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This May Day, workers, students, and families across the country are set to turn out in the thousands or even millions to make their voices heard against the growing power of the billionaire class.

May Day, often referred to as International Workers’ Day, has a long legacy in the labor movement. In the late 1800’s — an era of extreme wealth concentration much like our own — American workers organized a general strike on May 1st demanding an eight-hour workday. After a wave of violent state and police repression of labor epitomized by the 1886 Haymarket Affair in downtown Chicago, May 1 was enshrined as a celebration of the working class.

This year, organizers are hoping to expand the scope of the day of action into a broader movement against corporate power and the start of a longer organizing process.

Inequality.org spoke with Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, about their plans and hopes for this year’s May Day.

Chris Mills Rodrigo: For people who don’t follow labor or politics closely, what do you want them to understand about what is happening this May Day?

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Jackson Potter: May Day has always been International Workers Day, and this year it is something more. On May 1, workers, students, and families across the country are going to march, rally, and in many cities, refuse business as usual entirely, no work, no school, no shopping, to show this country what it looks like when working people decide not to show up for the people who profit from our labor.

The reason for that is straightforward. Working people are already being forced to choose between food on the table and medicine on the shelf, between paying rent and keeping the lights on. At the same time, resources that should be going to schools, housing, and health care are being diverted to pay for billionaires’ fortunes and arming federal agents to attack our neighbors. People are fed up, and they have every right to be. May Day is the moment when that fed-up energy takes a coordinated form.

The Chicago Teachers Union voted to make May Day a civic day of action. What does that mean, and why did CTU decide to do it?

It means that on May 1, instructional time in Chicago public schools will be devoted to civic engagement, with buses being provided for students who want to attend the rally,........

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