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Federal Court Blocks 'Blatantly Illegal' Trump Effort to Restructure USDA
The coalition behind a lawsuit challenging the plan called the ruling “a welcome reprieve to the Trump-Vance administration’s reckless, unlawful, and disruptive reorganization."
Oct 14, 2026
A federal court in California on Tuesday order the US Department of Agriculture to halt any further enactment of a plan by President Donald Trump to dramatically restructure the agency, which public workers unions and pro-democracy advocates argued in court was unlawful.
The order from the US District Court of the Northern District of California came in response to a lawsuit brought by four unions representing various USDA workers within the agency as well as a broader group of advocacy organizations and conservationists who warned the reorganization would hurt not only USDA workers but farmers, consumers, and the nation's agricultural system as a whole.
The temporary injunction issued by the court forbids agency officials from using congressionally appropriated money to fund the restructuring plan, stating that “on the facts of this case, the most appropriate remedy is indeed to stay USDA’s reorganization expenditures, full stop.”
In a statement, the coalition behind the lawsuit, called the ruling “a welcome reprieve to the Trump-Vance administration’s reckless, unlawful, and disruptive reorganization of USDA."
The agency, the statement continues, "provides vital services across America, supporting rural communities, protecting our food supply, feeding families, advancing agricultural research, guarding our forests and public lands, and so much more. We look forward to achieving more permanent relief and continuing to fight for American families, farmers, and workers.”
The plaintiffs explained that the worker relocations and shuttering of key facilities at the USDA would have "made the food on American tables less safe, wildfires harder to fight, and rural communities wait longer for help, all while leaving farmers with less support." The coalition alleges that Trump's USDA leadership "knew forced relocation would drive out its experienced people and never once studied what losing that expertise would do to the department’s ability" to fulfill its duties mandated by federal law.
“Congress told USDA in plain language that it could not close offices and uproot its workforce without permission. USDA did it anyway, so AFGE and our partners took them to court. These forced moves were never about efficiency. They were about pushing experienced people out the door.” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), one of the four unions behind the suit. “Today’s ruling keeps those workers on the job serving the American people, and AFGE and our allies will keep fighting for as long as it takes to make sure this administration follows the law.”
AFSCME President Patrick Moran said the Trump administration's effort "to gut this essential agency is blatantly illegal, and we’re thankful the court has stopped it, for now, from proceeding with a reckless plan that would threaten public benefits like SNAP, endanger public safety by hindering wildfire response, and hurt American farmers at a time working families can least afford it."
As Politico notes, the order could be "short-lived," due to possible appeal and the fact that the current appropriations cycle for the USDA funds in question runs out in approximately two months. After that, if Congress approves money for future restructuring, the Trump administration could ultimately gets its way, though the opposition coalition has vowed to continue their resistance.
“Congress, not the President, still determines the mission and functions of federal agencies created by statute, and Congress has drawn the line to say no to this reorganization," said Corinne Johnson, a partner with Altshuler Berzon, the lead legal counsel for the coalition. "On behalf of our clients, we will continue to ask the courts to hold that line.”
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'The Membership Has Spoken': Shawn Fain Overwhelmingly Wins Reelection as UAW President
"These results are about taking on corporate America and reversing the worst out-of-control wealth inequality in America’s history."
Oct 10, 2026
Shawn Fain, who has emerged as one of the most prominent labor leaders in the United States, handily won reelection as president of the United Auto Workers, according to an unofficial tally released Friday.
“The membership has spoken,” Fain, who led the UAW through historic strikes against the Big Three Detroit automakers in 2023, said in a statement. "These results are about taking on corporate America and reversing the worst out-of-control wealth inequality in America’s history. We are fighting for the entire working class, whether that’s at the bargaining table, organizing new members, or in the political arena.”
Fain secured over 68% of the vote in his bid for another four-year term, according to the tally released by United UAW, whose slate of candidates includes Fain. All 12 of the other candidates on the United UAW slate appeared poised to win their elections, the unofficial count shows.
"Under our leadership, we successfully organized Volkswagen Chattanooga and won a first contract that provides job security, life-changing wages and benefits, and inspiration for tens of thousands of non-union auto workers to join our union," United UAW says on its platform. "Let’s keep it going. Our strike fund is strong, our army is growing bigger, wages are up, and we are ready to keep taking on corporate America."
The union election results came months after US President Donald Trump's Justice Department launched an investigation into Fain over claims that the UAW leader abused his authority to seek benefits for his fiancée and her sister. Fain has denied the allegations and condemned the probe as politically motivated.
Fain has also accused the UAW's court-appointed federal monitor, Neil Barofsky, of pursuing "trumped-up claims" against him due to a "political grudge" over the union president's outspoken support for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
Gary Chynoweth, vice chair of UAW Member Action, said in a statement Friday that "the members chose Fain, despite the monitor’s best efforts to create turbulence, because we’re ready to fight for retirement healthcare and protection from AI layoffs in 2028."
"Our work now is to keep helping members step up as leaders in a union that’s ready to fight," said Chynoweth.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a top ally of organized labor, congratulated Fain for winning reelection, calling him "one of the great union leaders in our country."
"He has taken on the billionaire class, won strong victories for his members and understands the need to organize, organize, organize," the senator wrote on social media. "Solidarity forever!"
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Hundreds of Schools Closed Across France as Students Demand More Education Funding
Some protests at schools have devolved into chaos in recent days, but students maintained they are peacefully demanding more support for schools.
Oct 02, 2026
Left-wing French political leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Friday that labor unions across the country were planning to strike next week alongside students who have been protesting poor school conditions and teacher shortages, as demonstrators reported unwarranted force by the police and the protests devolved into violence in parts of France.
The French justice minister said Friday that "an active and violent minority" of demonstrators has pushed widening protests against poor education funding into chaos, with fires being set at some schools, dozens of teachers an principals injured, and a police officer in northeastern France reportedly attacked by a mob.
Meanwhile, one student outside Lycée Voltaire in Paris held a sign that read, “School is a right, not a privilege," and a 17-year-old identified as Yves by The Guardian said he and his classmates were "totally pacifist" as they peacefully blocked the entrance to the school, joined by some of their teachers.
“The atmosphere on this barricade is generally very calm,” Yves said. “But there have been other people from outside school who have come past and tried to set fire to things, so we’ve tried to move the bins to stop that.”
The high school is one of many that students say have suffered from teacher shortages and neglect by the government, with students struggling to learn in classrooms packed with 40 children or more. Some protesters reported dilapidated school buildings in the European Union's second-largest economy, inequality in which a child's "social background" decides their success in school, excessively long school days that have done nothing to improve international rankings, and infrastructure that is ill-equipped for the soaring temperatures the climate emergency brought this summer.
“It was unbearable sitting exams in 35°C-40°C heat, even the teachers said those were impossible conditions," a 19-year-old student named Sofiane told The Guardian. Sofiane also expressed concerns that the government may end food assistance for low-income students.
On Thursday, the French government announced spending cuts in its 2027 budget.
“The education budget is being cut to shreds while so much extra funding is being put into the army,” a student named Sophia told The Guardian.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin told RTL Radio that officials are "not entirely sure" that protesters who have set fires to schools and perpetrated violence in the protests, which began last month in Paris before spreading across the country, "are even high school students themselves."
"We have gone from high school student demonstrations to a public order disturbance," said Darmanin.
Authorities said more than 560 schools were closed Friday due to the unrest, and Darmanin said police have made about 2,000 arrests of young people.
In Marseille, prosecutors said Thursday that two teachers had been assaulted by students who poured gasoline on them, but The Guardian reported Friday that the teachers had been inadvertently hit with the gasoline when a student was throwing it into a trash can.
At least two high schools in Paris were damaged by fire on Friday morning.
But Mélenchon, a presidential candidate and the leader of the left-wing party France Unbowed, suggested that demands for order from his opponent, the far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, were disingenuous.
"Ms. Le Pen calls for the restoration of order," said Mélenchon. "What order is she talking about?! The daily disorder that our youth experience? Our adversaries live in a parallel reality."
Students on Friday accused police of using tear gas to disperse protests, and an investigation was being conducted into a police officer's alleged beating of a 14-year-old boy in Val d’Oise, outside Paris. The boy suffered severe injuries to his mouth and jaw. The officer also reportedly launched a rubber bullet, and the family's lawyer said the boy had thought he was "going to die."
"The government has opted for a crude and dangerous escalation," said Mélenchon on Friday.
On Thursday, one student in Saint-Denis held a sign that read, "Can we explain ourselves without being tear-gassed?"
Mélenchon said a strike in solidarity with the students by French labor unions was "taking shape for October 6, thanks to the decisive action of the trade union confederations."
"Everywhere, delegations of workers are forming to ensure the protection of young people," he said. "The government must stop playing at violence and festering. And completely revise its 'education' copy in the budget!"
"Join the October 6 demonstrations by wearing a white armband!" Mélenchon urged workers. "Step in to protect our youth!"
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Union Report Warns Electronic Shelf Labels Could Kill Jobs and Crush Wages
Some states are cracking down on "surveillance pricing." But a report out from the AFL-CIO suggests that the risk of electronic shelf labels are much broader than just price gouging.
Sep 09, 2026
Lawmakers are already raising concerns that electronic shelf labels could be used by grocery chains to jack up prices on shoppers. But the technology could also be used to shrink paychecks and kill jobs, according to a report out Wednesday from the research arm of the AFL-CIO.
The new report examines marketing materials used by electronic shelf label (ESL) companies to sell their products to grocery chains. It finds that they are often billed as a tool allowing retailers to save on labor costs, automate work, and reduce hours for real employees.
"Grocery giants like to claim that electronic shelf labels will free up workers to serve customers directly, but this report shows this is not the case," said Ademola Oyefeso, the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents over 800,000 grocery industry employees. "Using studies and marketing material from the manufacturers pushing the technology, we know ESLs could actually cost workers and their families billions of dollars in lost income."
The AFL-CIO Tech Institute, which conducted the report, examined studies from two ESL manufacturers, Pricer and Vusion Group, that examined how their systems were used at specific stores.
The 2022 study by Pricer found that by automating price changes, its system saved one store about 5,200 worker hours annually. Vusion, meanwhile, found in 2024 that its technology saved about 600 hours of work over about six months, or 1,200 annually.
Using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the AFL-CIO projected that at these rates, were the technology to be adopted at all of the nearly 60,000 grocery stores in the US, it would reduce the number of worker hours annually by anywhere from 71 million to 308 million.
Using hourly wage data, they found that this translated to the loss of between $1.61 billion-$6.97 billion in annual wages and between 44,000-192,000 full-time jobs. That's anywhere from $608 to $2,633 per employee.
The issue of using ESLs to gouge customers has already become an area of focus for lawmakers in Congress. Earlier this year, Democrats in the US House and Senate introduced legislation to prohibit "surveillance pricing," which involves targeting individual shoppers with increased prices by analyzing their personal data.
Surveillance pricing has been used in e-commerce to fluctuate prices for individual consumers of everything from grocery delivery to airline tickets. But as facial recognition and other surveillance technologies grow more powerful, fears have grown that ESLs could be used to bring surveillance practices into the physical realm.
“Through our analysis, we found that the implementation of electronic shelf labels are likely going to drive prices even higher. The reason being that these labels are connected to the same algorithmic pricing software that online retailers are already using,” said Sunny Glottmann, the policy and programs manager at the AFL-CIO Tech Institute and co-author of the report.
"Electronic shelf labels create the infrastructure that would make rapid algorithmic price changes easier to implement at scale, and this raises concerns for consumers that are already struggling with grocery costs," Glottmann said.
At least three states—Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey—have banned some forms of surveillance pricing, and other states are also considering a ban.
Unions like the AFL-CIO and UFCW say that legislating only against surveillance pricing is much too narrow, encompassing only a small segment of the dangers posed by ESLs.
"Policymakers should ban ESLs outright, rather than rely on narrower disclosure or dynamic-pricing laws that leave the underlying technology in place," the AFL-CIO report says, noting New Jersey's one-year moratorium on the technology as a good starting place.
"When grocery store workers lose income, that means less money to spend at other stores and businesses in the community," Oyefeso said. "Banning this technology should be a top priority for lawmakers at every level, like New Jersey has done with a moratorium on ESLs and a ban on predatory pricing practices outright. More states should follow suit to protect both shoppers and workers.”
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On Labor Day, Mamdani Announces First-of-Its-Kind 'Office of Worker Power' in NYC
"We’re setting it up to help workers organize in an economy where more and more is stacked against them."
Sep 07, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked Labor Day on Monday by announcing a new Office of Worker Power, an initiative aimed at bolstering union organizing at a time when wage growth is being swallowed by inflation and corporations are fighting as aggressively as ever to prevent employees from wielding their collective strength.
"This is a first-of-its-kind office in the country, and we’re setting it up to help workers organize in an economy where more and more is stacked against them," Mamdani said of the new project, which will "utilize city government to help workers organize themselves and build power to improve their working conditions and their lives."
"We created the first-in-the-nation Office of Worker Power to put the full weight of City Hall behind the people who keep New York running," said Mamdani. "The nurse working a double shift. The teacher working a second job. The warehouse workers organizing for a union. Every New Yorker working hard to build a life and support a family. On Labor Day, we honor the workers who came before us by fighting for the workers who come next."
Julie Su, the former acting US Labor Secretary who now serves as New York City's deputy mayor for economic justice, will oversee the new office, which will be led by longtime union organizer Tony Perlstein.
"When workers can organize, everything changes," said Su. "When they can build lasting, durable power, power that lets them transform their work experience, and by extension their lives, everything changes."
The office's website, debuted amid the Trump administration's assault on labor unions at the national level, includes a "get help" section that contains information on how workers interested in organizing can contact city officials, who will "share what you need to know and connect you with organizations that support workers like you."
"Someone might come to this office because they’re a worker and they want to better their own conditions, or the conditions of those around them, and they’re not sure where to go next," Mamdani told Jacobin in an interview. "In New York City, it’s very hard to know who you should call about any of these issues. Now we’re saying you will soon be able to go to nyc.gov/workerpower and finally get the kind of information you need, so that you know what rights you already have available to you and what rights you can win."
BREAKING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces a first-of-its-kind office focused on organizing workers in New York City.
The Mayor’s Office of Worker Power will provide workers with resources needed to organize their workplaces, hold public hearings on major worker issues, and more. pic.twitter.com/tkOg3s3fpn
— Jacobin (@jacobin) September 7, 2026
A recent report by the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies found that "while union density remains strong in New York, membership rates remain largely unchanged, despite renewed organizing, successful strikes, and strong public support for labor."
"Union density stands at 20.5% in New York City and 20.9% statewide, more than double the national rate of 10%, yet well below levels recorded two decades ago," the report notes.
Perlstein, the leader of the new Office of Worker Power who previously served as an organizing director at the United Auto Workers, told reporters that "there is a huge gap between what workers want and what workers have." Perlstein pointed to a recent Gallup survey showing that more than 70% of Americans approve of labor unions—a figure far higher than the unionization rate.
“We’re going to be looking to provide opportunities to working-class New Yorkers to get educated on their rights to form unions and what it means to build power,” said Perlstein. “We’re going to work to connect workers to organizations that can help them build that power.”
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Unions Decry Spanberger Veto of Collective Bargaining Bill as ‘Betrayal to Virginia's Workers’
“We believed that she was being authentic and honest with us," said one Virginia labor leader. "She just flat-out flipped."
May 15, 2026
Labor unions are feeling betrayed after Virginia's Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have restored collective bargaining rights for half a million public sector workers.
Virginia is one of the most restrictive states in the country for public sector bargaining, a holdover from the Jim Crow era when the General Assembly and other state legislatures across the South sought to crush the power of a public workforce with many Black employees.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, Virginia has one of the largest public sector pay gaps in the country, with state and local government employees making about 27% less on average than their private-sector peers, and it is similarly stratified in other states with weak collective bargaining rights.
Spanberger, a former US representative who was elected governor this past November, made pro-union messaging central to her affordability-focused platform. She decried President Donald Trump's executive order stripping federal workers of collective bargaining rights last year and said that as governor, she'd "look forward to working with members of our General Assembly to make sure more Virginians can negotiate for the benefits and fair treatment that they earn.”
But since taking office, Spanberger's support for restoring public sector union rights has been more tepid as she's gotten an earful from fiscally conservative Right-to-Work and taxpayer advocacy groups who claimed higher salaries for public employees would drain state funds and raise the cost of services.
When a bill to immediately mandate collective bargaining rights to 500,000 workers was proposed in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, she introduced amendments aimed at watering down the bill—making it optional for employers to recognize unions, delaying the full implementation until 2030, and introducing what unions called a "kill-switch" that would have allowed future governors to revoke collective bargaining power.
The legislature shot Spanberger's amendments down and passed the bill in its original form. On Thursday, the governor vetoed it altogether.
In her veto message, Spanberger said she wanted the bill's other collective bargaining provisions for state employees, home care workers, and higher education employees to go into effect first "in order to demonstrate the efficacy of this new system" before it was opened up to all public employees.
But the unions that advocated for the bill say Spanberger led workers on with false promises.
"This veto is a devastating betrayal to the hundreds of thousands of public employees who have spent years, and in many cases decades, fighting for a seat at the table," said Doris Crouse-Mays, the president of the Virginia AFL-CIO. "Spanberger campaigned publicly and privately on promises [of] affordability, to support working families and respect workers' rights... Instead, when presented with the opportunity to make history and deliver on those promises, she chose to side with fear, political calculation, business, and the same anti-worker arguments that have been used for generations to deny workers power in Virginia."
LaNoral Thomas, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Virginia 512—a union which helped lead the charge to pass the bill—told the Virginia news site Dogwood that her union had "high hopes" for Spanberger when she was elected.
“We believed that she was being authentic and honest with us," Thomas said. "She just flat-out flipped. It is shocking.”
"Public employees are not a special interest. They are our neighbors. They are the educators, bus drivers, social workers, librarians, custodians, and first responders who hold our communities together," said a joint statement from Carol Bauer, president of the Virginia Education Association, and Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association.
They emphasized that the veto also carried "a deep racial and gender impact," noting that "Virginia’s public sector bargaining ban is rooted in a Jim Crow era effort to silence Black workers at the University of Virginia Hospital who organized for fair pay and dignity." They said, "Preserving that legacy today disproportionately harms women and workers of color, who make up so much of the public-service workforce and who have the most to gain from fair wages, safer workplaces, and a real voice on the job."
Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—the largest national union of public sector workers in the US, with more than 1.4 million members—said that Spanberger had caved to "anti-worker extremists [who] have sidelined working people while starving the public services Virginia families rely on, earning the state a reputation as one of the most anti-worker in the country."
"While the governor has broken her word," Saunders said, "AFSCME members are deeply grateful to the bill’s sponsors and the leadership of both chambers, who kept theirs. Their commitment to working people stands in stark contrast to the governor and will not be forgotten."
"Gov. Spanberger made a choice today," he added. "Working people will remember it."
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Miles and Miles of Protest in Bolivia as Miners and Unions March Against Privatization and Low Wages
Peasants' unions and other groups are protesting a law that they say would allow corporate control of small farmers' land, as well as fuel shortages and a low minimum wage.
May 14, 2026
An economic crisis and the repeal of a crucial gas subsidy, fuel shortages, and a law that opponents say will allow the encroachment of corporate interests on Indigenous and peasant lands are among the central concerns of thousands of miners and other workers who have joined a march from Bolivia's northern Amazon territories to La Paz, with a major miners union in the capital joining the protest on Wednesday.
The Federation of Mining Cooperatives of La Paz and an influential peasant union met land workers and Indigenous representatives this week as they arrived in the capital after having marched 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) "for over 20 days from the tropics into freezing high-altitude terrain, many wearing nothing more substantial on their feet than plastic sandals," as Olivia Arigho-Stiles reported at Jacobin.
At least 50 marchers required medical treatment last week for exhaustion, dehydration, and other ailments, but the unions are showing no sign of ending the general strike that was begun by Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), with the mass mobilization also including at least 70 road blockades around the country, according to the Bolivia Highway Association.
TeleSUR reported that the entry of the miners union signified "a substantial increase in pressure" on right-wing President Rodrigo Paz, whose resignation some workers' organizations are calling for.
The Federation of Mining Cooperatives joined the ongoing marches and protests after Paz failed to attend a scheduled dialogue. Miners have been alarmed by the scarcity of fuel, "a dire shortage of essential explosive material, and significant delays in the liberation of new areas designated for mining exploitation," reported TeleSUR.
The broader protests began in response to stagnant, low wages as well as Law 1720, which the government has claimed will benefit small-scale farmers by allowing them to obtain mortgages after converting their smallholdings into "medium-size" businesses.
But Roger Adan Chambi, an Aymara lawyer and specialist in Indigenous land law, told Jacobin that the measure was passed "without consulting the sectors it was supposed to benefit (peasants and small producers), jeopardizing legal security and constitutional guarantees regarding land ownership."
“Far from being an opportunity for small producers to access credit, this law weakens the property rights of peasants and Indigenous communities, especially those resisting on the agricultural frontier,” Chambi said. “Structural insecurity and the lack of basic services will, in the future, force them to mortgage or sell their plots, facilitating dispossession and the transfer of land to corporations.”
Oscar Cardoza, a peasant union leader and a representative of the marchers, declared at a public gathering in La Paz this week: “Our life is collective, not individual. The land must be respected; it’s not for sale.”
Al Jazeera reported that the end of a fuel subsidy, which was cut after Paz took office last year during what he called an "economic, financial, energy, and social emergency," also pushed COB to issue the call for a general strike.
The subsidy had been crucial for working Bolivians, and the cut has made quality fuel increasingly inaccessible.
"Starting today, a general, indefinite, and active strike is declared, until the government understands the people’s demands,” COB secretary-general Mario Argollo told a group of 1,000 supporters on May 1.
The union is also calling for a 20% increase to the nation’s minimum wage, which currently sits at 3,300 bolivianos ($477.71) per month.
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May Day 2026: What Kind of Nation Will This Be?
This year's May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights.
May 01, 2026
Unlike the rest of the world's democracies, the United States doesn't use the metric system, doesn't require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn't abolished the death penalty, and doesn't celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.
Outside the US, May 1 is international workers' day, observed with speeches, rallies and demonstrations. This year, millions of workers in Europe, Asia and Latin America will take to the streets to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions.
Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity was started by the US labor movement and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country.
This year, on the heels of the three massive nationwide “No Kings” marches and rallies, millions of Americans will join forces, in thousands of cities and towns, in May Day Strong events.
The May Day Strong organizers hoping to bring Americans together to challenge the billionaires, big corporations, and the Trump administration, who have manipulated the rules to lower living standards, attack immigrants, undermine democracy, and direct tax dollars for wars rather than meeting human needs. It will be a day of rallies, marches, teach-ins, labor actions, and a refusal to participate in business as usual—because, as the organizers say, “when those at the top rig the system, collective action is how we set it right.”
Organizers expect over several thousand nonviolent actions across the country. The broad coalition behind the protests include major unions, civil rights, reproductive justice, environmental, immigrant rights, and faith groups, and tenant and community organizations, as well as Indivisible and Democratic Socialists of America.
The protest is inspired by the large day of action on January 23 that shut down much of Minneapolis by asking people not to work, shop, or attend school that day to challenge ICE’s occupation and its illegal actions (including murder) against immigrants and activists.
But the May Day Strong leaders are not calling for a general strike to shut down the economy. That tactic—allowing unions to strike in solidarity with other unions’ strikes—was banned in 1946 when Congress passed the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto. Even so, organizers view this year’s May Day events as a dress rehearsal something close to a general strike in 2028, in anticipation of the presidential and mid-term elections, but that would require the participation of many large unions who may not believe they and their members are prepared for such a militant action or the possible political backlash by the Trump administration and by voters if employers threaten to fire workers for engaging in an illegal strike. In addition, as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted, “How many people would need to stop shopping to make a noticeable dent in the nearly $3 billion per day Americans spend?””
But another massive national day of protest this May Day could help inspire voters to oust more Trump Republicans in November, give Democrats a majority of seats in both the House and Senate, and lay the groundwork for a more progressive policy agenda if the Democrats take back the White House in two years.
In doing so, they will be honoring the original May Day, which was born of the movement for an eight-hour workday. After the Civil War, unregulated capitalism ran rampant in America. It was the Gilded Age, a time of merger mania, increasing concentration of wealth and growing political influence by corporate power brokers known as Robber Barons. New technologies made possible new industries, which generated great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers, many of them immigrants, who worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, for little pay.
As the gap between the rich and other Americans widened dramatically, workers began to resist in a variety of ways. The first major wave of labor unions pushed employers to limit the workday to ten hours and then later down to eight hours. The 1877 strike by tens of thousands of railroad, factory and mine workers—which shut down the nation's major industries and was brutally suppressed by the corporations and their friends in government—was the first of many mass actions to demand living wages and humane working conditions. By 1884, the campaign had gained enough momentum that the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution at its annual meeting, "that eight hours shall constitute legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886."
On the appointed date, unions and radical groups orchestrated strikes and large-scale demonstrations in cities across the country. More than 500,000 workers went on strike or marched in solidarity and many more people protested in the streets. In Chicago, a labor stronghold, at least 30,000 workers struck. Rallies and parades across the city more than doubled that number, and the May 1 demonstrations continued for several days. The protests were mostly nonviolent, but they included skirmishes with strikebreakers, company-hired thugs and police.
On May 3, at a rally outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory, police fired on the crowd, killing at least two workers. The next day, at a rally at Haymarket Square to protest the shootings, police moved in to clear the crowd. Someone threw a bomb at the police, killing at least one officer. Another seven policemen were killed during the ensuing riot, and police gunfire killed at least four protesters and injured many others.
After a controversial investigation, seven anarchists were sentenced to death for murder, while another was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The anarchists won global notoriety, being seen as martyrs by many radicals and reformers, who viewed the trial and executions as politically motivated.
Within a few years, unions and radical groups around the world had established May Day as an international holiday to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs and continue the struggle for the eight-hour day, workers' rights, and social justice.
In the United States, however, the burgeoning Knights of Labor, uneasy with May Day's connection to anarchists and other radicals, adopted another day to celebrate workers' rights. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, celebrated in September. Other states soon followed. Unions sponsored parades to celebrate Labor Day, but such one-day festivities didn't make corporations any more willing to grant workers decent conditions. To make their voices heard, workers had to resort to massive strikes, typically put down with brutal violence by government troops.
In 1894, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, went on strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company to demand lower rents (Pullman was a company town that owned its employees' homes) and higher pay following huge layoffs and wage cuts. In solidarity with the Pullman workers, railroad workers across the country boycotted the trains with Pullman cars, paralyzing the nation's economy as well as its mail service. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and called out 12,000 soldiers to break the strike. They crushed the walkout and killed at least two protesters. Six days later, Cleveland—facing worker protests for his repression of the Pullman strikers—signed a bill creating Labor Day as an official national holiday in September. He hoped that giving the working class a day off to celebrate one Monday a year might pacify them.
For most of the 20th century, Labor Day was reserved for festive parades, picnics and speeches sponsored by unions in major cities. But contrary to what President Cleveland had hoped, American workers, their families and allies, found other occasions to mobilize for better working conditions and a more humane society. America witnessed massive strike waves throughout the century, including militant general strikes and occupations. These included a general strike in Seattle in 1919, the 1934 San Francisco general strike, led by the longshoremen's union; a strike of about 400,000 textile workers that same year; militant sit-down strikes in 1937 by autoworkers in Flint, Michigan, women workers at Woolworth's department stores in New York, aviation workers in Los Angeles, and others, and the largest strike wave in US history in 1946, triggered by pent-up demands following World War Two.
May 1 faded away as a day of protest. From the 1920s through the 1950s, radical groups sought to keep the tradition alive with parades and other events, but the mainstream labor movement and most liberal organizations kept their distance, making May Day an increasingly marginal affair. In 1958, in the midst of the cold war, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day. Each subsequent president has issued a similar proclamation, although few Americans know about or celebrate the day.
Since 2001, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest around both workers’ rights and immigrant rights. That year, millions of people in over 100 cities—including more than a million in Los Angeles, 200,000 in New York and 300,000 in Chicago—participated in May Day demonstrations.
The huge turnout was catalyzed by a bill, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and passed by the House the previous December, that would have classified as a felon anyone who helped undocumented immigrants enter or remain in the United States. Since then, immigrant workers and their allies have adopted May Day as an occasion for protest.
In 2006, organized launched a protest they called “A Day Without Immigrants,” which was also termed the “Great American Boycott.” In many cities, workers refused to go to work, high school students walked out of their classrooms and into the street, while consumers shut down businesses that depended on immigrant workers.
In 2017, activists organized another “Day Without Immigrants” protest to dramatize the importance of immigrants to the American economy and protest Trump’s plans to build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The organizers called for immigrants and allies not to go to work, to avoid spending money, and keep children home from school.
"It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the eight-hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and brought May Day back to life," observed California State Senator María Elena Durazo, the former head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
Although the labor movement fell on hard times starting in the 1950s, it nevertheless helped guarantee that more Americans would share in the nation’s post-war prosperity and join the middle class. Moreover, the civil rights, feminist, environmental and gay rights movements, and the more recent immigrant rights movement, drew important lessons from labor movement tactics and built coalitions with organized labor to advance their goals.
America is now in the midst of a new Gilded Age with a new group of corporate Robber Barons, many of them operating on a global scale. The top of the income scale has the biggest concentration of income and wealth since 1928. Several decades of corporate-backed assaults on unions have left only six percent of private sector employees with union cards, down from about one-third of all workers in the 1950s. More than half of America's 15 million union members now work for government (representing 33 percent of all government employees), so business groups and conservative politicians, including Trump, have targeted public sector unions for destruction.
Despite this, we’ve seen a recent resurgence of activism among rank-and-file workers at fast-food chains, Starbucks, Amazon, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, Volkswagen, Boeing, Trader Joe’s, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Chipotle, Disneyland, Kaiser Permanente, UPS, Uber and LYFT, REI, film companies and TV studios, meatpacking companies, major hospitals and universities, school districts, and other employers. They have waged strikes, walkouts and union recognition campaigns to win better pay and working conditions.
Public opinion in solidly behind these demands. The decline of union membership is not due to Americans’ opposition to unions. A recent Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support unions. Support is particularly high among Americans between 18 and 34 years old, 72% of whom embrace unions as a vehicle to address economic inequality and workplace problems. About two-thirds (64%) of Americans think the federal minimum wage—which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009—should be increased to $17.
The biggest obstacle to a union resurgence is federal labor law. American workers understand that employers resort to a variety of antiunion tactics—including firing employees illegally—to thwart unionization efforts. And there’s the rub. Americans have far fewer rights at work than employees in other democratic societies. Current federal laws are an impediment to union organizing rather than a protector of workers’ rights. The rules are stacked against workers, making it extremely difficult for even the most talented organizers to win union elections. Under current law, and with Trump stacking the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union members, any employer with a clever attorney can stall union elections, giving management time to scare the living daylights out of potential recruits.
This year's May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights. They will focus on issues like stopping the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration, protecting Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on, fully funding public schools, healthcare, and housing for all, and stopping the attacks on communities, including policies that target immigrants and people of color. It will also build momentum for a large-scale voter mobilization effort to elect liberals and progressives in the November mid-terms.
“It isn't just about immigrant rights. It isn't just about workers’ rights on the job or even about raising the standard of living for all workers,” said Durazo. “It's about what kind of country we want to be.”
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How Can the Dem Win Back Working-Class Voters? Run Union Candidates
A new report finds that running and electing candidates from the labor movement is one of the most viable and under-explored paths available to both unions and the Democratic Party.
Mar 14, 2026
The Democratic Party’s slow shift away from the working class undoubtedly contributed to its recent electoral defeats. Reconnecting with the party’s foundational working-class base is essential for its survival, and a new report from the Center for Working-Class Politics, Arizona State University’s Center for Work and Democracy, and Jacobin shows that getting more union members and leaders on the ballot could provide a path to doing just that.
The Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 has sparked a wave of soul-searching about how the party can recover support groups of voters they could previously take for granted, such as Black and Latino men. Like so many of the Democrats’ previously assumed voting blocs, union workers are clearly no longer an easy win for the party, with more than 40% of union workers reporting voting for Donald Trump in 2024.
Our new report—which analyzes congressional candidates from 2010 to 2022, union campaign finance data, and interviews with current and former elected officials with union backgrounds—finds that running and electing candidates from the labor movement is one of the most viable and under-explored paths available to both unions and the Democratic Party.
Several key findings illustrate the current state of union candidacy and suggest how the Democratic Party and unions could change their approach to achieve further success in future elections.
Our report identifies all congressional candidates between 2010 and 2022 and reveals that only 5% have any union connection.
First, unions’ donations to candidates now comprise a much smaller slice of total campaign donations. They’ve fallen fivefold, from nearly 15% of total party contributions in the late 1990s to less than 3% by 2022—not because unions are giving less but because individual donations have risen massively.
In recent years, when unions do donate, they’re inclined to play it safe, giving mostly to incumbents rather than pro-union challengers. And in the rare instances they back challengers, they typically back whoever looks most likely to win, leaving the shaping of the candidate pool to the Democratic Party.
Second, candidates with union backgrounds advocate more strongly for the working class—both on the campaign trail and in office—than those without union backgrounds. As candidates, they speak more to worker issues, and as representatives, they advocate more progressive economic legislation compared with their non-union colleagues—regardless of party.
Further, our interviews with candidates and elected officials from union backgrounds highlight that experience they’ve gained specifically through their union involvement gives them an advantage in their knowledge of workplace issues, credibility to speak on labor matters, and an ability to build coalitions and be effective policymakers.
With their ongoing, already established institutional relationships with unions, they’re able to center workers’ rights in their policy plans (strengthening minimum wage laws, paid leave and benefits, worker safety regulations, and card-check laws) and keep open, fluid channels of communication with organized labor. Said relationships also give them a leg up in grassroots organization, inspiring higher turnout and deeper commitment from union members.
Third, despite their strategic value, union candidates and elected officials are not common. Our report identifies all congressional candidates between 2010 and 2022 and reveals that only 5% have any union connection.
That scarcity is not inevitable. Unions have the financial resources, organizing infrastructure, and institutional reach to actively grow a candidate pipeline if they choose to deploy them. Indeed, in critical open-seat races, unions already donate more to Democratic candidates with union backgrounds than to other Democrats.
In addition to donations, unions can lend their organizing infrastructure to directly power union-member electoral campaigns through candidate recruitment, member canvassing, and early financial backing. They can also invest in labor-led candidate schools to build a deep and sturdy pipeline, demystifying the political process for working-class candidates and increasing both the number of union candidates and their electoral success.
The report illustrates two state-level initiatives that show us what can work when unions take a more proactive approach in building a pipeline of candidates. New Jersey’s AFL-CIO Labor Candidate Program has resulted in over 1,300 election victories with a 76% win rate over 20 years. Alaska’s Arthur A. Allman Labor Candidate School has already seen eight of its trainees elected to office since its 2022 inauguration.
The common ground between these two programs: They handle the training themselves rather than leaving it to party consultants and approach candidate development as a sustainable investment for long-term strategy rather than something reserved for election cycles.
Our analysis shows that unions already have an asset they’re not using. Though their membership and formal leverage have weakened, public trust in labor unions has reached its highest point in 50 years, at a time when public confidence in almost all other political structures has essentially collapsed.
Gallup polls show public approval of unions is at its highest rate in over 60 years, with an average of about 70% of Americans expressing their support for unions last year. A GBAO poll conducted on behalf of the AFL-CIO in 2023 found that 88% of Americans under 30 view unions favorably—a record-breaking level of support.
American faith in union politics is there. Will organized labor take up the mantle?
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Why Labor Needs a Declaration of Political Independence
No matter how you slice the demographics, aside from Democratic and Republican Party operatives, a new working-class political party independent of the Democrats and Republicans is really popular.
Feb 23, 2026
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any [part] of Government [—including its political parties—] becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new [parties], laying [their] foundation on such principles and organizing [their] powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
It’s not a secret: About 45% of labor union members voted for President Donald Trump in 2024. In unions with fewer minority workers the percentage was substantially higher. More importantly, most union members no longer identify with the Democratic Party. In fact, they are downright hostile to it. In our YouGov poll of 3,000 voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, 70% held negative views of the Democrats.
Why so much hostility? Very few respondents said anything about wokeness or immigration. Much of the bitterness was related to the Democrats failing to live up to their promises and losing touch with everyday people. My research also shows that mass layoffs, especially those caused by trade with China and Mexico after North American Free Trade Agreement, have soured voters on the Democrats.
That leaves progressive union leaders with the difficult task of lining up their members for the candidates they think will represent the political interests of their members—which, because of the Republicans’ overwhelming antipathy to organized labor, almost always better align with the Democrats. Despite, it should be said, their failings. For the fall midterms this year, union leaders will be 100% in support of the Democrats, as they hope to check the power of Trumpism. How can they do that effectively given all this negativity?
A different and I think more promising approach is to open up a discussion about alternative politics and seriously explore the prospects of building a new political party of working people.
The usual approach involves various procedures that eventually lead the membership to the Democrats. One union, for example, holds meetings during which the rank-and-file defines an agenda. The leadership then uses that agenda to evaluate candidates, who conveniently all turn out to be Democrats. Another union conducts educational programs that are, one way or another, designed to help the membership understand why the Democrats are more favorable to the working class than Republicans. This isn’t hard or even that manipulative, but rarely do these methods effectively appeal to those who disdain the Dems.
The preferred option for many unions is to avoid political discussions entirely for fear the ensuing debate might tear the union apart—pitting MAGA and non-MAGA members against each other. Better to duck and cover, hold onto the solidarity you have, and hope the storm will soon pass.
A different and I think more promising approach is to open up a discussion about alternative politics and seriously explore the prospects of building a new political party of working people. Union leadership can easily justify such an undertaking as a long-term project necessary to mobilize working-class political power and find solidarity around the issues that matter most to all working people.
The Hunger for Independence
Polling shows that such an effort would be well received. Overall, 57% of the respondents in our YouGov survey support the idea of an independent political organization for workers. Here are the results for union-oriented voters:
| Support | Oppose | Not Sure | |
| Currently union member | 58% | 16% | 25% |
| Former union member | 59% | 21% | 19% |
| Not a union member but would support efforts to form a union at my workplace | 80% | 8% | 12% |
(The overwhelming support from those who want to join a union should get the attention of union leaders for whom organizing new members is of the highest priority.)
The idea is even attractive to 2024 Trump voters: 40% support a new party, as do 42% of those who identify as Republicans.
No matter how you slice the demographics, aside from Democratic and Republican Party operatives, a new political party independent of the Democrats and Republicans is really popular.
That’s why opening up a discussion about how to build a new working-class party stands a decent chance of increasing solidarity among the various political groups in the union rank-and-file. It allows leadership to respond to what the workers really want—a party that puts their needs and interests at its center rather than adopting watered-down policies designed to please billionaire donors.
And it makes room for some very frank discussions:
“Look, I understand that many of you no longer want to vote for Democrats. You want a new party independent of the Democrats and Republicans. But until we build that new party, there are some solid pro-labor candidates that we need to support if we’re to have any chance of passing labor law reform and protecting jobs. We are pressuring the Democrats and the Republicans to run more working-class candidates. Meanwhile, let’s start the process of building a new working-class party. We can do both right now.”
If unions seriously committed resources to building, or at least exploring, an independent political formation, the political credibility of union leaders would likely increase. It also would create a plausible, easy to understand political argument: Long term, we want a working-class party that represents our interests and needs. Short-term, we support candidates who represent our interests and needs!
I see three main problems with charting this new course. The first is that many union leaders are deeply entwined with the Democratic Party leadership. They have personal ties. They attend common events. They see the world similarly. The idea of a new party feels like a betrayal. As one labor leader told me, “These are the only political friends we have.”
Wouldn’t it be better to build with the membership a vision that puts working people in the center of the economy rather than as an afterthought of trickle-down two-party politics?
The second obstacle is one of resources and bandwidth. Union leaders have their hands full. They are always dealing with difficult employers, complex contracts, union organizing drives, and internal union problems. Adding a new alternative politics project is likely to be seen as beyond their capacities.
The third issue is the fear of being a spoiler—that criticizing Democrats, let alone starting a new party for workers, would take votes away from the Democrats and elect Republicans. That’s what most labor leaders believe happened in 2000 when Ralph Nader ran for president. They hold him accountable for taking enough votes away from Al Gore in Florida to throw the state and the election to George Bush.
While the spoiler issue may be valid in presidential contests and in closely contested races for Congress, it is not relevant in the 130 congressional districts in which the Republicans usually win by 25% or more. In these districts there is effectively no Democratic Party to spoil. And it’s in those districts that a new working-class party is most needed. It would only take a handful of congressional victories for working-class candidates to gain the controlling votes in a closely divided House of Representatives.
Of course, running 130 congressional campaigns is no small task, but there are smaller, more doable first steps that could help union leaders with their political dilemma. They could start by holding workshops with their local leaders and rank-and-file to discuss the need for a new independent political organization for union members and indeed all working people. Such discussions would allow members to air their grievances while signaling that the leadership is willing to listen and forge a new independent path.
Such workshops will be part of a new National Worker Educational Campaign for Independent Politics that my colleagues and I are launching this spring.
Many say that forging a new party is unrealistic and that we are stuck with the Democrats. But to me that seems likely to further alienate much of the union membership.
Wouldn’t it be better to rekindle political hope by opening up discussion?
Wouldn’t it be better to let memberships discuss their needs and aspirations and how they would like to relate to politics?
Wouldn’t it be better to build with the membership a vision that puts working people in the center of the economy rather than as an afterthought of trickle-down two-party politics?
It sure beats hoping that the MAGA membership just fades away.
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