Nearly 1,000 “worker over billionaire” protests are being planned in all 50 states starting this weekend as part of a Labor Day week of action organized by labor unions and advocacy groups in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.
The actions include marches and rallies in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, a Labor Day parade in New York City, rallies in Palmer, Alaska, Freeport, Maine, and a planned protest at the state capitol in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The protests are organized by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, and dozens of partner organizations, including Public Citizen, Indivisible, Democracy Forward, MoveOn and Patriotic Millionaires.
“This is about organic, grassroots organizing, and we intentionally wanted it to be outside of Washington DC, because that’s where the impacts are being felt,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said.
“Whether it’s teachers or nurses or construction workers, they’re all determined to stand up and fight back, because they’re experiencing the cuts, they’re experiencing the change in policies, they’re experiencing the attacks of this White House on their unions, and so they’re determined to make their voices heard and mobilize to fight forward regardless of what’s happening around us, no matter the obstacles.”
Among the policies being protested are the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, the largest single act of union busting in US history, a cut to minimum wage requirements for federal contractors from $17.75 an hour to $13.30 an hour, a proposed rule to eliminate federal minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7 million childcare and home care workers, and the rescission of a minimum wage requirement for disabled workers.
The actions come as public support for labor unions remains strong. A national poll conducted by the AFL-CIO and David Binder Research found trust in labor unions is at 55% – larger than the 36% of respondents who said they trusted the Democratic party and the 35% of respondents who said they trusted the Republican party.
“People are waking up to the fact we don’t have to just sit back and take it and the labor movement is the place to go to channel that activism, to build what’s next and we’re putting forward a vision for what the economy can be,” added Shuler.
“When people see tanks rolling into Washington DC, when we were promised lower costs, they’re like, this makes no sense,” said Shuler. “We’re getting billionaires standing up at the front row of the inauguration, basically taking over agencies, our economy and our country. So I think that no matter what party you belong to, that is a unifying thing that everybody wants, the freedom, fairness and security that all working people deserve.”
“The billionaire agenda, the corruption we’re seeing, is changing the way government is functioning. It’s leading to real-time and impactful ramifications for regular people,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “The gutting of Medicaid, all the firings we’ve seen of federal workers, the ravaging of families through Ice raids. It’s just all coming together to cause people to stand up and say, ‘we are the people of this country. It is workers over billionaires.’”
Gilbert noted they currently have 984 events scheduled, with the aim to reach over 1,000 by Labor Day, a mass organizing effort that has been weeks in the making.
“We’ve been standing together over and over again to talk about the authoritarian slide that this administration is ushering in in our country. We expect a lot of energy this weekend. This is really just the beginning of an ongoing fight against what’s being taken away from regular people,” she said.
