Photos by Leon Kunstenaar
This year’s May Day marked the 135th Anniversary of International Workers’ Day, which originated from the 1886 campaign for an eight-hour workday in the U.S. that led to massive strikes on May 1 and culminated in the violent Haymarket Affair in Chicago. This year’s May Day rallies, including one of the Bay Area’s largest at San Francisco in the Civic Center, were largely peaceful and drew thousands.
Organizers of the Civic Center rally included the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Bay Resistance, Mission Action, Jobs with Justice, Indivisible, and the San Francisco Labor Council. With many calling for “Workers Over Billionaires,” marchers not only voiced their support for laborers but also demanded changes to ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), taxes favoring the wealthy, foreign policy that has the U.S. involved in at least seven major military engagements, housing and education inequities, inflation, the rising cost of healthcare, and much more that are adversely impacting the majority of workers in the U.S.
Published on May 7, 2026
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