May Day is, in most of the world, Labor Day; as Jake McIntyre wrote on May 1, 2009, the fact that the U.S. celebrates Labor Day in September is "a move which definitely serves to undermine Americans' trans-national solidarity with other workers." But May Day isn't lost to activism in the U.S. In 2006, the "day without an immigrant" was a powerful reminder of the importance of immigrants and, importantly, their labor. This year, Occupy chose May Day for a day of action, and many unions highlighted their own ongoing fights, in many cases joining directly with Occupy to do so.
Whatever you want to call it, Occupy's May 1 actions are a potentially important part of keeping alive the American spirit of activism that revived in Wisconsin in early 2011 and on Wall Street and then across the country in the fall. There were small pickets around New York City throughout the day, with protesters massing for an end-of-day rally and march. In some cases, though, those pickets were vanishingly small, highlighting the importance of organizing—knowing your capacity, building more capacity, pushing the bounds of what you can accomplish without making claims that rupture them. But it wasn't just New York. Nurses in California are striking for 24 hours at Sutter Health facilities, their third such strike in seven months. Janitors in Los Angeles have been organizing and making their presence felt.
The important thing is that the outcome of May Day not just be a day of action, but that the lessons we've learned about the importance of sustained disruption stay learned. To that end, over the next few weeks, unions and other groups are planning actions at shareholder meetings of major corporations, but it has to be more. Occupy isn't planning to do May Day and quit, but it has to be more. It has to be local—like the fact that in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, population 50,000, Occupy Harrisburg marched on the Hershey shareholder meeting and did an overpass light brigade—and ongoing and collaborative. Everyone has to learn from every possible source, from history and from each other. Occupy provided the invaluable message of the 99 percent and the 1 percent. Existing progressive and labor organizations have resources and bodies and experience. The spark, though, can come from anywhere.
It's also important to point to the fact that the successful struggles of the past continue to benefit us today. On Monday, the day after the weekend and before activists took to the streets to highlight union struggles, the overwhelmingly union-built One World Trade Center became the tallest building in New York City.