Democratic Perspective: Celebrate May Day with meaningful protest

Today, May 1st, is International Workers’ Day – a global public holiday celebrating laborers and the working class. The U.S. and Canada switched their holiday to the first Monday in September, celebrated as Labor Day, to separate their observance from the more radical workers’ rights movement that inspired it. 

On May 4, 1886, a peaceful workers protest rally (demonstrating for an eight-hour work day) was interrupted when an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they attempted to disperse the crowd in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. The explosion and ensuing gunfire caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; many more were injured.

While this violent incident caused a harsh crackdown on unions and immigrants, ultimately the Haymarket Affair became a symbol of the international struggle for workers rights, and is celebrated globally as May Day, or International Workers’ Day. Over the years, workers from many countries have organized to protest unsafe working conditions, low wages, and employer hostility to unions. The eight-hour work day became standard in many industries by the early 20th century. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protected unionization rights in the U.S. Through protest, mostly peaceful, workers around the globe have secured the rights and benefits befitting their hard work.

Today citizens around America are marching in support of our workers, many of whom are being laid off from governmental positions for no legitimate reason. A team working in Washington State to clean up a nuclear waste dump site has been fired, after giving years of their lives to this dangerous pursuit. Our best scientists, working on juvenile cancers, bird flu vaccines, climate challenges, ebola containment, are sent home and their projects are disrupted or eliminated. Qualified people of color or of LGBT persuasion are told to go home because they obviously don’t deserve jobs awarded by insupportable DEI policies, according to Donald Trump.

Other non-citizen workers, in some of our most taxing jobs in agriculture and construction, are being swiped off the street and deported – with no due process, no chance to defend their status, no ability to contact legal help. Other workers in small businesses are losing their jobs as Trump’s tariff chaos disrupts trade, destroys supply chains, and leaves business owners struggling to maintain a market share.

Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts have flipped a thriving economy on its head.

Attacking American workers is central to Trump’s plan to demoralize the population and leave us on the curbside as he takes over. Trump intends to rule as the supreme leader, the king – he is exactly what our Founders warned us against; they designed the Constitution to protect us from a despot or would-be monarch like Trump who would attempt to rule without the consent of the people.

Trump was elected to be president of the United States, not king. He took an oath to defend the Constitution, and he defies it daily. This May Day, Americans are marching to protest Trump’s attempt to take over our government, to destroy many of the agencies we rely on to keep us safe, and the services that provide a safety net for us all. We are marching for the workers who have suffered most from Trump’s unnecessary slashing of the government workforce, his destruction of our economy, and his illegal abduction and deportation of non-citizens.

American workers have created the wealth that elevated the few to billionaire status. And now, as they line up with Trump, our most prominent billionaires believe they are part of an entitled oligarchy with total access to Trump. It’s time to stand up and show that we, the workers, are the many and they are they few.

Denver is hosting a May Day march Thursday afternoon at the capitol. In Park County we chose May 3rd for our May Day protests, so more of us could attend. We wave signs in Fairplay from noon until 2 p.m. in front of the old courthouse, retiring to Highside Brewing afterwards for refreshments. In Bailey joins us from 3-6 p.m. at Rosalie Road and U.S. 285, moving on to the Craft Mountain Brewing for refreshments after. Make signs, support our workers. Reject the king and his billionaires.