May Day
in New York 2026 saw one of the largest turnouts of union members in a number
of years. No reliable estimates are available
but my own estimate is that there were somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 participants
at the main rally in New York in Washington Square Park. It also appeared, judging
from the union labels they held up and their orange uniforms that the majority
of participants were affiliated with one of the dozens of union locals supporting
the May Day action. This was a dramatic
contrast from the “labor” turnout in previous years that featured a token
presence by a few bureaucrats with hardly any rank and file participation.
Among the slogans that were raised were, “Tax the rich," “ensure safe working conditions”, and "workers over billionaires", "No ICE, No War, No Private Army" and "Solidarity Forever”. There were also signs from various groups and individuals with the message, “Free Palestine”, “Fight Fascism” and “End the War on Iran”.
The
crowd also included a good sample of the left groups in New York. Among the
groups I noticed were the Revolutionary Communists of America (RCA), The Internationalist Group, Socialist Alternative,
The Freedom Socialist Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation. Even the moribund Socialist Workers Party
showed up with their own literature table. The largest contingent of left groups
by far was the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who were one of the main
sponsors of the event. Of the left groups present at the rally the only one
that had a banner that spoke to the political requirements of the moment was
Socialist Alternative with its slogan of “Build a New Mass Workers Party”. While we can certainly support the great
majority of the slogans on display, the recognition that none of those demands
will go anywhere without the building of an independent working class party is
key.
There
were also separate contingents representing different unions and in some cases
dissident factions within unions such as the Teamsters for a Democratic Union
(TDU). Also represented were a number of local
activist groups defending the rights of low wage workers and immigrants against
the assault of the Trump Administration. Perhaps the most animated of these
groups that I noticed in Washington Square was DRUM, “Desis Rising Up and
Moving”, a group dedicated “to build the
power of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean low wage immigrant workers, youth, and
families in New York City to win economic and educational justice, and civil
and immigrant rights.” Rank and file members of DRUM were instrumental
to the coalition behind New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last
year’s election.
The
Mayor made a surprise appearance at the rally in Washington Square Park. He
spoke for several minutes on the theme of supporting unions and the rights of workers.
Mamdani has walked back almost all of his election promises since taking up
residence in Gracie Mansion. The one promise he did keep was to keep rents
frozen for rent-controlled apartments. That
one was fairly easy since the representatives of the agency that determines rents
in rent-controlled and stabilized apartments are appointed by the mayor. But
anything involving a conflict with the Democratic Party establishment and the
real estate moguls who run the city behind the scenes has been abandoned. Promises like “taxing the
rich” have all but evaporated as Mamdani has cemented his alliance with New
York’s right wing Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. (Hochul has since come out
for a largely symbolic tax on the wealthy.) All this should be seen on top of
Mamdani’s overtures to Trump. Notable in Mamdani’s speech was a reference to “fast
buses”. This is a sad and ironic echo of his pre-election promise to provide “free
buses” for New York’s indigent.
I noticed the presence of agent provocateurs in the crowd posing as reporters. It was clear that these “reporters”
were encouraging the people they were interviewing to incriminate themselves by
making statements that they supported violence against their political opponents. My suspicions were later confirmed by a Fox
News article that reported the result of an “investigation” that found some
demonstrators, holding up signs saying “86 47”, were guilty of a terrorist conspiracy
to assassinate Trump. These are the same bogus charges that Trump’s Department
of Justice used to indict former FBI Director James Comey.
After
the Washington Square rally ended the assembled crowd marched to the financial
district downtown to take their demands to Wall Street. Several demonstrators
were arrested in the downtown rally, including Chuck Park, an
insurgent Democrat who is challenging an establishment Democrat for a seat in Congress
in the coming election. Park’s campaign
is very much patterned on the model created by Mamdani, except that Park does
not have the endorsement of the DSA. But
he does have a number of local groups enthusiastically backing him. He received the overwhelming endorsement of the
local branch of the Workers Family Party but the parent organization of the
outfit, which has always been a shill
for the Democrats, nixed that endorsement.
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| Chuck Park being arrested |
The
radicalization of the working class that is surely coming will for the most
part bypass all the “groups”. A precursor of the coming radicalization was
exhibited in the Mamdani campaign. Workers and youth turned out to actively
support what was seen by them as an alternative to the bankrupt politics of the
Democratic Party while the traditional “groups” were completely
sidelined. The challenge facing socialists is to convince those forces
that supported Mamdani (and are currently supporting insurgents like Park) that
what is needed is a complete break from the Democratic Party. That will not
happen automatically just because Mamdani has so thoroughly repudiated his
promises and it certainly won’t happen because self-described
“revolutionaries” continuously hector them. What is needed is a politics
that provides a bridge to the consciousness of the masses.
by Ramón Rodríguez
This
year, the May Day celebrations and demonstrations in Mexico City promised to be
more significant than usual with the large scale participation of the dissident
public school teacher’s union, CNTE. The CNTE, which is most active in the
states of Michoacan, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, has a decades-long reputation as one
of the most radical and militant unions in the country and advocates a culture
of class consciousness and solidarity. Their demands include the abrogation of
the neoliberal Education Reform Act passed in 2013, which tends towards a
privatization of the educational system, better salaries and working
conditions, democratization of the main teachers’ union, the SNTE, and more particularly
a reform of the government pension plans which under the dictates of neoliberal
policy were converted to Individual Retirement Accounts beginning in the mid-nineties.
Despite electoral promises by the ruling party, Morena, these demands have not yet
been met although it looks like a reform of the state employees’ pension plan
is quite likely. Otherwise, the CNTE is threatening even more disruptive political
actions and even a nationwide strike leading up to the celebration of the FIFA
Soccer World Cup to be held in Mexico on June 11-19 of 2026.
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| Sex workers in Mexico City protesting their displacement due to the FIFA Word Cup |
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