What are the conditions facing workers on May Day?

words by Charles Brooks 

The current moment is best described by the experiences of today’s working class. 

This year’s International Workers Day, commonly known as May Day, happens to fall on the day after the popular political benchmark of 100 days.  

The actions taken by Trump during his first 100 days in office have caused widespread chaos, disappointment, confusion, and even anger.  Deregulation, privatization along with budget cuts to Medicaid, and implementing tariffs that will raise prices on everyday goods as the cost of living continues to rise negatively impacting personal economies 

One hundred days of a litany of executive orders, actions, and decisions widely viewed as a war, an assault on the working- and middle-class folks. 

His actions to reduce the federal government by dismantling agency after agency as thousands of federal workers are now facing unemployment, as their collective bargaining and union rights are stripped.  The Institute of Policy Studies made this point, “Through a series of executive orders, Trump has also removed long-standing job protections for federal career employees, making it easier to fire these workers for no reason and taking away the rights of federal workers to collectively bargain.”

While Trump's recent and those pending makes him an easy target, the crisis to the personal economy did not suddenly emerge on January 20th, Trump’s inauguration day. 

May Day in 2025 is yet another reminder that today’s workers suffer from a crisis aggravated by the policies of the incoming president.  

Before January 20th, there was a crisis to the personal economy as the household debt suffers from credit card debt. Medical and health care debt. The rising costs of living as rent, and utilities continue to increase along with increases to the cost of public transportation and local fees and fines that typically rise on Jan 1, with more coming due on July 1. 

This is where the spotlight is cast on the political misleadership that remains unresponsive to the needs of working people. 

Today, there are twenty states that pay a minimum wage of no more than $7.25 an hour; The federal minimum hourly wage is just $7.25 and has not increased since 2009. 

Nearly 30 million are uninsured. 

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 14 million workers earn less than $15 per hour, accounting for about 10% of all wage and salary workers. As 14% of Black workers compared to 8% of white workers.

Meanwhile, in the legislative graveyard are the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2025 — commonly known as the “PRO Act” and The Raise the Wage Act of 2025.  The PRO Act expands labor union protections while the Raise the Wage Act, would incrementally raise the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2030. 

Meanwhile, in 2024, corporate profits reached $4 trillion dollars - a 54% increase over the last five years (2019 to 2024). 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted solid gains in 2024, rising more than 12%. 

While nationwide protests are scheduled in the US, May Day (International Workers' Day) 

highlight and bring attention to these issues as well as the worker conditions and issues here and across the world.  May Day (International Workers' Day) amplifies the solidarity with workers in other nations of the global south for workers to protest a range of issues. with similar experiences, similar struggles, making similar decisions to their personal economy.

At this political moment, we’re reminded of its socialist beginnings - how International Day came to be, its roots in the struggle for what we know today as the eight-hour workday when the typical workday was from sunrise to sunset.  Socialist and radical beginnings grounded in labor activism, strikes, protest, bloody and violent. 

May 1st was the date set by the International Socialist Conference as a reminder of the events of May 1st, 1886, in what is known as the Haymarket Affair - a union demonstration that was part of the larger blood stained struggle over the 8-hour day.  

Today, two hundred and thirty-six years later, International Workers Day continues to resonate with working people, particularly at this moment as the contradictions on public display become clearer, and sharper.  As working people face increases to their cost of living, as their personal economies confront crisis, they also read the news reports and commentary about the rising corporate profits, along with staggering military and police budgets. At a moment when federal legislation, containing tax cuts, will ensure a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top makes its way through the legislative process in Congress. 

International Workers Day reminds us of the material and political conditions that are shaped and influenced by imperialist forces.  On May Day in 2025, we’re able to witness in real time, not only demonstrations taking place across the world but workers striking in California as well as in Panama, and in Canada.  

On this day, we’re reminded that May Day/International Workers Day 2025 draws our attention to the alignment of capital on a global scale making up the forces of power driving inequality, exploitation, and low wages - here and across the world.