Labor unions and community organizations are preparing for a sweeping economic boycott on May 1st, with organizers expecting the scale of protests to more than double from last year. The movement, billed as "May Day Strong," calls for workers to skip jobs, keep children home from school, and avoid shopping as a demonstration against policies organizers say prioritize corporate interests over workers.
Neidi Dominguez, founding executive director of Organized Power in Numbers, said activists plan more than 3,000 actions nationwide this May Day, up from approximately 1,300 last year. The surge reflects growing momentum among workers seeking to flex collective economic power, she said.
"Minneapolis really gave us the biggest push in real time to do it," Dominguez said, referencing a recent ICE operation in Minnesota that prompted a spontaneous economic blackout. "We have a long way to go to take massive disruption actions like in other countries, where people will go on general strikes and they can shut down their country, but I think we're getting more and more close to people having consciousness about their own power as workers."
The protests target Trump administration policies, including the threatened deployment of ICE agents to polling places during elections, as well as military actions involving Venezuela and Iran. Organizers frame the boycott as a tool for defending both worker interests and democratic institutions.
Major cities are mobilizing for coordinated shutdowns. In Chicago, the Teachers Union, several SEIU locals, Indivisible Chicago, and the Chicago Federation of Labor have jointly endorsed a May 1st economic blackout.
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, framed the action as essential protection for students and families. "May Day has to become bigger in this moment," she said. "This is about building a more popular united front." Teachers, she added, bear responsibility for the infrastructure supporting American democracy and must defend it against what she described as institutional marginalization.
The Los Angeles effort reflects similar scope. The LA May Day coalition, comprising more than 50 organizations, is organizing around demands spanning immigration rights, voting rights, abolishing ICE, anti-war activism, and worker protections. The coalition nearly doubled its endorsing organizations from 85 last year to 101 this year.
Pedro Trujillo, director of organizing at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, drew a line to the immigrant rights marches of two decades ago that brought downtown Los Angeles to a standstill. "Twenty years ago, we had mega marches here in downtown Los Angeles that shut down the city, and so we're bringing back that energy of shutting it down," he said.
The growth in participation extends beyond traditional labor and immigrant rights bases. Trujillo noted that recent demonstrations, including the No Kings protests, have attracted unexpected participants including elderly activists motivated by concerns about government actions. "That goes to show that people are ready to get active," he said. "They're ready to get connected with other networks."
Organizers characterize the economic blackout as a stepping stone toward building sustained working-class power. Dominguez emphasized that the goal is to help workers understand their collective capacity for economic disruption at a moment when she believes such action is necessary to defend democracy itself.
Author James Rodriguez: "This is as much a test of labor's organizational capacity as it is a political statement, and the numbers suggest the movement is catching fire faster than anyone anticipated."
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