Why Democratic Socialists Are Taking to the Streets This May Day
The legacy of May Day is a fight for working-class power against the ravages of capitalism. Democratic Socialists of America is organizing to keep that proud tradition alive in 2026.
Will Bloom
One hundred and forty years ago, tens of thousands of Chicago workers went out on strike to demand an eight-hour work day. After a rally at Haymarket Square ended with someone, unknown still today, setting off a bomb, eight of the organizers, most of whom were not even present at the rally, were arrested, tried, and convicted. Seven were sentenced to death. Four were executed and another killed himself the night before he was set to face the noose.
As he was led to the gallows, one of the organizers, August Spies, proclaimed that “there will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!” In the years that followed, workers deployed that silence, withholding their labor through militant strike actions across the country and around the world, winning eight-hour work days in industry after industry, until it was finally codified into law.
In the nearly century and a half since then, May Day, or International Workers’ Day, has served as a celebration of both the hard work and sacrifice that the organized working class has put into transforming the world as well as the enormous power and possibility that comes from our collective action as workers. As socialists, we know that it is our power as workers, both to give and to withhold our labor, that can have the most significant impact on the world. That is why workers must come together to act in our collective self interest.
As New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), recently put it, “there is only one majority in this country, and that is the working class.” That is, at root, our socialist theory of change. May Day is not only a day to celebrate the working class, but to grow working class consciousness, build our class organizations, and to take collective action.
This year, DSA is looking to the past, present, and future. We remember, learn about, and share the working class’s history of militant strike action, from the Haymarket affair to the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) Stand Up Strike in 2023. UAW President Shawn Fain celebrated the end of that strike by announcing that the union had set the Big 3 automaker contracts to expire on May 1, 2028. Fain also called on the broader labor movement to do the same in order to make May Day 2028 an opportunity for nationwide class conflict and working class action.
DSA has joined a wide-ranging coalition to take action on May Day as a way to both show our solidarity with workers engaged in fights against their bosses and to push back against the violent repression the Trump administration is bringing down on our communities. We are also preparing and organizing to build our capacity and reach so that future efforts in the May Days to come — in 2028 and beyond — can grow our collective power to transform the world into one that serves the interests of humanity, rather than the interests of profit.
Preparations for this year’s May Day began last August, when DSA’s National Convention passed a resolution committing the organization to proactively prepare for May Day 2028 in order to make that day one of working class mass action nationwide. DSA’s labor work is rooted in our recognition that the power of the labor movement is fundamentally in the hands not of unions’ leaders or staff, but of their rank-and-file members.
This approach has driven DSA’s labor work, including national projects like the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) which supports new organizing on the job, the Workers Organizing Workers (WOW) jobs pipeline program, the Solidarity Captains network that supports ongoing strikes, and the Labor for an Arms Embargo campaign, as well as the new organizing, strike solidarity, and labor education work that DSA chapters engage in across the country.
Last December, DSA’s National Labor Commission launched a May Day Subcommittee to prepare chapters for this year’s May Day, creating toolkits and offering resources for political education, rally materials, and social media resources. DSA also joined May Day Strong, a national coalition of labor unions and community organizations working together to move the working class into action. More than140 DSA chapters are planning to take action this May Day through organizing rallies, conducting political education, holding strike fund fundraisers and more.
As socialists and as workers, we are part of a long, proud tradition of engaging in class conflict to bring about better lives and a better world, one powered by solidarity rather than capitalist accumulation.
This May Day, we remember that without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn, and that we can each, in our own way, contribute to the working class’s globe- and centuries-spanning project of building a world run by and for us all.
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For those in Chicago who want to continue the struggle against billionaires and authoritarianism after May Day, please join In These Times for a special event on May 5 at 7 p.m. CST: May Day! What’s Next? There will be a special panel featuring Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez, In These Times columnist Eman Abdelhadi, CTU Vice President Jackson Potter, UWF member Jasson Perez, and moderated by In These Times Senior Editor Miles Kampf-Lassin. Get your tickets now!
Will Bloom is the co-chair of Chicago DSA’s Labor Branch and a member of the Steering Committee of DSA’s National Labor Commission.
