NOT NICE

More Details Emerge of Trump’s Secret Use of ICE to Spy on Critics

Privacy groups are pushing Big Tech to notify users about federal surveillance after anonymous ICE critics were exposed.

By Mike Ludwig , 

Truthout

April 30, 2026

Immigrant rights protesters participate in a demonstration to draw attention to tech companies involvement in the immigration enforcement system on October 11, 2019, in New York City.Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Lawmakers and privacy advocates are demanding answers from the Trump administration about its weaponization of digital tools and popular web platforms to spy on critics and activists. Targets have included a student who attended a pro-Palestine protest and anonymous web users posting about President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown, but the administration’s secret systems of surveillance likely cast a wide net.

Privacy groups are also making demands of Big Tech firms such as Meta and Google, which have come under pressure from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hand over identifying information for anonymous users. Officials from the agency have wielded legally dubious administrative subpoenas — meant to be used to determine duties on imported products — in an attempt to compel the information.

The efforts to expose domestic spying under the Trump administration offer a preview of how Democrats could yield subpoena power next year if voters hand them the House majority in November. Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois who was appointed ranking member of the cybersecurity subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security this week, said emerging technologies are being used to violate civil rights and target Trump’s critics.

“The Trump-Miller regime is weaponizing the government and abusing every authority to persecute anyone whom they perceive as an enemy,” Ramirez told Truthout in a text on April 29, referencing Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant extremist serving as a top adviser to Trump. “And fascism always requires a public enemy.”


ICE Targets Personal Information of Trump Critics

On April 17, attorneys with the Civil Liberties Defense Center filed a motion in federal court to throw out a grand jury subpoena that Reddit received from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanding “extensive private information” about an anonymous user. The user had posted statements critical of ICE and other political content on Reddit, a popular online discussion forum.

Reddit originally received an administrative subpoena from an ICE official in Virginia demanding the user’s personal information, The Intercept first reported earlier this month. The Civil Liberties Defense Center, representing the Reddit user, immediately filed a motion against the summons. Rather than defend the original administrative subpoena in court, ICE switched tactics in early April and demanded that Reddit attorneys appear before a secret grand jury, according to organization’s executive director Lauren Regan.


Trump’s ICE Has Started Targeting Activists, Not Just Immigrants
ICE demanded Meta hand over personal information attached to Instagram accounts that track immigration raids. By Mike Ludwig , Truthout October 1, 2025

“First the government is filing these administrative summonses in hopes that the users won’t know what do to or how to challenge them in court, and as soon as lawyers step in litigating the lawfulness of these subpoenas and summonses, the administration is withdrawing them so there isn’t a court ruling against them in regard to these shenanigans,” Regan said in a recent interview with Truthout.

On April 22, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued DHS for the release of public records detailing the use of administrative subpoenas by ICE to try and unmask the administration’s online critics. So far, what little is publicly known about the practice comes from Regan and other civil liberties attorneys who have defended web users against ICE’s subpoenas.

In at least six cases reported in 2025, ICE claimed users were “doxxing” immigration agents by documenting their activity online, part of a broader crowd-sourcing movement that works to publicly identify masked agents who make violent arrests and alert communities about their presence. Attorneys for the users argue that social media posts and websites such as StopICE.net are protected by the First Amendment.

According to the EFF complaint, the administrative subpoenas are issued under an obscure 1930 tariff law that empowers customs officials to file summonses for “determining liability for customs duties, taxes, fees, and other monetary obligations arising from the importation of merchandise into the United States.”

However, since early 2025, DHS and ICE have issued subpoenas under the 1930 law to web platforms including Google, Meta, Reddit, and Discord demanding names, email addresses, and IP addresses linked to anonymous accounts, the complaint alleges. The lawsuit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

EFF Deputy Legal Director Aaron Mackey said DHS should not claim legal authority to unmask online critics and then run away from court when attorneys for the same users challenge the administrative subpoenas.

“We want to know if there has been any internal audit, and if the office of legal counsel has actually looked at any of this and said, ‘yes this is legal,’ and what are the legal reasons,” Mackey said in an interview on April 29.

Targeted via Google After 5 Minutes at a Protest

As a Ph.D. candidate with a British passport studying at Cornell University in upstate New York, Amandla Thomas-Johnson thought he would be “the last person to be hunted down by the immigration authorities.” However, Thomas-Johnson is Black and attended a pro-Palestine protest on campus in October 2024 as pro-Israel groups used a mix of doxxing, public threats, and financial pressure to push university leaders to punish anti-genocide activists as campus protests spread nationwide.

Thomas-Johnson said he spent only five minutes at the protest but was banned from campus shortly after. When Trump returned to office in January 2025, Thomas-Johnson went into hiding at a professor’s rural home. Three months later, after a friend was detained at an airport in Florida and questioned about his whereabouts, Thomas-Johnson self-deported to Canada before fleeing to Switzerland.

“I did not return to the UK as reports that pro-Palestine journalists had been arrested there made me fearful,” Thomas-Johnson wrote in October 2025. “I hoped my arrival in Switzerland would mark the end of my ordeal.”

After a few weeks in Switzerland, Thomas-Johnson received an email from Google informing him that the company had revealed his personal information to DHS. At first, he was not alarmed because an associate, Momodou Taal, had received similar emails from Google and Facebook notifying him that the U.S. government had requested personal information. After Taal challenged the requests — administrative subpoenas likely filed under the 1930 tariff law — law enforcement eventually withdrew them and Taal’s data reportedly remained private.

“This is the standard playbook for authoritarianism I think — intimidation of the people, and making the people live in fear,” Regan said. “Making them think that if they critique the government or have beliefs contrary to the current regime in power, then somewhere they will be threatened and targeted.”

During Trump’s first administration, tech companies routinely fought federal subpoenas on behalf of their users who were targeted for protected speech, according to The Intercept. However, in Thomas-Johnson’s case, Google released personal information to DHS before notifying him and providing time to challenge the request in court.

“My data was handed over without warning — at the request of an administration targeting students engaged in protected political speech,” Thomas-Johnson wrote for EFF on April 14.

For nearly a decade, Google has promised billions of users that it will notify them before disclosing their personal data to law enforcement — and the company has done so many times, according to EFF. On Google’s Privacy & Terms page, the company pledges that, “When we receive a request from a government agency, we send an email to the user account before disclosing information.” However, the group says that promise was broken in Thomas-Johnson’s case.

On April 14, EFF sent complaints on behalf of Thomas-Johnson to the attorneys general of California and New York requesting they investigate Google for deceptive trade practices.

“Google should answer the question: How many other times has it broken its promise to users?” EFF Senior Staff Attorney F. Mario Trujillo said in a statement on April 14. “Advance notice is especially important now, when agencies like ICE are unconstitutionally targeting users for First Amendment-protected activity.”

In an email, a Google spokesperson said all subpoenas undergo a review process designed to protect user privacy while also meeting legal obligations.

“We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance,” the spokesperson said. “We push back against those that are overbroad, including objecting to some entirely.”

Mackey said EFF is also suing DHS for more information on the practice, but Congress must also provide oversight and accountability. Lawmakers must use their own subpoena power to determine the extent of surveillance under Trump.

Democrats Demand Answers About Israeli Spyware

The lawsuit came as Democrats in Congress continue to press DHS for details about domestic surveillance. ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, acknowledged earlier this month that the agency is deploying Israeli spyware that can intercept encrypted messages, as well as advanced data tools that monitor smartphones and social media to enforce Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The admission came several months after House Democrats Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Shontel Brown (Ohio), and Yassamin Ansari (Arizona) sent a letter to DHS demanding information on the department’s use of foreign spyware.

The lawmakers had requested information about Graphite, a spyware program produced by the Israeli firm Paragon Solutions that can covertly access encrypted messages, photos, and location data on smart devices. In an April 3 joint statement, the lawmakers said Lyons acknowledged that ICE is using a “specific tool” but did not name Graphite and “failed to provide the documentation and evidence requested by Congress to verify what safeguards, standards, and oversight mechanisms are actually in place.”

“They are moving forward with invasive spyware technology inside the United States, and instead of answering the serious constitutional and civil rights concerns that we raised, DHS is asking the public to accept vague assurances and fear-based justifications,” Representative Lee said.


“We must be clear that giving our rights away won’t ensure our security,” Ramirez said. “That’s why we must — through oversight, policy, and regulation — take away every weapon fascists would wield against us.”

Lee added that the people most at risk — including immigrants, Black and Brown people, journalists, and anyone speaking against the government — deserve more from ICE, an agency with “a long record of overreach and abuse.”

“Constitutional rights do not disappear because this administration wants more surveillance power, and fear tactics cannot be used as a way to sidestep accountability, privacy, and due process,” Lee said, adding that she will continue to fight for transparency.

Transparency may be difficult to achieve while the GOP controls Congress, but Representative Ramirez said more oversight could come if the balance of power changes after the midterms. Ramirez said she is also looking at oversight of consumer technology, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have been used to identify and record unsuspecting people in public.

“We must be clear that giving our rights away won’t ensure our security,” Ramirez said. “That’s why we must — through oversight, policy, and regulation — take away every weapon fascists would wield against us.”

Interview

The Unions We Need Will Be Built by Workers, Not Labor Officials

Organizer Daniel Gross explains how to make sure that union building actually works and is sustained over time.

By Ella Fassler , 

Truthout

PublishedMay 1, 2026

Striking Starbucks workers walk the picket line in New York on December 1, 2025.ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

Despite a hostile labor environment, the number of workers under a union contract in the U.S. reached a 16-year high in 2025, and public support for unions hit as high as 71 percent. The labor movement secured a number of impressive victories, including a new contract for dockworkers that raised wages by 60 percent following a brief strike, and unionized journalists at Politico and E&E News (PEN Guild) won an arbitration case against the company’s management over its adoption of artificial intelligence tools. Yet, the far greater union growth and coordinated working-class power that can systemically challenge the agenda of the ruling class remains elusive. In his “State of the U.S. Unions 2026” report, labor movement researcher Eric Dirnbach noted half of all union members live in just seven states, which he referred to as alarming numbers that represent a long-term existential crisis for the labor movement. “The decline of the labor movement,” he writes, “is no doubt one of the factors that have enabled Trumpism to capture the nation.”

In Unions of Our Own, longtime labor organizer Daniel Gross suggests the type of power that can challenge the ruling class may emerge when workers themselves — not union officials — design and refine unions that meet their needs. The new book introduces an accessible step-by-step union model framework to help workers take on the task of building unions that actually work for them, informed by decades of Gross’s own organizing experience — including as a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World Starbucks Workers Union in 2004 — and countless conversations with other worker-organizers. Bringing together insights that have achieved victories going back over a century, the union model framework is being used by a growing community of workers in diverse industries.

In the conversation that follows, Gross discusses the eight building blocks of unions outlined in Unions of Our Own, the difference between union organizing and union building, solidarity unionism versus traditional unionism, and lessons learned from the era when capitalists and the state repressed solidarity unionism.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Ella Fassler: So, to start, why did you decide to write Unions of Our Own? Was there a gap in the literature about unions you were trying to fill?


The State Is Escalating Charges Against Protesters. Labor Must Defend Them.
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Daniel Gross: Yeah, I think two things came together. One, I am just really blessed from the work I’ve gotten to do in my life to connect with a lot of visionary workers that want to do unionism where they work and in their industries. They want to do unionism grounded in racial and gender justice. They’re concerned, in many cases, about capitalism, and they, of course, want to win. And the thing that just comes up again and again are the questions: Can unionism be done in a different way? Can we have our own union? Can our values be deeply embedded in the union, with respect to how we want to be at work, but also regarding how our companies show up in the world?

I’ve been doing this work for a minute and I have learned a bunch. First of all, by failures. My first foray into the labor movement was definitely a swing and a miss at Borders bookstore around 2000. That experience started a journey where I became obsessed with questions like, “What does it take to maximize the chance of victory?” Through my own experience accompanying others, and then really nerding out on a large number of historic and contemporary campaigns, I found that there are these eight building blocks to building and sustaining unions that really deliver needs to workers.

You joke that the book isn’t a beach read meant for entertainment — it’s clearly one that’s geared toward taking action, and the book’s structure, along the lines of those eight building blocks, makes that clear. Can you talk a little bit more about what they are?

Yeah, absolutely. It gets to the second part in the prior question, you know, what’s out there? Of course, you don’t want to duplicate good work already being done. I had many questions during many conversations with workers: “Hey, what resources are you finding out there? What are you not finding out there?” And then, of course, my own observation of what’s going on. There are many really good resource books out there. What I found, though, is that these books are largely about union organizing. They answer the questions: How do we get a structure of co-workers together, carry out a plan, and win our demands?

To kind of put it in simple terms, organizing is the heart of those books.

But really to safeguard and make sure that organizing actually works and is sustained over time — that requires something bigger. In the book, I call that bigger piece union building. That piece is not out there. Union building, for example, involves assessing various mechanisms for holding worker gains. Traditional collective bargaining agreements are considered one mechanism, but there are many others. I think the implicit idea with the union organizing framework has been that considering these types of things are above the pay grade of co-workers on the job. The assumption has been that there are professionals who will worry about that and who make those decisions for them. Unions of Our Own is trying to wrest open those fundamental questions and decision-making spaces for workers.

The other piece: A lot of what’s out there, as good as it is, has the implication that there is one method of organizing, it’s tried and true, and the problem is that we’re just not doing it well enough. We have to train more. We have to be more disciplined. We have to run the recipe all the way. There are good people that promote this. It’s not bad or shady, but I just fundamentally have not seen it to be true that there is a certain method and you can just carry it out like a checklist and then you’ll have your needs met, your vision is going to be expressed in the world, and you’re going to have a sustainable union.

Even with all the great training, initiatives, and ideas and strategies and money being expended, there’s been a 70- to 80-year decline in labor unionism in the United States. Once a certain traditional model of unionism consolidated — we’re talking around 1950 — as the hegemon, to use that big word, unionism has been on decline. If there’s one really, really central belief in the book, it’s actually that co-workers are best positioned to figure out their own successful union models, and they actually have a really unique power to be able to do that well by virtue of being workers.

On the other hand, we’ve seen that starting with a blank slate is not a good idea. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it’s really hard, and if we do it that way, we’re cut off from working-class wisdom that exists today that has come before.


Co-workers are best positioned to figure out their own successful union models, and they actually have a really unique power to be able to do that well by virtue of being workers.

So what the book offers up is neither the cookie-cutter nor the blank-slate approach. It’s saying here’s a framework. The eight blocks of the framework are: constituency, problem, solution, strategy, mechanism, structure, funding, and metrics. The framework is about having the context to know where there’s big decisions you have to make, and helps you test those decisions out.

Yeah, it seems to offer a Middle Way approach, to use a Buddhist analogy, which I think you referenced in the book.

At least I know one reader will appreciate that!

So, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been an advocate of rank-and-file unionism as opposed to traditional unionism. How do you relate to, or introduce, these different union models in your book? Do you encourage rank-and-file unionism?

Yes, absolutely. So yes, I’m definitely a rank-and-file unionist. That’s been the through line. I got lucky in a way. That’s the tradition I connected in right away from the beginning. The book doesn’t hide the type of unionism I believe in, but I don’t dismiss any union form in the book. Really, what it does is tee up for workers to be able to have that debate, to be able to have that discussion and test out a particular model. What I’m really against is this idea that there are forces not on the shop floor who have taken away that decision-making space.

I say this explicitly in the book: Whatever vision a group of co-workers wants to pursue, they’re going to have my full support and my full respect, but at least they’ll have the ability to weigh their options.

There are many types of unionisms out there. Social movement unionism, community unionism, open-source unionism, class struggle unionism. Every day someone invents a new unionism. What the book is saying is that, yes, there are all those types, but the first decision tree is really between two types: traditional unionism and solidarity unionism.

Traditional unionism will have the hard structural elements of representational type of unionism. It’s the kind of unionism where the goal is around an exclusive collective bargaining agreement with a certain type of provisions that have to do with how the union is funded.

And then solidarity unionism is directly led and operated by workers. It’s not a representational model, and that has really major ramifications. It has a preference for direct action. They both have pros and cons. I get into both in the book.

I think this is going to be one of the more (hopefully) important parts of the book — to really open up that question to workers. Because typically you connect with some resource, or some union connects with you, and all of that decision-making, all that thinking, it’s already been done for them. No one’s like, “Hey, what type of union do you want to form?” They mostly say, “We’re going to organize you into our union.”

Imagine solidarity unionism really does expand in the U.S. What do you think are the most important lessons we could take from the era when it was more prominent in the early 1900s, but was ultimately repressed and co-opted, to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes today?

Solidarity unions need to make these types of unions more sustainable. That’s been the knot on solidarity unionism. The critique is often overplayed, or overstated, and there is a lot of straw-manning of solidarity unionism, but it is also the most important critique of solidarity unionism.

The book is obsessed with sustainability. My argument is that it really takes these eight building blocks working together and working in their own right so we have a union that renews itself. That’s really what sustainability is. It has to renew itself over time. We need unions where we’re creating value by solving yesterday’s injustices, but also where we can expect value for each other in the future. How we hold our gains, and how we tie those things to membership experience is a key part.

The other part, which I get into the book as well, is the question of repression. The reality is that solidarity unionism was taken down partially from outright murder, kidnapping, imprisonment, deportation, and destruction of materials, records, and literature. I try to use the most concrete language possible to just wake us up. It is very, very, very devastating. What I found, sadly, while looking at labor trends in many countries around the world, is that there’s still assassination, kidnapping, and violence and threats against families today. Colombia is a standout.

So I think we need to try to preempt these forms of repression. One of the ways to preempt it is really to think about the first element of the model I get into called constituency. How do we think about the different segments of society, the different groups, different individuals that we bring together into our models, our unions? That connectedness to other groups can make a union harder to repress. It is important to have explicit preemptive strategies against repression.

And then, of course, you need strategies for active defense and responsiveness to repression because you’re not going to be able to preempt it all.

It can be hard to feel hopeful about labor organizing with that horrifying history, and grim ongoing reality for many workers, in mind. I saw you were described as a very “optimistic” organizer in a blurb about Unions of Our Own. So, I’m wondering, what are the most hopeful labor movement trends that you’re seeing right now?

Yeah, I laugh at that “optimistic” part because a lot of people say that to me. I am a pretty optimistic person. I guess that’s a compliment. I don’t know about that. I think what I’m endlessly hopeful about is the quest for freedom and the desire for freedom and dignity.

But to get to your question more specifically, I am optimistic about the labor movement. Definitely in recent years, the turn to unionism, as I mentioned in the book, has been absolutely undeniable. There is motion in the working class in the U.S. Every month there’s a new group of workers that have always been exploited getting organized. Just in my personal trajectory, I can tell you, it’s like living on a different planet. I’m from the generation when there was one labor reporter at a large national publication. There was one dude! Now, thankfully, I can’t get through the amount of excellent labor reporting that takes place in any given week.


Every month there’s a new group of workers that have always been exploited getting organized.

Then there’s the big but, right? The big but is that the vast, vast majority of us are still screwed at work and are mostly unorganized as a working class. And that means we are screwed in society. We have the oligarch theft of a pretty unfathomable proportion of resources and power and water and land. So, with all this motion, this commendable, undeniable motion, we still have not seen that growth in unionism and working-class power that one would want to see.

It is a great honor to try to bring something into the mix that actually says the wisdom, the answers and the journey to test and refine those answers, comes from folks employed together on the shop floor. The more we can be clear about that, the more we could take down the myth that a lawyer or professionals are going to be the ones that can get you out of the predicament. The more we can challenge that notion, the better.

Beautifully said. Thank you so much for your time, and for your commitment to struggle. As we wrap up, where can people find you and Unions of Our Own?

From the book’s website, folks can purchase the book, access ready-to-use tools for free, register for companion trainings, and even get confidential one-on-one support to deal with problems at work. They can also follow me on Bluesky.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Ella Fassler

Ella Fassler is an independent journalist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Their work on social movements, labor, technology and the carceral system has been featured in Teen Vogue, The Boston Globe, The Nation, Vice, The Appeal, Slate, Mic, In These Times, and elsewhere. Follow them on Twitter or Bluesky.

Palestinians Observe May Day Amid a Deepening Crisis for Workers

Years of war and genocide have devastated our labor market and living standards.

By Eman Abu Zayed ,

Truthout

May 1, 2026

Palestinian workers demonstrate during a vigil held in tribute to Gaza's workers on April 30, 2026 in Gaza City, Gaza.

Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images

As workers around the world celebrate and recognize their efforts on May 1 — known globally as May Day or International Workers’ Day and celebrated in Palestine as Labor Day — this day passes in Palestine under a harsh economic reality that reflects a deepening crisis in the labor market and unprecedented levels of unemployment.

According to data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Palestine stands at around 27.5 percent, while it rises sharply among young people to nearly 40 percent, meaning that roughly one in every three young people is unable to find a job. In the Gaza Strip, estimates indicate that unemployment has reached alarming levels of around 78 percent, amid a widespread collapse in economic sectors and the halt of many productive activities.

In this context, Labor Day this year is not an occasion of celebration, but a moment that reflects the scale of the challenges facing Palestinian workers — the loss of job opportunities, declining incomes, and increasing living pressures that weigh heavily on families across different regions.

Behind these numbers, the crisis of the labor market in Palestine is reflected in daily lives of Palestinians — graduates searching for their first job opportunity, workers who have lost their sources of income, and employees facing the loss of the economic stability that once formed the foundation of their lives.

Unprecedented Challenges Facing the Palestinian Labor Market

A Ministry of Labor official explained that the Palestinian labor market faces unprecedented challenges due to severe economic deterioration and a declining ability to create new job opportunities amid the widespread closure of productive sectors and damage to many economic facilities. He noted that unemployment rates have risen significantly in recent periods, especially among young people and recent graduates, leading thousands of graduates to enter the labor market without sufficient available opportunities.


He added that the ministry is working within limited capacities to implement temporary employment programs and expand vocational training, along with efforts to support small- and medium-sized enterprises as one of the possible solutions to ease the crisis. However, these efforts remain insufficient in the face of the scale of the current crisis.

He further emphasized that the continuation of the current economic situation is increasing pressure on the labor market and pushing young people toward alternative or unstable forms of employment at a time when the Palestinian economy requires broader interventions and long-term measures to revive affected sectors.


Engineering Graduate in Gaza: Postponed Dreams Amid a Shrinking Labor Market

Ayman Abu Salama, a 28-year-old top engineering graduate from the Islamic University of Gaza, is one of many graduates who have been confronted with a reality very different from their post-graduation expectations. He said that one of his main goals since starting university was to secure a job in his field and build a stable professional future after years of study and effort, but the reality after graduation was far more difficult than expected. “I’ve applied to dozens of jobs, but I haven’t received any real response so far,” Abu Salama said. “I feel stuck in the same place, despite all the effort I put into my studies.”

He added that the recent war and the widespread destruction of infrastructure and facilities in the Gaza Strip have led to a significant decline in job opportunities, especially in engineering and construction-related fields, as many engineering institutions and offices were either destroyed or forced to shut down, sharply reducing employment prospects for new graduates.

Abu Salama said that he is still searching for a job without success, despite submitting numerous applications. He noted his frustration when he sees peers in other countries who graduated at the same time managing to enter the labor market and build their professional lives, while he remains stuck at the stage of searching for a first opportunity.

He said this reality affects him not only financially but also leaves a deep psychological impact on young people like him who have spent years in academic preparation, only to find themselves facing a closed labor market and extremely limited opportunities. “Sometimes I lose hope, but I keep trying because I have no other choice,” Abu Salama said.

A Goldsmith Who Lost His Home and Workshop After 25 Years of Work

Ghassan Abu Zayed, a goldsmith and workshop owner, lost his source of income and his home as a result of shelling. He is also my father. He began working in this field after returning from Iraq, where he learned the craft of goldsmithing, and later established his own workshop about 25 years ago.

Over the years, he equipped a fully functioning workshop with specialized machinery, some of which was imported from abroad, and produced various types of jewelry such as bracelets, necklaces, and rings. The workshop served as his primary source of income for many years.

His home and workshop were hit during recent Israeli bombings, turning the entire place into rubble along with all the equipment and tools used for his work.

“I worked in this profession for more than 20 years, and everything I built was gone in a moment,” he said. “It’s not just a financial loss — it’s the loss of a lifetime of hard work.”

My father said this destruction led to a complete halt of his profession of more than two decades, and he is no longer able to continue working in the same field due to the loss of equipment and the difficulty of rebuilding the workshop.

He pointed out that this is the reality for numerous professionals and small business owners in Palestine, many of whom have lost their workplaces and sources of income over the past years of war and genocide, directly affecting the labor market and living standards.

“Rebuilding is not easy, especially under the current conditions … starting from scratch feels impossible,” he said.

Labor Day in Palestine Is No Cause for Celebration This Year

Between official figures reflecting rising unemployment rates and individual stories documenting the loss of jobs and income sources, this year’s Labor Day comes in a very different context in Palestine. Rather than being a celebration of work and achievement, it reveals the difficult economic reality experienced by workers, graduates, and professionals alike.

The testimonies of those I spoke to highlight the scale of challenges facing the labor market — whether through limited opportunities, damaged projects, or the suspension of economic activities — making it harder than ever for Palestinians to find a job or stay employed.

While efforts to adapt to this reality continue, the future of work in Palestine and the ability of young people and workers to secure stable opportunities remains a question without an answer.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Eman Abu Zayed
Eman Abu Zayed is a writer and journalist from Gaza who believes in the power of words to change reality.

May Day Demonstrations Worldwide Condemn US-Israeli War on Iran, Champion Workers

“Working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” said the European Trade Confederation.


Demonstrators join a demonstration for International Workers’ Day on May 1 2026, in Madrid, Spain.
(Photo by Fernando Sanchez/Europa Press via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 01, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

May Day demonstrations across the world on Friday denounced the US-Israeli war against Iran, which has caused a global energy crisis that is disproportionately harming working-class people.

Among the earliest May Day demonstrations took place in the Philippines, and a video published by The Associated Press shows protesters clashing with police near the US Embassy in the capital city of Manila.

While many demonstrators held signs that referenced local issues, American foreign policy was also a major focus of the protesters, as marchers in Manila carried a large banner that read, “Down With US Imperialism.”

Josua Mata, leader of the SENTRO umbrella group of labor federations, told The Associated Press that the war with Iran was a central focus of protests because of the impact it’s had on energy costs.

“Every Filipino worker now is aware that the situation here is deeply connected to the global crisis,” Mata explained.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto attended a May Day rally held in the capital of Jakarta, where Jakarta Globe reported that he announced a host of worker-friendly policies including plans “to build daycare facilities for workers’ children and accelerate the construction of at least 1 million homes.”

France 24 reported that hundreds of demonstrators in Istanbul, Turkey were arrested after attempting to march to the city’s iconic Taksim Square, which police had sealed off.

The Turkish Contemporary Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) said on Friday afternoon that at least 350 demonstrators in Istanbul have been detained as a result of the protests, with hundreds more potentially in custody.



May Day demonstrations are also taking place across Europe, with many demonstrators blaming US President Donald Trump’s war for the deterioration of workers’ living standards.

The European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 93 trade union organizations in 41 European countries, released a statement declaring that “working people refuse to pay the price for Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East,” adding that “today’s rallies show working people will not stand by and see their jobs and living standards destroyed.”

Trump is also facing protests at home, with more than 4,000 “May Day Strong” events planned across the United States.

Daniel Bertossa, general secretary for Public Services International, said this year’s May Day demonstrations are providing a desperately needed backlash to power grabs being made by the global billionaire class.

Bertossa pointed to the US-Israel attack on Iran, as well as Trump’s repeated threats to invade Greenland, as key turning points that have pushed workers to organize and fight back.

“Rising living costs caused by the war are now driving anger among working-class people and producing a rare and powerful moment to connect and educate,” said Bertossa. “Fascists don’t have the answers to the economic pain they exploited to get elected—international affairs impact us all—and international working-class solidarity matters.”

Bertossa added that “May Day is a vivid reminder that working-class politics is not a spectator sport,” and “we have never won by watching, waiting, or relying on great power leaders to gift us our future.”

‘A Moment of Reckoning’: 4,000+ May Day Demonstrations Across US

“During the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, we showed what we’re against. May Day is the day we’re making clear what we are fighting for,” 

Demonstrators attend a May Day rally marking International Workers' Day in New York, on May 1, 2026.
(Photo by Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images)

id one organizer.


Stephen Prager
May 01, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


In thousands of locations across the United States, workers and students are taking off from work and school and swearing off shopping on Friday as part of a national May Day protest.

May Day Strong, a coalition of activist groups and unions organizing the events, said more than 4,000 actions, from marches to pickets to displays of peaceful civil disobedience, were underway.






It is yet another nationwide display of coordinated resistance to the Trump administration’s agenda, including its war in Iran and its use of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to attack immigrant communities, issues that were at the forefront of March’s “No Kings” protests.

Six young protesters with the Sunrise Movement were taken into custody after blocking a bridge in Minneapolis in what they said was an act of “nonviolent noncooperation” to “stand up to the war in Iran and against ICE terrorizing our neighbors and our cities.”

Dozens more Sunrise protesters in Portland held a sit-in in the lobby of a Hilton hotel that was housing top officials with the Department of Homeland Security, leading to eight arrests.

“It’s May 1st, it’s workers’ day,” one of the protesters was recorded saying while being led away by police. “Don’t forget that you have power.”

In New York, over 100 activists lined up outside every entrance to the New York Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan, banging drums and chanting “No ICE, no war!” where they were met by a flood of cops.



In the spirit of May Day, a global day of solidarity among workers, Sulma Arias, the executive director of the social justice organization People’s Action, said Friday’s “Workers Over Billionaires” protests are just as much about confronting injustices as about building an alternative.

“During the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, we showed what we’re against. May Day is the day we’re making clear what we are fighting for,” Arias said. “We are for affordable housing for low-income people. We are for free healthcare for all. We are for utility laws that ensure every home stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer at costs that a person on a fixed income can afford. We are for the right to a fair and equal vote for Americans from every race and in every state. May Day is our day to assert and defend our rights.”

“They want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.”

Despite claims by President Donald Trump that the US is entering an economic “golden age” under his leadership, a Gallup poll released this week found that 55% of Americans said their finances were getting worse, the highest number ever recorded in more than 20 years of polling, and even higher than in the doldrums of the Great Recession.



A coalition of labor unions across several major cities, including Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, has coordinated what has been called an “economic blackout,” which includes avoiding buying from private sector retailers.

“When we say ‘workers over billionaires,’ ‘billionaires’ is not just this amorphous figure, right? They’re real people,” said Jana Korn, the chief of staff for the Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO, in an interview with The Real News Network. “In Philadelphia, we’re kind of a poor city. We don’t have that many billionaires, but we have one. The CEO of Comcast is the only billionaire that lives in the city.”

“So why should we, as a city, accept that they take and take from us? And then with that money, what do they do? They donate to Trump’s ballroom project,” she continued. “People in Philadelphia are struggling... Our transportation system barely works. We’re at risk of having 17 schools close down this year.”

Some labor organizers have described economic boycotts, undertaken as part of prior mass protest movements against the second Trump administration, as an act of building strength for something larger, such as a future general strike.

“I think really for us in the labor movement,” Korn said, “[the boycott is] about how do we build the capacity to really disrupt, to strike when necessary, to shut things down when we have to. And that’s something that we have not been called to do as a labor movement in a very long time.”



Other unions have used May Day to confront their own employers directly. In New Orleans, hundreds of nurses at University Medical Center announced that they were beginning a five-day strike after attempting to negotiate a contract for more than two years.

In New York City, Amazon workers unionized with the Teamsters assembled on the steps of the public library before marching to Amazon’s corporate offices to demand the company cut its contracts with ICE, which has used its cloud computing services to target immigrants, including some Amazon workers and contractors.

Matt Multari, who has worked as an Amazon driver for a year and a half, told Mother Jones that he joined the protest to “demand the one thing that’s worth fighting for in this life: respect.”

Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said, “May Day is a moment of reckoning.”

“Immigrant communities—from farmworkers in our fields to nurses in our hospitals, from refugees fleeing war to families who have built their lives here for generations—are under siege,” she said. “They want us afraid. They want us divided. But on May 1, we refuse.”

“Workers and immigrants—documented and undocumented, native-born and newly arrived,” she said, “will stand together in the streets because we know the truth: there is no workers’ rights without immigrant rights, and there is no justice for working people here while our tax dollars fund devastation abroad.”

May Day 2026: What Kind of Nation Will This Be?

This year’s May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights.


People take part in May Day rally and march in New York City to protest the Trump administration, New York, U.S., May 1, 2025.
(Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Peter Dreier
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Unlike the rest of the world’s democracies, the United States doesn’t use the metric system, doesn’t require employers to provide workers with paid vacations, hasn’t abolished the death penalty, and doesn’t celebrate May Day as an official national holiday.

Outside the US, May 1 is international workers’ day, observed with speeches, rallies and demonstrations. This year, millions of workers in Europe, Asia and Latin America will take to the streets to demand higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions.

Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity was started by the US labor movement and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country.

This year, on the heels of the three massive nationwide “No Kings” marches and rallies, millions of Americans will join forces, in thousands of cities and towns, in May Day Strong events.

The May Day Strong organizers hoping to bring Americans together to challenge the billionaires, big corporations, and the Trump administration, who have manipulated the rules to lower living standards, attack immigrants, undermine democracy, and direct tax dollars for wars rather than meeting human needs. It will be a day of rallies, marches, teach-ins, labor actions, and a refusal to participate in business as usual—because, as the organizers say, “when those at the top rig the system, collective action is how we set it right.”

Organizers expect over several thousand nonviolent actions across the country. The broad coalition behind the protests include major unions, civil rights, reproductive justice, environmental, immigrant rights, and faith groups, and tenant and community organizations, as well as Indivisible and Democratic Socialists of America.

The protest is inspired by the large day of action on January 23 that shut down much of Minneapolis by asking people not to work, shop, or attend school that day to challenge ICE’s occupation and its illegal actions (including murder) against immigrants and activists.

But the May Day Strong leaders are not calling for a general strike to shut down the economy. That tactic—allowing unions to strike in solidarity with other unions’ strikes—was banned in 1946 when Congress passed the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act over President Harry Truman’s veto. Even so, organizers view this year’s May Day events as a dress rehearsal something close to a general strike in 2028, in anticipation of the presidential and mid-term elections, but that would require the participation of many large unions who may not believe they and their members are prepared for such a militant action or the possible political backlash by the Trump administration and by voters if employers threaten to fire workers for engaging in an illegal strike. In addition, as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted, “How many people would need to stop shopping to make a noticeable dent in the nearly $3 billion per day Americans spend?”“

But another massive national day of protest this May Day could help inspire voters to oust more Trump Republicans in November, give Democrats a majority of seats in both the House and Senate, and lay the groundwork for a more progressive policy agenda if the Democrats take back the White House in two years.

In doing so, they will be honoring the original May Day, which was born of the movement for an eight-hour workday. After the Civil War, unregulated capitalism ran rampant in America. It was the Gilded Age, a time of merger mania, increasing concentration of wealth and growing political influence by corporate power brokers known as Robber Barons. New technologies made possible new industries, which generated great riches for the fortunate few, but at the expense of workers, many of them immigrants, who worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, for little pay.

As the gap between the rich and other Americans widened dramatically, workers began to resist in a variety of ways. The first major wave of labor unions pushed employers to limit the workday to ten hours and then later down to eight hours. The 1877 strike by tens of thousands of railroad, factory and mine workers—which shut down the nation’s major industries and was brutally suppressed by the corporations and their friends in government—was the first of many mass actions to demand living wages and humane working conditions. By 1884, the campaign had gained enough momentum that the predecessor to the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution at its annual meeting, “that eight hours shall constitute legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”

On the appointed date, unions and radical groups orchestrated strikes and large-scale demonstrations in cities across the country. More than 500,000 workers went on strike or marched in solidarity and many more people protested in the streets. In Chicago, a labor stronghold, at least 30,000 workers struck. Rallies and parades across the city more than doubled that number, and the May 1 demonstrations continued for several days. The protests were mostly nonviolent, but they included skirmishes with strikebreakers, company-hired thugs and police.

On May 3, at a rally outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory, police fired on the crowd, killing at least two workers. The next day, at a rally at Haymarket Square to protest the shootings, police moved in to clear the crowd. Someone threw a bomb at the police, killing at least one officer. Another seven policemen were killed during the ensuing riot, and police gunfire killed at least four protesters and injured many others.

After a controversial investigation, seven anarchists were sentenced to death for murder, while another was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The anarchists won global notoriety, being seen as martyrs by many radicals and reformers, who viewed the trial and executions as politically motivated.

Within a few years, unions and radical groups around the world had established May Day as an international holiday to commemorate the Haymarket martyrs and continue the struggle for the eight-hour day, workers’ rights, and social justice.

In the United States, however, the burgeoning Knights of Labor, uneasy with May Day’s connection to anarchists and other radicals, adopted another day to celebrate workers’ rights. In 1887, Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday, celebrated in September. Other states soon followed. Unions sponsored parades to celebrate Labor Day, but such one-day festivities didn’t make corporations any more willing to grant workers decent conditions. To make their voices heard, workers had to resort to massive strikes, typically put down with brutal violence by government troops.

In 1894, the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, went on strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company to demand lower rents (Pullman was a company town that owned its employees’ homes) and higher pay following huge layoffs and wage cuts. In solidarity with the Pullman workers, railroad workers across the country boycotted the trains with Pullman cars, paralyzing the nation’s economy as well as its mail service. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and called out 12,000 soldiers to break the strike. They crushed the walkout and killed at least two protesters. Six days later, Cleveland—facing worker protests for his repression of the Pullman strikers—signed a bill creating Labor Day as an official national holiday in September. He hoped that giving the working class a day off to celebrate one Monday a year might pacify them.

For most of the 20th century, Labor Day was reserved for festive parades, picnics and speeches sponsored by unions in major cities. But contrary to what President Cleveland had hoped, American workers, their families and allies, found other occasions to mobilize for better working conditions and a more humane society. America witnessed massive strike waves throughout the century, including militant general strikes and occupations. These included a general strike in Seattle in 1919, the 1934 San Francisco general strike, led by the longshoremen’s union; a strike of about 400,000 textile workers that same year; militant sit-down strikes in 1937 by autoworkers in Flint, Michigan, women workers at Woolworth’s department stores in New York, aviation workers in Los Angeles, and others, and the largest strike wave in US history in 1946, triggered by pent-up demands following World War Two.

May 1 faded away as a day of protest. From the 1920s through the 1950s, radical groups sought to keep the tradition alive with parades and other events, but the mainstream labor movement and most liberal organizations kept their distance, making May Day an increasingly marginal affair. In 1958, in the midst of the cold war, President Dwight Eisenhower proclaimed May 1 as Loyalty Day. Each subsequent president has issued a similar proclamation, although few Americans know about or celebrate the day.

Since 2001, American unions and immigrant rights activists have resurrected May 1 as a day of protest around both workers’ rights and immigrant rights. That year, millions of people in over 100 cities—including more than a million in Los Angeles, 200,000 in New York and 300,000 in Chicago—participated in May Day demonstrations.

The huge turnout was catalyzed by a bill, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and passed by the House the previous December, that would have classified as a felon anyone who helped undocumented immigrants enter or remain in the United States. Since then, immigrant workers and their allies have adopted May Day as an occasion for protest.

In 2006, organized launched a protest they called “A Day Without Immigrants,” which was also termed the “Great American Boycott.” In many cities, workers refused to go to work, high school students walked out of their classrooms and into the street, while consumers shut down businesses that depended on immigrant workers.

In 2017, activists organized another “Day Without Immigrants” protest to dramatize the importance of immigrants to the American economy and protest Trump’s plans to build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The organizers called for immigrants and allies not to go to work, to avoid spending money, and keep children home from school.

“It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the eight-hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and brought May Day back to life,” observed California State Senator María Elena Durazo, the former head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Although the labor movement fell on hard times starting in the 1950s, it nevertheless helped guarantee that more Americans would share in the nation’s post-war prosperity and join the middle class. Moreover, the civil rights, feminist, environmental and gay rights movements, and the more recent immigrant rights movement, drew important lessons from labor movement tactics and built coalitions with organized labor to advance their goals.

America is now in the midst of a new Gilded Age with a new group of corporate Robber Barons, many of them operating on a global scale. The top of the income scale has the biggest concentration of income and wealth since 1928. Several decades of corporate-backed assaults on unions have left only six percent of private sector employees with union cards, down from about one-third of all workers in the 1950s. More than half of America’s 15 million union members now work for government (representing 33 percent of all government employees), so business groups and conservative politicians, including Trump, have targeted public sector unions for destruction.

Despite this, we’ve seen a recent resurgence of activism among rank-and-file workers at fast-food chains, Starbucks, Amazon, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, Volkswagen, Boeing, Trader Joe’s, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Chipotle, Disneyland, Kaiser Permanente, UPS, Uber and LYFT, REI, film companies and TV studios, meatpacking companies, major hospitals and universities, school districts, and other employers. They have waged strikes, walkouts and union recognition campaigns to win better pay and working conditions.

Public opinion in solidly behind these demands. The decline of union membership is not due to Americans’ opposition to unions. A recent Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support unions. Support is particularly high among Americans between 18 and 34 years old, 72% of whom embrace unions as a vehicle to address economic inequality and workplace problems. About two-thirds (64%) of Americans think the federal minimum wage—which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009—should be increased to $17.

The biggest obstacle to a union resurgence is federal labor law. American workers understand that employers resort to a variety of antiunion tactics—including firing employees illegally—to thwart unionization efforts. And there’s the rub. Americans have far fewer rights at work than employees in other democratic societies. Current federal laws are an impediment to union organizing rather than a protector of workers’ rights. The rules are stacked against workers, making it extremely difficult for even the most talented organizers to win union elections. Under current law, and with Trump stacking the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union members, any employer with a clever attorney can stall union elections, giving management time to scare the living daylights out of potential recruits.

This year’s May Day rallies go beyond workers’ rights. They will focus on issues like stopping the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration, protecting Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs working people rely on, fully funding public schools, healthcare, and housing for all, and stopping the attacks on communities, including policies that target immigrants and people of color. It will also build momentum for a large-scale voter mobilization effort to elect liberals and progressives in the November mid-terms.

“It isn’t just about immigrant rights. It isn’t just about workers’ rights on the job or even about raising the standard of living for all workers,” said Durazo. “It’s about what kind of country we want to be.”

Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp distinguished professor of politics at Occidental College. He joined the Occidental faculty in January 1993 after serving for nine years as Director of Housing at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and senior policy advisor to Boston Mayor Ray Flynn. He is the author of "The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame" (2012) and an editor (with Kate Aronoff and Michael Kazin) of "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style" and co-author of "Baseball Rebels: The Players, People and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America" (2022).
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May Day: Day One of a Mass Youth Uprising

This system is not made for everyday working people, and the only way we can change things is if we start disrupting the status quo.

Students at George Washington University and three other schools in Washington, DC walked out on September 9, 2025 to protest the federal takeover of the district and the deployment of National Guard troops.
(Photo by the Sunrise Movement)

Shradha Bista
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Today, for May Day, millions of students, educators, and workers are striking for our education, lives, and futures. This isn’t just a rally or march: Whether it’s shutting down corporate offices or leaving classrooms empty, we’re disrupting business as usual. And, young people are taking the lead.

Today isn’t a one-day strike. It’s day one of a mass youth uprising. Throughout history, we’ve seen students and workers on the front lines of anti-authoritarian movements, catalyzing mass societal action.

In the days leading up to May Day, we’ve seen that we’re already having an impact. In Durham, North Carolina, the Durham Public Schools announced last week that school was cancelled on May 1 because over 1,000 students and staff were projected to walk out of school that day. In Madison, Wisconsin, schools shut down after 70% of staff committed to this national day of action. A dozen more school districts have followed suit.

So when pundits ask, “Where are the young people?” The answer is, May Day. Across the country, people are growing increasingly frustrated with political and institutional leadership that are serving billionaires, not us. While the Trump administration commits war crimes in the Middle East, millions are stripped of their healthcare. While billionaires get handouts to build data centers, they claim we can’t solve our housing crisis. While college football coaches are paid million-dollar salaries, tuition to attend school continues to rise.

This May 1, we will strike in hundreds of thousands. In every corner of this country, you will see students walking out of class and workers striking from their jobs.

It’s extremely clear to young people like me: This system is not made for everyday working people, and the only way we can change things is if we start disrupting the status quo. If we’ve learned anything over the past few months, it’s that when people come together in masses, we are more powerful than the people in power, and we win. Specifically, when people practice mass noncooperation in their schools and cities, they win.

Mass noncooperation is the act of not giving in to their “business as usual.” We hold the power because we make the system run, and we have the power to make it crumble. It means recognizing that the system only functions because of us, and choosing to withdraw that labor, that time, that participation is power we hold. It is not enough to protest on our days off, or repost a social media post. We need workers to stop going to work so billionaires lose money. We need students and educators to stop attending classes to show the power of those empty seats. We need to stop working for a system that is failing us, to show them that we can turn it all around if they keep ignoring our needs.

We’ve seen mass noncooperation work in the past. Earlier this year, after tens of thousands of people went on strike in Minneapolis following the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commander in the city was removed from his role, and he himself said that the level of noncooperation from Minnesotans was stopping ICE from carrying out its goals. Now, we’re taking that action nationwide.

This May 1, we will strike in hundreds of thousands. In every corner of this country, you will see students walking out of class and workers striking from their jobs. You’ll hear chants and cheers for one another; you’ll feel hope and resilience. And when we do, we’ll show President Donald Trump and his billionaire friends that if they keep going with their agenda, we will stop their regime from operating. If they keep abducting our neighbors, if they keep choosing Wall Street over working people, if they keep starting wars instead of giving us healthcare—the kind of disruption they are seeing today will be a drop in the bucket.

We’re also sending a message to people across this country: We, working people, have the power. We run the economy, we fill the classrooms. If we stop cooperating, the billionaires can’t profit, and the oligarchs can’t rule. We have the power to win what we deserve: a world where we earn a livable wage, breathe clean air, and can afford necessities like education.

Today, on May 1, we say: No work. No school. No spending.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Shradha Bista
Shradha Bista is a first-year honors student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a student organizer since high school and organizes with her campus’ Sunrise Movement hub, winning demands like UNC-CH rejecting the Trump Loyalty Oath Compact last fall. Shradha studies Public Policy and Peace, War, and Defense on campus, and she’s excited to see the success of students and workers this May Day and beyond!
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‘May Day Strong’ Shows How Trumpism Changed the Game of Political Action

Action isn’t only about pressuring institutions anymore. It’s increasingly about jamming the system, slowing it down, or breaking its rhythm. In plain terms, we’ve shifted from representative politics toward something more like direct pressure.


Protesters hold signs during the Nationwide May Day Strong Rally, “Workers Stand Up to Billionaires,” on May 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for May Day Strong)

Brian Hudson
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams


For decades, American politics rested on one big, mostly unquestioned idea: Real change happens through the system. You vote, you lobby, you go to court, you work the parties. Even the biggest protest movements eventually tried to plug themselves back into those official channels. But lately—especially since Donald Trump burst onto the scene—that old assumption has been crumbling fast.

What we’re seeing now, in things like the “May Day Strong” actions, isn’t just more people protesting. It’s a deeper change in how politics actually works. Action isn’t only about pressuring institutions anymore. It’s increasingly about jamming the system, slowing it down, or breaking its rhythm. In plain terms, we’ve shifted from representative politics toward something more like direct pressure.

The key driver here is the collapse of trust in institutions. One of the most striking things about Trumpism isn’t any single policy—it’s the relentless way it attacked the legitimacy of the middlemen: the media as “the enemy of the people,” judges as biased, elections as rigged. These weren’t just throwaway lines. Over time, they sank in and reshaped how a lot of people view the system’s ability to actually deliver.

When folks stop believing the formal channels can handle their grievances, they start looking for other levers. That’s when direct action, civil disobedience, and economic disruption stop looking fringe and start feeling logical.

“May Day Strong” feels like a live experiment. It’s testing how well networked groups can mobilize and whether hitting the economy where it hurts can deliver lasting political leverage. The answers will matter a lot for where democracy goes next.

“May Day Strong” sits right at that crossroads. The call for “No Work, No Shopping” isn’t subtle. It says: If real power flows through the economy, then choking those flows becomes a form of politics. On the surface it seems straightforward, but it quietly rewrites the textbook definition of power.

In the old model, power lived in government buildings and political offices. You tried to influence them. In the emerging one, power is scattered across economic networks and social connections. So the game moves from representation to targeted disruption—from institutional politics to what you might call infrastructural politics.

This isn’t purely ideological. It also grows out of how people actually experience daily life now: gig work, shaky jobs, disappearing benefits, and costs that keep climbing. When the ground under your feet feels unstable, waiting for institutions to fix things starts to feel naive.

So where does Trumpism fit? It didn’t invent this distrust, but it poured gasoline on it. By hammering institutional norms, torching media credibility, and sharpening polarization, it helped create an environment where formal mechanisms look increasingly broken. In that kind of atmosphere, taking it to the streets—or to the supply chains—doesn’t feel radical. It feels like common sense.

Still, there’s real tension. Disrupting people’s everyday lives is a double-edged sword. If folks see it as standing up for justice, it can build wide support. If it just looks like chaos that hurts regular people trying to get by, it can spark a strong backlash.

That tension defines politics in this post-trust era. Legitimacy no longer comes neatly from institutions. It gets fought over in public opinion—and more and more, the street has become the arena where that fight happens.

In that light, “May Day Strong” feels like a live experiment. It’s testing how well networked groups can mobilize and whether hitting the economy where it hurts can deliver lasting political leverage. The answers will matter a lot for where democracy goes next.

If direct disruption keeps replacing traditional institutional routes, the line between protest and actual governance starts to blur. Suddenly, the power to halt things becomes its own kind of authority. That opens doors for groups that felt shut out—but it also raises the odds of deeper instability.

At the end of the day, this isn’t simply politics getting more extreme. It’s politics changing its fundamental shape. It’s no longer just a contest to control the institutions. It’s becoming a struggle to control the flows—of information, money, goods, and attention.

Trumpism didn’t create this shift, but it accelerated it. By eroding trust and heating up divisions, it helped make direct action feel less like an outlier and more like a normal part of how politics gets done.

The big question now isn’t how institutions can manage protest. It’s whether institutions can hold onto their central role at all.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Brian Hudson
Brian Hudson is a political science graduate from Bates College with a keen interest in international relations and global affairs. As a freelance commentator, he provides analysis on geopolitics, international security, and counter-terrorism. His work has been featured on news analysis platforms such as Modern Diplomacy, Eurasia Review, and others.
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Why I’m Answering the May Day Call to Action By Running for Congress

The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I’m running to make sure it finally has an answer.


Bronx VA Medical Center nurses hold a demonstration and join other nationwide May Day actions demanding increased Covid-19 protections for nurses and health care workers on May 01, 2020 in New York City.
IPhoto by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Darializa Avila Chevalier
May 01, 2026

Common Dreams

Uptown wakes up before the rest of New York even opens its eyes. Walk Broadway from 125th to 168th, up through Dyckman, as I have, and you’ll see it: The bodega coffee grabbed on the run, the crosstown bus packed before dawn, people clocking into work while downtown is still asleep. These are the people who built our city. Not the CEOs, real estate developers, or the politicians who show up every two to four years with fliers and false promises. The movement fighting for their dignity has always lived here—on these buses and these street corners.

Every May 1, we honor them. May Day, or International Workers’ Day, was created from needless state violence. In 1884, American workers went on strike to win an eight-hour workday. As the deadline approached, a protest in Chicago turned deadly, with police firing into the crowd and arresting seven workers who, after a sham trial, were executed. The bosses thought that would be the end of it. They were wrong. Workers fought for and won the right to an eight-hour workday.

Here in Harlem, Washington Heights, and Kingsbridge, May Day isn’t an abstract history lesson, it’s a mirror. This is a day to honor the transit workers, nurses, teachers, laborers, and caregivers who have always refused to accept less than they deserve and risked everything to fight for a better future for the next generation. They show us what’s possible when working people come together, across generations, race, gender, and culture, and demand a dignified life.

May Day reminds us of something simple and profound: Uptown is a union town. It always has been.

I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have.

New York, and Uptown especially, has become a stronghold of union power. It was in Harlem, during the Harlem Renaissance, that A. Philip Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—the first Black-led labor union in American history. It was in Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem where Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrant women transformed the garment industry, becoming so essential to the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union that by the 1950s, the union published its paper, Justicia, entirely in Spanish. And it was in the Bronx that Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke exposed the Bronx Slave Market, where domestic workers, most of them Black women, were paid as little as 15 cents an hour and subjected to workplace harassment and abuse. Their conditions were so appalling that it sparked city-wide organizing to protect domestic workers. This is my community’s inheritance.

That tradition is still alive in our streets today. In January 2026, 70 years after 1199 Service Employees International Union's historic 46-day strike at Uptown hospitals, hundreds of unionized NY State Nurses Association (NYSNA) nurses walked off the job at NewYork-Presbyterian on 168th Street and at hospitals across our community. They stood on their picket lines from dawn to dusk, through a brutally cold January, fighting starvation wages and conditions so unsafe that patients were being put at risk. After 41 days of striking and organizing, they won. That’s the Uptown way.

From the factory floor to the hospital room to the living room, Uptown is still at the center of the labor movement. I think about this legacy when people ask me why I’m running for Congress. The honest answer is: I’m not sure I had a choice.

When you grow up as the daughter of Dominican immigrants and watch your parents work multiple jobs and come home exhausted, see your neighbors get pushed out, watch politicians blame the vulnerable instead of the corporations robbing them blind, all while sending their tax dollars to drop bombs on babies, you organize and fight back. And eventually, the question stops being why run and starts being how could I not?

Congress was not built for us. It was built to manage us. It was built to keep our labor, our rent checks, and our votes flowing to people who have never had to choose between rent and groceries, all while allowing the people who are the foundation of our city to fall through the cracks. But here’s what the establishment never understood about Uptown and The Bronx: We don’t wait for permission.

That’s the legacy I am fighting to protect in Congress. I am a proud card-carrying United Auto Workers member. I’ve picketed alongside NYSNA nurses on 168th Street and Mount Sinai Morningside. I’ve fought with Student Workers of Columbia to protect their peers from harassment by the university and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In Congress, I will fight to pass the PRO Act so every worker can organize without fear. I will push to fund public housing, cancel medical debt, and end the forever wars that drain our communities to pad the pockets of defense contractors. I want to build power for the people on that crosstown bus before dawn who never get thanked for keeping our city running and are told to be grateful for what little they have. They built New York and deserve everything it has to offer.

May Day is a call to action. The workers of Uptown and The Bronx have been making the demand for a better life for over a century but Washington has ignored their demands for too long. I’m running to make sure it finally has an answer.


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Darializa Avila Chevalier
Darializa Avila Chevalier is a working-class Afro-Latina organizer raised by Dominican immigrant parents. She has spent her life organizing for the people politicians leave behind: she fought to free Abdikadir Mohamed from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention during Trump's Muslim ban, organized Columbia's encampment in solidarity with Palestinians, and stood up for Mahmoud Khalil when ICE abducted him from his apartment. She is a card-carrying member of UAW and a public defense investigator. She doesn't just talk about the movement—she’s helped build it.
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