A May Day Push to ‘Shut It Down’ Takes Shape Across the Country

May Day is officially here! This year, workers, unions and community organizations across the nation are mobilizing a major display of dissent against the federal government’s agenda, calling for “No Work, No School, and No Shopping.” Here in Los Angeles, tens of thousands are expected to join peaceful demonstrations Downtown, marching from Mac Arthur Park to Gloria Molina Grand Park. This year has special significance as it marks the anniversary of the massive “Day Without an Immigrant” march in 2006, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the streets and helped defeat a punitive, anti-immigrant bill in the U.S. Senate. MacArthur Park and the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center building has served as a hub and safe haven for historic direct actions in the city, and that legacy continues today.

Capital & Main

Mike Elk

MAY DAY 2026

May Day organizers urge turnout for rally marking anniversary of 'Day Without an Immigrant' marches

ABC-7

David González

MAY DAY 2026

Advocates call for labor, immigrant protections this May Day: ‘solo el pueblo shuts it down’

LAist

Mariana Dale

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Stuck in limbo: millions of professionals risk losing legal status under Trump pause

NPR

Ximena Bustillo

WORKER WINS

After Three-Week Strike, JBS Concedes to Meatpacking Workers

Labor Notes

Caitlyn Clark and Lisa Xu

IRLE IN THE NEWS

UCLA LABOR CENTER

‘Roots of Our Labor’ mural in MacArthur Park reclaims the story of a community

Los Angeles Daily News

Michelle Edgar

Covers UCLA Labor Center

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Building Civic Engagement, One Student at a Time

UCLA Newsroom

Robert Huber

Ft. Jennifer Jihye Chun, Labor Studies Department Chair

POWER FROM THE PAST!

The Memory Work Research Initiative (MWRI) engages community partners, activists, scholars and students in a thoughtful process of collecting, preserving and sharing the rich history of organizing in Southern California. The MWRI strives to establish collaborative modes of remembrance grounded in the IRLE’s commitment to advancing quality education and employment for all.

May Day Los Angeles March, 2000s

Today, we bring you a memory from a past May Day march in Los Angeles. In this image, members of different organizations, including the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and Jornaleros (day laborers) of Pasadena, march together in solidarity. In his 2026 May Day message, IRLE Director Toby Higbie described May Day as being a display of “the great diversity of social movements in Los Angeles.” He continued, “Labor unions, worker centers, community organizations, and political factions each [march] together with their colorful banners. On any given day, these groups may not see eye-to-eye, but on May Day they move together in what can be a very profound expression of common purpose. You can learn a lot about worker rights in a classroom, but to fully understand the power of solidarity and the challenge of sustaining it, there is nothing quite like the experience of a May Day march.”

See you there!

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UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) advances labor research and education for workplace justice. Through the work of its units – the UCLA Labor Center, the Human Resources Roundtable, the Labor Occupational Safety and Health program (LOSH) and its academic program, UCLA Labor Studies – the Institute forms wide-ranging research and agendas that carry UCLA into the Los Angeles community and beyond.