‘May Day was born in struggle’

In the midst of escalating attacks on immigrants and all working people, we must build the future our ancestors dreamed of

by APRIL SIMS

(May 1, 2025) — May Day was born in struggle. It didn’t start with a holiday, it started with a strike.

Back in 1886, thousands of workers—many of them immigrants—took to the streets of Chicago to demand one simple thing: eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will.

They were met with clubs, bullets, and arrests. But they didn’t back down. In fact they sparked a fire that spread across the world — a fire that lives on in us today through the spirit of International Workers Day, or May Day.

The demands of 1886 are still our demands in 2025. We still fight for dignity on the job. We still fight for time with our families. We still fight to be seen—not as machines, not as profits, but as people.

Just like those workers on the first May Day, we too are entitled to everything our labor creates. 

But like our ancestors, workers today are under attack.

We see it in ICE raids and detention centers, in stolen wages and union-busting campaigns. We see it in housing costs that crush our communities and healthcare bills that bankrupt our neighbors.

But we also see something else. We see workers organizing at Amazon, at Starbucks, in warehouses, in clinics, in fields. We see our immigrant communities rising together, saying: we are not disposable, we are not afraid, we belong here.

We see tenants on rent strike, and nurses on picket lines. Farmworkers are standing up, demanding respect for their labor and the same rights as anyone else.

Here’s what history teaches us: when workers stand together across race and place, across gender and sexuality across ability and ideaology, there is nothing we cannot do.

In 1886, in the face of violence and intimidation, working people fought for their labor rights before any government decided those rights even existed.

We’ve won before and we will win again. Because our fight is not just about better wages or fair schedules. It’s about freedom, it’s about dignity, it’s about power. 

And that power doesn’t come from the top. It doesn’t come from the government. It never has.

Our power comes from the streets. It comes from solidarity. It comes from the people.

So today, on International Workers Day, we remember the courage of the past. We meet the challenges of the present. And we build the future our ancestors dreamed of.

April Sims is the President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO.