Labor Day, which became a US national holiday in 1894, was once a very big deal. Photos such as this one taken in Buffalo, NY, in 1900 speak to the tens of thousands of workers who would march on Labor Day to be counted and to stand up for their rights.
Labor’s mobilization in 2025 was hardly on the scale of 1900. But this year’s marches nonetheless mark an impressive revival of an old labor union tradition.
In Boston, this year’s Labor Day march was the first the city had seen in many decades. Indeed, the Greater Boston Labor Council—perhaps being just a little overly enthusiastic—went overboard and, ignoring the marches of a century ago, mislabeled this year’s event the first Labor Day march in the city ever.
Regardless, thousands of workers and community allies turned out. Boston’s march was one of an estimated 1,000 events nationwide. The national group, May Day Strong, estimated that total participation nationwide topped 500,000 people.
The marches had two main goals. One was to mobilize in opposition to the administration of President Donald Trump. But a second key objective was to revive labor’s sense of itself—in short, to build a stronger labor movement.
Writing in NPQ, Jackson Potter of the Chicago Teachers Union captured this ambition. “Imagine when dozens or hundreds of city Central Labor Councils engage in similar actions to reshape traditional Labor Day marches into cauldrons of political education, resistance, and community building…?”
This year’s marches…mark an impressive revival of an old labor union tradition.
More Than a Breakfast
If unions until this year had often foregone Labor Day marches, how had they marked the holiday? In Boston, unions had organized annual breakfasts at a hotel. “The breakfast was elected officials and leaders of unions,” Justin Brown, president of the Brookline Educators Union, said to the Boston Globe. Brown added that this year’s event was “so much more rank and file.”
“We feel shut out by both political parties that prioritize what corporations want over what our communities need.”
Chaton Green, general agent of the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions, concurred. Green told NPQ that one reason for the switch to a public event was that you could not fit the number of people interested in participating in a hotel ballroom. Darlene Lombos, president of the Greater Boston Labor Council, added that union members “wanted to be in the street.”
In the speeches given before and after the marches, there were signs of the political reawakening that people like Potter have been hoping to see. Chrissy Lynch, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO—the central labor body for the state—noted that “we feel shut out by both political parties that prioritize what corporations want over what our communities need.” Dayshawn Simmons of the Somerville Educators Union observed that in the face of immigration raids and federal cutbacks, “It is hard to be an educator these days. But it’s such a joy to be with the students.”
Workers over Billionaires
The overall focus on the gathering was around class mobilization—and that meant defining working-class people as a multiracial group of workers whose interests very much diverge from their corporate overlords. The official theme of the national day of action, was, after all, “Workers Over Billionaires” and signs with the slogan were prominently displayed before, during, and after the march.
This theme was widely reflected in the speeches offered from the dais. “We got to stand together and send a message to the billionaire class that the working class won’t take it anymore,” Jimmy Wiliams, Jr., general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) and “grand marshal” of the march, said to the enthusiastic crowd. This theme was broadly reiterated by others, including Lombos, who began the event by calling on attendees to “stand up against billionaires and fight against corporate greed.”
Specific bad actors were identified too. Natalicia Tracy, president of Community Labor United, called out investment firm BlackRock—which, as she noted, manages assets in excess of $10 trillion—for investing in for-profit prisons and retreating from its DEI goals.
For her part, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whose speech doubled as a miniature campaign rally, criticized Republic Services, a $16 billion waste management firm, for offering a “lowball contract” that has led the firm’s sanitation workers to remain on strike for over two months. Wu also called out Aramark, a company with $19 billion in revenues, which she said had “undercut” Fenway Park baseball stadium concession workers, resulting in a three-day walkout in July, and who remain without a contract.
Workers from both of these disputes spoke during the rally. Kenny Sullivan, a Republic Services worker and Teamsters Local 25 union member, said he had “walked the [picket] line” for 62 days and will do so “as long as it takes.”
A Fenway concession worker and UNITE HERE Local 26 union member noted that the three-day walkout had achieved “95 percent support” among workers, and that workers remain willing to go out on a strike without an end date if negotiations fail to achieve an acceptable contract. A key issue of contention is Aramark’s desire to replace at least some concession workers with automated robots.
What Comes Next
A lot of what happens in labor unions is locally based, which is reflected in union local structures, among other things. That said, the National Day of Action was prompted by the actions of the Trump administration at the federal level. Recently, the Partnership for Public Service estimated that more than 199,000 federal workers have left their jobs this year, a nearly 10 percent reduction of the federal workforce, with Black women among the most affected.
“[Elon] Musk and oligarchs have money and control….But we have the power. It is time for us to organize power.”
To bring the point home, Lilly Simmons, a Boston-based Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worker and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3428, took the mic. The EPA is one of a number of agencies where the Trump administration is seeking to unilaterally terminate collective bargaining agreements on “national security” grounds, affecting an estimated one million workers—an action that remains under legal challenge. Simmons noted that “there is no economy without an environment. Currently the president thinks the federal government shouldn’t have unions in the workplace.”
Local struggles intersect with national politics too. Leny Hernandez, coordinator of the App Drivers Union organizing campaign, is using a recently passed state law to seek to become the nation’s first recognized ride-hailing drivers union. Immigration raids are among the challenges these workers face. Hernandez implored attendees to “protect immigrant workers and the rights of all workers.”
Writing in NPQ for Labor Day, Bernadette King Fitzsimons called on labor unions to “take bold, strategic action to organize workers and win strong contracts.” At the rally, Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, offered a similar statement, “[Elon] Musk and oligarchs have money and control,” Nelson said. “But we have the power. It is time for us to organize power.”
The potential for power is evidently there. As Carlos Aramayo, president of UNITE HERE Local 26, noted, “The labor movement is the largest organization of working people in this country. We are the working class. We build the buildings, teach the classes, and clean the hotel rooms. We are the economy.” Changing that potential power into actual power, though, remains a key organizing challenge.
The Labor Day marches and rallies, of course, are but one step in a longer process of organizing, educating, and political rebuilding. Ayanna Pressley, Boston’s congressional representative, began her remarks by noting, “It is good to be with family, movement family.” And it was—even if the most effective paths forward have yet to be fully discerned.
