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WORCESTER, MA — Dozens of union organizers, labor activists, and organized working class supporters gathered at University Park on May 1 to celebrate May Day, organized by the Worcester chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Speakers covered the often violent history wielded against the burgeoning labor movement by the capitalist class of the 19th and 20th centuries in America, from the Haymarket Affair to the Palmer Raids, the central impetus for May Day. Then, they knit together the struggles of the past to the struggles of today in central Massachusetts.
Worcester Labor History
Worcester is no stranger to contentious flashpoints of class struggle.
Peter Fay, a movement elder, longtime labor organizer, and member of Rhode Island DSA, talked about Worcester’s role in labor suppression. He recalled his friend and prolific labor organizer Anne Burlak. Burlak, known as “The Red Flame” and “Seditious Anne” was at the forefront of the labor movement in the early 20th century. She began organizing as a teenager in the textile mills of Pennsylvania, worked to organize multiracial unions in the South, where she was jailed for insurrection.
Burlak continued to live up to her nicknames, leading textile strikes in early 1930s Rhode Island, before settling in Massachusetts where she faced more persecution from the federal government during crackdowns on communists. In one of her many clashes with Worcester police in 1937, Worcester banned Anne from speaking in the city. She remained an icon of Massachusetts labor for decades.
“Not only was her speech banned, but according to the chief of police, all speech by anyone in any foreign language was banned, all singing must be in English, no literature could be distributed, and no bandstand could be used,” Fay said. With a wry note, the labor organizer said:
It’s pretty clear that no one in the history of Worcester has scared capitalists so much as that little Ukrainian woman with red hair who told workers to join together to overthrow capitalism.
The Hope For Labor
While speeches often noted the grim state of the labor movement and U.S. politics, all May Day speakers used this context to galvanize action and remind people of the power of the labor movement. They pointed to the labor ferment in the heart of the Commonwealth today.
Speakers noted graduate and undergraduate workers’ ongoing campaign to unionize at Clark University. Student workers went on strike for about ten days in March. Backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the workers fought for card check neutrality, a legal agreement that would have made forming a union easier, without an election. Clark University roiled with “We are the Teamsters! And if they forget it, they’ll live to regret it!” from the lips of workers across campus during the strike.
May Day speakers also shouted out the units of the Massachusetts Nursing Association (MNA) that led successful strikes this year, bending hospital administrations to better contracts and defending important community medical centers and the immense number of nurses’ union jobs that arm those vital service providers. Zach Wright, a Registered Nurse (RN) and rank-and-file worker, spoke on MNA’s victories.
The Democrats vs. the Might of Labor
Worcester DSA’s James L. stepped up to call for more from U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA). McGovern expressed interest in a general strike about two months ago, as a means to combat the Trump administration, yet McGovern also voted to approve a bipartisan bill in 2022 forcing rail unions to accept a deal and avert a strike. The crowd boos showed that Worcester labor believed workers deserved more.
James L. also spoke to the Democratic Party’s facilitation of US-Israeli genocide in Gaza:
Most of the so-called opposition party is happy to collaborate, sign off, or roll over.
That was particularly on May Day. Israeli news outlet Channel 13 and the Middle East Monitor had both reported the Biden administration knowingly allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue without ever approaching Israel about a ceasefire deal. Biden’s vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris infamously shut down Gaza protesters with “I’m speaking” at a rally early on in her campaign.
But labor had far more power than the figureheads of resistance. “When we organize — when we stand together — we can bring the whole damn system to a stop,” said Cayla Dodd, a bus driver and union activist with Local 170 of the Teamsters. Dodd asked the multigenerational crowd to organize, join a union, start a union, and demand more from unions.
Don’t settle for a union that plays defense, build one that goes on the attack!
James Niedzinski is a member of the Worcester DSA.
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