Ralliers Recapture Spirit of Original May Day

CAROLINE MCCARTHY, HOST: Today is May Day, also known as International Workers Day. Hannah Weaver reports on the history of the holiday and why some New Yorkers feel reinvigorated to demonstrate.

HANNAH WEAVER, BYLINE: Brenda Ricketts is one of the first demonstrators to show up at Union Square for today’s May Day rally for worker’s rights. She’s holding a sign that says “Stop Trump” on one side, and “We will not change the world by asking nicely” on the other. She’s retired and says she used to come here for May Day in the 70s through the 90s. It was different back then. 

RICKETTS: It was mostly about celebrating, but now it’s about the problems.

WEAVER: The problems, she says, stem from the Trump administration. In particular, its attacks on affirmative action, increasing tariffs, and the current immigration policies. All of which impact labor. So, she’s back in Union Square protesting this year for the first time since the 90s.

RICKETTS: You know it's sad that you have to get up and protest every week because of what's happening since … since he's taken office. Nobody can have their basic needs met if they don't have employment.

WEAVER: But employment alone hasn’t always met the needs of the masses. The key thing to remember is that May Day started in Chicago as a response to unfair labor practices in the late 1880s. But the knowledge of the holiday’s origins has been suppressed in the U.S, according to historians. Like Hunter College history professor Donna Haverty-Stacke, who literally wrote the book on May Day. 

HAVERTY-STACKE: And this was a watershed moment, it was the first time there was a nationwide mobilization of workers.

WEAVER: After decades of union organizing, the forty-hour workweek became the norm and it spread across the world. 

HAVERTY-STACKE: After the waning of the holiday in the United States during the Cold War … A large part of the history that I have unearthed in my work was purposefully forgotten in the context of the Cold War that this isn’t something that should be in the United States, this is a Soviet communist thing. It really wasn’t, but that was the narrative. 

WEAVER: And today… 

HAVERTY-STACKE: It has been recaptured, I think, by activists and workers who know the history, who know that this was American as apple pie, as one commentator said.

WEAVER: Back at the rally, people are definitely here to recapture May Day’s original spirit. There are about a dozen people dressed in red shirts setting up. They call themselves the Revolutionary Communists of America, and they’re here to celebrate May Day’s radical history and push for mass unionization. David Spanger is an organizer with the group and says he’s noticed an uptick in union participation.

SPANGER: So we're expecting a larger turnout than in previous years. 

WEAVER: Where do you feel that momentum is coming from?

SPANGER: I think it's a pressure that exists in society. I mean, there's massive inflation in the United States, and you know, with Trump's Trump's tariffs, it's causing essentially chaos across the world, and obviously also the major cuts in the State Department, where workers are losing their jobs. I think that it's coming from below, and it is pressing, basically pressuring the union leaders to some degree.

WEAVER: Over two dozen unions will continue the momentum at another rally this evening at Foley Square. Hannah Weaver, Columbia Radio News.

Madeline Reilly and Oona Milliken contributed reporting.