Workers celebrate May Day with marches, protests

Workers took to the streets of New York City Monday May 1 to celebrate May Day, the internationally recognized holiday that highlights the labor movement and the achievements and struggles of workers worldwide. For years New York has had a higher percentage of unionized workers than most of the country, and amid a nationwide labor resurgence, workers utilized the holiday to display their power and unify their demands of elected officials and corporations.

In the morning, hundreds of unionized workers, advocates and members of labor and community organizations rallied at Washington Square Park to demand that city and state politicians pass legislation that protects and empowers workers. Laundry workers, lawyers, sex workers, domestic workers, construction workers, self-declared communists, street vendors and more attended the rally and then marched down Broadway to Foley Square, stopping traffic in the process.

Speakers at the rally demanded that the City Council pass the Secure Jobs Act, a bill introduced by Council Member Tiffany Cabán that would outlaw most at-will firings in New York. Cabán, speaking to the crowd of workers, said that her bill would end “unjust, unfair and arbitrary firings across New York City,” and announced that the Working Families Party had endorsed her legislation. “Together we are going to secure that right and more,” Cabán declared.

Workers at the rally also highlighted the Unemployment Bridge Program, an unemployment insurance proposal that would have New York State award unemployment benefits to workers not covered by federal protections, including undocumented immigrants, freelancers, street vendors and those reentering the workforce after leaving prison. Workers launched the campaign for the bridge program in January but were unsuccessful at convincing lawmakers in Albany to include $500 million in the state’s executive budget that is currently being finalized.

That budget does includes a provision to increase the minimum wage to $17 an hour in NYC and some of its suburbs and to $16 elsewhere in the state by 2026, and then index future increases to the rate of inflation. State Senator Jessica Ramos as well as many workers and labor groups, including those affiliated with the Unemployment Bridge Program and the Secure Jobs Act, had called for the rate to increase to more than $20 by 2026.

Rallies held all afternoon

Workers rallied elsewhere in the city including outside City Hall where dozens of home care workers once again called on Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to pass what workers call the No More 24 Act that would prohibit home health care aides from undertaking 24-hour shifts. Home care workers organized by Ain’t I a Woman!? have protested frequently in recent months and attacked Adams with increasingly personal vitriol as the bill, introduced by Council Member Christopher Marte, has languished in committee.

One organizer at Monday’s protest held up a sign featuring a photo of Adams surrounded by bags of money, insinuating that special interests are preventing the Speaker from progressing the bill, and a flyer passed out by rally organizers called Adams corrupt and racist. A spokesperson for Adams argued that 24-hour shifts must be solved at the state level because that is where decisions concerning Medicaid are primarily made.

“It is misleading and counterproductive to frame this issue as one that can be resolved at the city level, and deeply inappropriate to do so by lying about the Speaker's position and encouraging the use of personal attacks and racially problematic language,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “To actually deliver for home care workers, and the patients they care for, our efforts should be focused at the state level, where these changes can be implemented. It's perplexing why any government official, who knows this reality, would be acting otherwise."

Later in the afternoon, unionized academic workers at NYU and the New School rallied near Washington Square Park to celebrate May Day. Full time professors at NYU have been trying to get the university’s administration to voluntarily recognize their union. The professors were joined by graduate workers from NYU and adjunct faculty from the New School, both of whom are unionized with the UAW.