1,000+ protests planned nationwide on Labor Day
The 50501 Movement's national press director tells All Rise News about the protests' "five clear, straightforward demands."
All Rise News has an editorial mission focused on your levers of power, whether in the courts, the streets or other forms of civic engagement.
From #HandsOff to #NoKings, nationwide protests dispersed among hundreds and thousands of cities have become a defining feature of Donald Trump’s second term in office.
This Labor Day will be no different.
“Workers Over Billionaires”
In a video interview, The 50501 Movement’s national press director Hunter Dunn told All Rise News that Monday’s demonstrations under the banner “Workers Over Billionaires” have “five clear, straightforward demands.”
At the top of the list, Dunn said, is: “Stop the billionaire takeover that's corrupting our government, which is pretty straightforward.”
From there, Dunn said that the protests aim to protect and defend Medicaid, Social Security and other programs, push for healthcare and housing for all, stop attacks on immigrants and other marginalized communities, and “for the government to invest in people, not wars.”
The #NoKings protests this past June were in part a reaction to Trump calling for a military parade for his birthday in Washington, D.C., but Trump has ratcheted up his use of the military on domestic soil since that time. Based in southern California, Dunn remembers the scene when Trump first deployed the military in Los Angeles, and he said that he personally observed how the massive protests effected change.
“I was personally there on the day it started,” Dunn said. “I got teargassed, a couple of hours after [California labor leader] David Huerta was arrested and after ‘No Kings,’ when 250,000 people all showed up at once in Los Angeles alone. There was definitely a sense of, ‘Oh, we can't keep control of this,’ by the federal government. And shortly thereafter, the curfew started lifting.”
“That is a threat to the people in power”
Although Trump’s Department of Defense extended the deployment of troops through November, the government radically reduced the number of troops from nearly 5,000 to roughly 300 National Guard members and Marines.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been fighting in court to reduce the number of troops on civilian streets to zero, but from Dunn’s perspective, pressure from the people worked.
“That's the power of it, because you get more and more people into the streets, you get them together,” Dunn said. “That is a threat to the people in power because it means like they won't hold on to that power much longer if they don't concede at least a little bit to your demands.”
Like some of the other protests of its kind, Workers Over Billionaires is international.
“You'll find over a thousand protests in every state in the US and Puerto Rico, in Guam and even in Sweden,” Dunn said. “Thank you to our European friends over there.”
Organizers at May Day Strong published a map of all of the events on their website, along with a hosting toolkit for people living in areas with no local protests.
Look out for a video interview with Dunn this weekend on Legal AF’s YouTube page.
Thank you for this information! I am thrilled to hear of the protests planned, and also of an effort to keep track of whether these protests are having an effect. The more information we can get the better.
LFG!