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By: Reid Jackson
COPLEY SQUARE – The voices and shouts of labor were audible approaching the square on September 7. Starting in the morning, the Greater Boston Labor Council (GBLC) led workers gathering between Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library. At the parade were all the ranks: the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Boston Teachers Union (BTU), SAG-AFTRA, and the United Auto Workers (UAW).
At the heart of the march was DSA: red signs, each blazened with “Socialism Beats Fascism.”
Recent Electoral Results
Labor Day 2026 in Boston is colored by the results of the midterm primaries for Massachusetts, with winners and losers alike attending the march to share in the celebration of labor power in our community. Among the attendees was Sen. Ed Markey, who just beat his moderate challenger Seth Moulton by 30 points just to show the electorate that he still has that dog in him.
Ed Markey, standing above the crowd after victoriously sweeping the state, said:
This vast movement which has gathered here today in Copley Place… is proof that the powers that be can’t hold a candle to the power of the working people.
Markey’s race against a much younger candidate was that you do not have to throw away your constituents in the pursuit of the chasing the ever elusive goal of electability, something that Moulton ended up learning the hard way when he attempted to get ahead of a perceived wave of conservatism flooding through the country by claiming that the issue of trans rights needn’t be “absolute” within the Democratic Party.
Markey’s choice to stand with the queer community wasn’t a shock to anyone who knew him and followed his pattern of maintaining solidarity with every marginalized community he represents in our state. That philosophy that guided him to stand with the trans people of Massachusetts brought him to the same square in Boston as the rest of us.
Evan MacKay, endorsed by Boston DSA in their run for State House to represent Cambridge, was also right in the heart of the march with their DSA comrades who campaigned for them exhaustively for months. They led chants on the bullhorn with “ONE STRUGGLE! ONE FIGHT! WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!” Their spirits, despite just one week from their primary defeat, were carried on by enthusiasm.
MacKay’s presence, and the presence of the Boston DSA as a whole illustrates their resolve to continue to grow and develop their movement, and the foundation of maintaining that movement is to show up to events like the Labor Day march, and the picket lines of other struggles for union labor.
DSA’s contingent marched right behind a rolling truck with an inflatable shark on it for the Southeastern Mass Labor Council and ahead of the SAG-AFTRA contingent, whose members (largely actors and other performers) dressed like Spider-Man to excite children on the parade.
In other words, socialist labor organizers were right at home with their union siblings.
Labor Day, as an alternative to May Day, represents a holiday with few militant roots. But a holiday for workers is still a holiday. For workers in Boston, who suffer under excruciating rent and low wages amidst a cost of living crisis, Labor Day became a day that showed labor itself: strong, together, capable of both rest and power while winning bread and roses.
Reid Jackson is a union organizer and contributing writer to Working Mass.
The post In Photos: On Labor Day 2026, Boston Labor Has Never Been Louder appeared first on Working Mass.
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