class consciousness and collective power we need to go further. They link the struggle against Trump directly to the struggle against the monopolies and the entire capitalist system which perpetuates the crisis.
Look at the lessons from Minnesota. When they shut down the state against ICE occupation—with the Minnesota AFL-CIO, Service Employees, Teachers, Unite HERE, ATU, and others leading—they showed what is possible when organized labor, workers, community groups, and faith organizations come together. What happened in Minnesota is a model: labor as the leading force in a broad, struggle-oriented, anti-monopoly coalition.
Importantly, the same monopolies that drive down our wages, bust our unions, and lay off our fellow workers operate internationally. They consciously pit workers of different countries against each other, including in wars, to maximize their profits. In response, our resistance must reflect international solidarity.
That is why we say: No war! Cut the military budget! Close the bases! End the forever wars! U.S. imperialism must be defeated! From Palestine to Cuba to Iran to our own ICE-occupied streets, we stand for peace and international solidarity.
We must redouble our efforts to end the criminal blockade on Cuba and demand its immediate removal from the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list. Add to that ending the imperialist war on Iran, as well as an end to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
This May Day, we march for all of this.
Join a May Day Strong action if one exists in your area. If your central labor council or union is involved, link up with them. If not, organize an event with your co-workers, your neighbors, and your community. Bring the civil rights and youth movements with you. If you can, take the pledge: No Work. No School. No Shopping.
And when you are in the streets, talk to each other. Make connections. Build unity. Organize!
This May Day, we aren’t just protesting Trump and MAGA; we are building the working class-led pro-democracy coalition that can lead us out of this crisis and toward a socialist future where the people and the planet come before profits.
Register and come to the People’s World May Day webinar on Thursday, April 16 at 8:00 PM EST to discuss, strategize, and plan for International Workers’ Day.
And on May 1st – we’ll see you in the streets.
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