May Day—Why We’re Rallying in Liberty, New York

Nestled in the Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County, New York, Liberty is a village of some 10,000 inhabitants, two hours west of New York City. Last year PepsiCo shuttered its Frito-Lay snack factory, laying off nearly 300 workers. “I don’t know how our town survives this,” a Town Board member remarked. “It’s a bad situation.” The biggest employer now, after the school district, is a chicken farm on the outskirts with a largely immigrant workforce that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sporadically targets.

On May 1—International Workers’ Day—Sullivan County residents will rally in Liberty, joining nationwide actions as part of the May Day Strong coalition. Why will we be on the streets? It’s simple. Most of us are workers—some unionized, most not; some well paid, most not; some small businesspeople or “independent contractors” and others employees; some retired, some still at it even in our 70s. Whatever our situation, it’s clear that Trump 2.0 is the most anti-worker and pro-oligarch administration in living memory.

Consider this:

• It issued an executive order terminating union collective bargaining agreements for 1 million federal employees.
• It implemented hiring freezes and encouraged resignations, along with mass firings of probationary employees.
• It reinstated Schedule F, which reclassifies civil servants in policy roles, stripping them of job protections and making it easier to fire them for political reasons.
• It fired National Labor Relations Board officials, replacing them with pro-regime hacks who will back employers in contract disputes.
• It promotes state-level so-called "Right to Work" laws and supports a national "Right to Work" law. Together with the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, these measures undermine unions’ organizing and finances.
• It gutted OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), endangering workers, especially in high-risk industries like logging and lumber, farming, meatpacking, warehouses, and commercial fishing.
• In the name of rolling back regulation, it rescinded safety rules in construction, mining, chemical, and other sectors, which will increase injuries and fatalities and the disease burden of nearby communities.
• It radically reduced workplace safety and wage violation enforcement. The bosses can now get away with almost anything.
• President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor (DOL) proposed removing minimum wage and overtime protections for an estimated 3.7 million home-care workers.
• It issued rules to make it easier for companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees, stripping them of benefits and minimum wage guarantees.
• It rescinded a 2024 rule that protected migrant farm workers from retaliation for reporting safety violations.
• Its threats and mass deportations have created volatility in labor-intensive sectors, such as construction, agriculture, hospitality, and eldercare, which disrupts supply chains, produces labor shortages, and leads to worse outcomes for US-born workers.
• The administration revoked Executive Order 11246, which prohibited federal contractors from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
• It has undermined the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, potentially impacting 2.8 million workers.
• It threatened to veto the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, which would allow employers to interfere with union elections.
• It slashed federal grant programs that fight child labor and slave labor abroad.
• It requested $1.5 trillion for the Defense Department—a 42% increase—while holding Social Security flat and cutting Medicare and Medicaid personnel.
• It eliminated Community Service Block Grants, the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program, and Senior Employment Services, which provide older people with food assistance, home heating, and job opportunities.
• It proposed a rule that would encourage the addition of dodgy high-risk “alternative” assets—such as private equity, private credit, and crypto—to employer-run 401(k) retirement plans and that would protect management against worker lawsuits.
• The Trump 2.0 administration jacked up the cost of living with unprecedented tariffs and massive deficit spending to fund its tax cuts for the rich, as well as unpopular wars, huge cuts to cheap renewable energy programs, and giveaways to the AI and crypto sectors that sent petroleum and electricity prices soaring.

Over one-third of Sullivan County residents now have “utility debt” to New York State Electric and Gas, an electric company owned by a Spanish multinational corporation that is raking in profits from our skyrocketing bills. This utility debt is often on top of housing debt, medical debt, education debt, credit card debt, automobile debt, and small business debt.

Many people in our region are struggling and economically increasingly precarious. Much of the rest of our country is in similar straits, especially but not only in rural areas. Blood collection centers are moving into middle-class neighborhoods, as even relatively well-off Americans now resort to selling their plasma to make ends meet.

May Day is as American as apple pie, despite what anti-labor talking heads might tell you.

The Trump 2.0 administration is so anti-worker that its Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, faces formal complaints of creating a “hostile work environment” at the DOL, making subordinates run personal errands and do chores like cleaning out closets in her home, and retaliating against staffers for cooperating with an investigation, including claims of sexual harassment of DOL employees by her husband.

May Day is as American as apple pie, despite what anti-labor talking heads might tell you. It dates to the 1880s, when US workers—many of them immigrants—struggled for an eight-hour workday; a five-day workweek; and an end to dangerous, grueling working conditions. May Day also honors the memory of the labor organizers who died at the hands of the Chicago Police in 1886 and the four who were framed up and sentenced to death by hanging in the aftermath of that violence.

We remember—and we see what’s going on today. Enough is enough. May Day will be a nationwide day of collective action. We’ll be rallying in Liberty.