From San Francisco to Sacramento, from Santa Rosa to Stockton, SEIU 1021 members decked out in their new purple May Day shirts took to the streets Friday, May 1, in solidarity with workers around the country and around the world.

The theme of this year’s May Day, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day, was “No Work! No School! No Shopping!” In the rest of the world, May 1 is Labor Day, but its origin is actually here in the U.S.—the culmination of a long and bloody fight for the eight-hour work day and safe working conditions. As this country’s increasingly authoritarian regime slashes public services to provide ever larger tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, insisting there’s no money for healthcare while spending over $47 billion on illegal, immoral wars in the Middle East, working people are standing up and making our voices heard. 

At marches and rallies, SEIU 1021 members carried 20-foot banners reading “The Services We Need, Not Billionaire Greed.” 

“As we’re here today celebrating workers, celebrating May Day, let’s remember this was about fighting, people losing their lives, to make sure we have the ability to work, to be respected, to be treated with the highest regard in the workplace,” said SEIU 1021 President Theresa Rutherford at the rally in Southside Park in Sacramento. ”It’s the people who build the economy. As we celebrate International Workers’ Day, let’s recognize that we are the power. We’re here to call out the cuts in healthcare. We’re saying as a people enough is enough. We’re saying no to ICE. We’re saying no to the humiliation of our own people.” 

SEIU 1021 San Francisco Regional Vice President Kristin Hardy was arrested for civil disobedience Friday morning alongside 24 local elected leaders and labor activists at San Francisco International Airport after they shut down the international departures roadway for an hour. Fortunately, she was out of custody in time to join the SF Labor Council’s May Day March in the afternoon. ”I shut down the international side of SFO in solidarity with our brothers and sisters from SEIU USWW who work there to send a message to the current administration that SF is a union town, and we want ICE out of San Francisco,” she said. “I stood shoulder to shoulder with various leaders from other unions along with a few elected leaders. In all of the actions we held for May Day in SF, our message was that we are standing up and fighting back against billionaires who prioritize greed over our community. And that means voting YES on Prop D and NO on Prop C.”

Members in the North Coast, including Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, participated in rallies and marches as well. ”I’m proud of our North Coast members for standing with immigrant farmworkers, community organizations, and fellow unions in Santa Rosa and across the region,” said SEIU 1021 North Coast Regional Vice President Travis Balzarini. We’re rebuilding worker power to defend public services, fair wages, safe workplaces, affordable healthcare, and the right to live and work without fear of illegal arrest and deportation without due process.”

SEIU 1021 East Bay Vice President Derrick Boutte said, “May Day showed that we the people are standing up and fighting back, and we’re doing it together. The full diversity of our community was on display, and it was vibrant and inspiring. No matter how different we are, we’re all feeling the same impacts right now, from layoffs to healthcare to inflation, and we’ve got to stick together and demand accountability from these billionaires and politicians, not just on May Day, but every day.”

Out in Stockton, members from counties far and wide piled onto a bus early in the morning and took a road trip to Sacramento to join the rally at Southside Park. “Workers have the power. We are the ones who provide for these billionaires, and we have to remind them that we are the ones who build them up, and we have the power to bring them down,” said SEIU 1021 member Sharon Richardson, who is an eligibility worker for Calaveras County.

SEIU 1021 Non-Profit / Private Industry Chair Jeffery Dix said, “Seeing the SEIU 1021 contingent at the Oakland May Day (International Workers’ Day) march chant, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ shows the world that our labor movement is borderless. Workers occupying the Oakland Airport to end military shipments to Israel on May Day proves that our union siblings’ working class consciousness knows that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ means workers and people everywhere, from Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Congo, Venezuela, the Philippines, to the imperialist core in The United States. We have nothing to lose but our chains in the fight against capitalism and imperialism. International solidarity forever!”