Conor here: The website for “Workers Over Billionaires” includes a long list of NGO and union partners—many of which include leadership that have failed miserably at this task— and a long list of grievances that are hard to disagree with, such as the goal to “reshape the future of this country so that it belongs to the working class.” Sounds great. But…
Not to be overly pessimistic, but I perused the “Workers Over Billionaires” website for some more detail, specifically what is the plan to accomplish those goals, and ended up down the rabbit hole of buzzwords and uplift. For example:
What is the goal?
“We’re activating 10 million workers.”
Okay for what?
“Create multiple pathways to action.”
Okay, like what?
“Guiding them through a ladder of engagement that builds confidence and power.”
A “ladder of engagement”? Leading where?
“Take bold, visible actions at scale.”
Okay, for example?
“Demands for a government that puts workers over billionaires are impossible to dismiss.”
And if those demands are ignored—as they have been for decades?There doesn’t seem to be a plan for that.
One would hope that’s what those at the protests are thinking about, but I see no mention of preparing for the 2028 May Day general strike, occupations, or a similar type of action that causes real pain for the billionaire class. What’s the alternative? Because marches aren’t getting it done.
By Stephen Prager, a staff writer for Common Dreams and originally published there.
Unions and progressive organizations are planning nearly 1,000 “Workers Over Billionaires” demonstrations across the United States this Labor Day to protest President Donald Trump’s assault on workers’ rights.
The day of national action has been organized by the May Day Strong coalition, which includes labor organizations like the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, and National Union of Healthcare Workers, as well as advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Fairness, Indivisible, Our Revolution, and Public Citizen.
“Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover,” the coalition says. “Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities.”
Our members sharing why they joined the Workers over Billionaires campaign ✊🏽 pic.twitter.com/mAPReN1KeD
— Organized Power in Numbers (@opinorg) August 27, 2025
Since coming into office, the Trump administration has waged war on workers’ rights. Among many other actions, his administration has stripped over a million federal workers of their right to collectively bargain in what has been called the largest act of union busting in American history and dramatically cut their wages.
He has also weakened workplace safety enforcement, eliminated rules that protected workers against wage theft, and proposed eliminating the federal minimum wage for more than 3.7 million childcare and home workers.
Despite Trump’s efforts, Americans still believe in the power of collective action. According to a Gallup poll published Thursday, 68% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, the highest level of support since the mid-1960s.
“Just like any bad boss, the way we stop the takeover is with collective action,” the coalition says on its website.
The May Day Strong coalition previously organized hundreds of thousands of workers to take to the streets for International Workers Day, more commonly known as “May Day.” On Monday, rallies are once again expected across all 50 states.
Four months later, their list of grievances has grown even longer, with Republicans having since passed a tax cut expected to facilitate perhaps the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history, featuring massive tax breaks for the wealthy paid for with historic cuts to the social safety net.
This Labor Day, I urge you to join a Workers Over Billionaires protest.
We must continue standing together to show Trump that we, the people, have the power – not his billionaire buddies and corporate cronies. https://t.co/udS0mGgNxr pic.twitter.com/MfjfWnaBBL
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) August 29, 2025
“There are nearly 1,000 billionaires in the country with a whopping $6 trillion, and that is still not enough for them,” said Saqib Bhattie, executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, another group participating in the protests. “They are pushing elected officials to slash Medicaid, [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, and special education funding for schools in order to fund their tax breaks. We need to claw back money from the billionaire. We need to push legislation to tax billionaires at the state and local levels. We need to organize to build the people power necessary to overcome their money.”
The group also plans to respond to Trump’s lawless attacks on immigrants and his militarized takeovers of American cities.
“This Labor Day,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, “we continue the fight for our democracy, the fight for the soul of our nation, the fight against the vindictive authoritarian moves Trump and the billionaire class aimed at stealing from working people and concentrating power.”
“This is about workers showing up and demanding what workers deserve all across the country,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “This Labor Day is really different, because it’s not just labor unions, as important as we may be to the workers we represent. It has to be all workers and all working families saying enough. Workers and working families deserve the bounty of the country.”
May Day Strong will host a national “mass call” online on Saturday. The locations of the hundreds of protests on Monday can be found using the map on May Day Strong’s website.
Well, Conor Gallagher, you’ve diagnosed the problem:
Okay for what?
“Create multiple pathways to action.”
Okay, like what?
“Guiding them through a ladder of engagement that builds confidence and power.”
We are back to self-esteem, testifying to righteousness, and collective making of s’mores. It makes me wonder why the American character has been reduced to inaction.
Recently, Italian unionists, led by the CGIL (the commies) and the UIL (formerly moderates who are now throwing political bombs, evviva!), got concessions from Amazon. USanians were amazed. Yet Italy still has what might be called a blue-collar ethic, union “density,” and the use of strikes as tactics.
On the one hand, I am not going to criticize people for going to demonstrations. I have seen too many comments here by the well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning who think that demonstrations have no value. Tell that to Martin Luther King and to the many students now being oppressed by McCarthyist tactics for demonstrating. Tell that to Occupy Wall Street, where I talked to any number of interesting young people a generation younger than me.
One goes to demonstrations. One gets photographed ten thousand times (by whom?). One wonders in the U.S. of A. at all of the cops with guns, armor, and clubs. To attack people with backpacks to carry their peanut-butter sandwiches.
Yet in a country that is dominated by a particular socio-economic class, the top five percent, the only way to deal with that class is to inflict pain on them: Hit them in the money.
That means strikes: Imagine the flight attendants and the air-traffic controllers and what a week-long strike would do.
That means boycotts: A one-day boycott, or sitting out Black Friday (the holiest day of the neoliberal year), means nothing. USanians have to boycott a corporation and bring it down: Bankruptcy. That’s the only way. Candidates? Amazon / Whole Foods. Uber. One of the neo-slave delivery services like Uber Eats or GrubHub. Starbucks, which doesn’t make good coffee anyway (how hard is it to boycott crappy coffee?).
I recall so many U.S. unionists and working people who were shot to death during demonstrations. Skipping Starbucks permanently is the least one can do. Self-esteem be damned.
Maybe even more than boycotts, but that’s a good place to start. Per Frederick Douglass:
So people on the Left — the genuine Left, those who are, or would be, actors and speakers for the working class — may well have been only hurting their own future freedom of action these past four years, to the extent they backed the hyper-criminalization of the Jan. 6 protesters.
Totally agree. Demonstrations and protests vs. strikes and work stoppages: people are now being arrested and harassed by cops for what have been considered for a long time to be lawful freedom of expression, freedom to gather, etc when they protest publicly. How are the cops going to deal with work stoppages & boycotts? If everyone just stayed home they can’t go door to door looking for and arresting people who ‘should’ be at work or out shopping.
The real problem is lack of community and common grievance. Every ‘tribe’ has their own sense of injustice that no one else can possibly understand. Until we get together for universal basic human rights, which I believe Occupy was trying to do (hmm, how quickly did TPTB shut that down?), we cannot succeed against the current tyranny of neoliberalism and uber capitalism.
I think you have described very well what a”neoliberal” protest consists on. Words but nothing else behind. Sounds familiar to me.
While Robert Reich may have been the best of a bad bunch among the Clintonites, he still spent the better part of thirty years telling us about the wonders of an economy made up of “symbolic analysts,” and telling coal miners and steel workers to learn to code. In other words, No Thanks.
Like the “No Kings!” protests held nationally on June 14th, these gatherings seem to be a way to allow the left/liberal groups to blow off steam. I attended the local “No Kings” and certainly there were a lot of impassioned speeches, and a very large crowd of angry people. But then ….. the Administration rolled along with its planned depredations and the local group that organized the gathering seemed to sink back into apathy, handwaving and the sale of cool tee shirts.
On a local worker level, I talked yesterday morning with a prison guard neighbor I had not seen in almost a year. He mentioned the January prison guard strike and went on to discuss the current working conditions at his facility. Due to staff shortages (many guards just quit after the strike) his shifts have been set at 12 hours, sometimes stretching to 15, with irregular days off. He says he’s making lots of overtime pay (but it’s mandatory overtime, not voluntary) but the stress is really getting to him. He doesn’t drink, but he says that’s how many of his co-workers are dealing with their stress. He is aware that he has a steady job, with good benefits, but feels that he and his co-workers are not being heard when they voice their concerns.
Plus, since 1999, New York’s prison population has declined over 50%. Maybe we should call in the National Guard?
From the hill article in links…
Rather than reckon with such grim realities, Democrats again are seeking refuge in the politics of evasion. It takes two forms: Calls for intensifying “resistance” to Trump and the beguiling hope that success in next year’s midterm election will spare them a bruising factional fight over the party’s core principles and purposes.
The dems want the hoi polloi to herd up so they can be led back into the corral. Ever since the iraq war have protests been used as a way to blow off steam from the masses but no political goal will be reached for them, I rest assured the billionaires will continue to flourish. “But trump” is still the party line.