Labor, Climate, and the Long Game

Why May Day matters and Third Act's plans for 2026

 

 

May Day has roots in Chicago. On May 1, 1886, over 60,000 workers marched through Chicago as part of a national strike demanding a shorter workday. Two days later, Chicago police fired on striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Works plant, killing at least two and prompting a call for a general workers meeting the next day in Haymarket Square. The Haymarket Affair of course erupted into a violent confrontation between police and laborers and ultimately led to the execution by the state of Illinois of four prominent labor organizers in Chicago, August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel. The day has grown into a global day of struggle for workers’ rights. And now, May Day Strong — a movement that began with the Chicago Teachers Union and has expanded nationally — is making it newly relevant.

Third Act is part of the May Day Strong coalition, alongside Indivisible and 5051 and many others. And I want to explain why that matters, and what we’re asking people to do.

The labor movement is one of the only organized forces in this country whose reason for existence includes confronting capital. That’s not a political statement — it’s structural. Unions exist to give workers collective power over the entities that employ them. And in this moment, when authoritarianism is being propped up by concentrated economic power, that makes labor one of the most important pillars of resistance.

The labor movement is not a monolith. There are workers across every political viewpoint, including people who aren’t yet where we need them to be on climate. That’s part of our work too — building the relationships that move people, not writing them off. And there are plenty of union members who understand that stopping the extraction of fossil fuels and protecting the planet is inseparable from protecting workers’ livelihoods. Climate people and labor people working together isn’t a nice idea. It’s a necessity.

For May Day, we’re asking people to make three pledges: don’t go to work, don’t go to school, don’t shop. For those of us who are retired, the no-shopping pledge is the most direct way to participate. For small business owners in this group, we’re asking you to consider closing for the day.

But May Day 2026 is also practice for something larger. The labor movement is coalescing around the idea of a general strike on May Day 2028 — a presidential election year, a moment of maximum leverage. May Day 2026 and 2027 are how we build toward that. And one of the things I’d love to see is climate justice — ending fossil fuel extraction, ensuring good jobs in the green economy — as one of the community demands that comes out of that 2028 mobilization. That kind of inclusion doesn’t happen by itself. It comes out of the trusting, cooperative relationships we build now. We have time to build them.