As many socialists and trade unionists around the world know, International Workers’ Day was first established in 1889. Every May Day since has served the same fundamental purpose – showcasing the international strength and solidarity of the working class. At the same time, each year the day’s content is necessarily somewhat different, reflecting the most burning demands and struggles of workers and the oppressed.
For example, the first May Day, held in Chicago, focused on the fight for an eight-hour day and solidarity with workers facing murderous state repression. However, as capitalism and imperialism plunged the world into the horrors of WW1, May Day began to develop a rich antiwar legacy. It was a key date in the struggle against the slaughter of 1914-18, and in the successful fight to end US imperialism’s war against Vietnam decades later. On 1 May 2026, it is this legacy which most urgently needs to be built upon.
Bloodier and Wider Wars
The 2020s are dominated by the sharp conflict between US imperialism and Chinese imperialism, with ruling classes globally taking an accelerated reactionary nationalist turn in response to the deep crisis of the capitalist system. These processes are dragging humanity into ever-widening bloody conflagrations. The war machine has already made itself felt on every continent – with a particularly devastating human cost in Africa – and claimed the lives of millions of people during this decade so far. And under this system, only more of the same – and worse – is on offer.
Wars are becoming both bloodier and more inter-connected, with fingerprints from the blood-soaked hands of the major imperialist powers all over each and every conflict. May Day 2026 takes place amid a full-blown regional war in the Middle East following US/Israeli aggression against Iran, concurrent and overlapping with a four-year imperialist proxy-war in Ukraine. Beyond this, there is not a single continent where the beat of the war drums cannot be heard.
The genocide in Gaza, perpetrated by the Israeli regime with the full support of US and Western imperialism, shocked the world. What’s more, its horrific death toll was surpassed by the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in Sudan and Congo, where less-publicized conflicts raged at the same time.
But two and a half years after this ongoing genocide began, far from an aberration, it has become a blueprint. The methods of Gaza’s genocide are employed by the US and Israel in downtown Beirut and Tehran in a war which began with the taking of 160 schoolgirls’ lives. Hospitals, nurseries, and playgrounds are considered “legitimate targets”. US imperialism’s warmonger-in-chief, Donald Trump, openly salivates over the prospect of destroying entire civilizations.
Misplaced illusions in “international law” standing in the way of war crimes are being demolished overnight. So too is the absurd lie of a Washington-led league of “good guys” to whom such methods are alien. Imperialism’s ugly face is being unmasked again. The truth is that the “laws” of capitalism and imperialism are not being broken by Trump, Putin or Netanyahu. As Trump’s arch-racist acolyte Stephen Miller correctly put it very succinctly after the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, this system’s “iron laws” are governed chiefly by the brutal pursuit of power and profits by the billionaires. On May Day this year, the working class must mobilize not only in opposition to war, but against the system in which it is rooted.
War Leads to New Tipping Point for Cost of Living Crisis
This militarist juggernaut also lies at the heart of the intensification of the cost of living crisis hitting workers in their pockets this year. The inflationary impact of Trump and Netanyahu’s war of aggression against Iran is only beginning to hit most of the world. Millions, especially in the global south, who have been living on the edge in recent years will be tipped into extreme poverty. Starvation will come both from man-made famine in warzones and from the coming “global food catastrophe” caused by the war on Iran’s disruption to fertilizer and food exports.
The vultures at the International Monetary Fund warn of massive inflation but simultaneously instruct governments not to act, even in the limited way that many were forced to following the post-pandemic inflationary crisis. Bosses and governments alike will attempt to crush any hope of meaningful restoration of living standards following years of falling real wages.
The war machine is also driving a new age of austerity, as welfare and public services face more “belt-tightening” to pay for sky-rocketing military budgets. The eight-hour day, which May Day was born to fight for, is now under attack in several countries, including Germany. European war budgets ballooned by 14% in a single year in 2025 as governments from across the capitalist political spectrum both bow to Washington’s demands and desperately move (in vain) to reestablish independent military strength in the context of Trump’s dynamiting of NATO.
In the vanguard of reaction, the warmonger-in-chief proposes to turbocharge this trend further, demanding a whopping $1.5 trillion war budget this year, in exchange for a reduction of non-defence spending by 10% which will take the form of massive austerity for workers and the poor.
As expected, nowhere in the world is any government suggesting that the billionaires shoulder any significant share of the cost for this grotesque bill. This is despite the continued profits bonanza for big business – in the midst of the world’s worst energy crisis ever, BP announced a doubling of profits in the first three months of 2026. We all know what this means: more “tough choices” and “sacrifices”. Trade unions and other workers’ organizations must fight these cuts head on while also clearly opposing the militarist agenda of the ruling class from which they are born. On this year’s May Day demonstrations must say loud and clear: welfare not warfare! Money for schools, hospitals, food and wage restoration, not death and destruction!
An Historic May Day in the US
In some ways, this year’s May Day will be among the most important in recent memory. This is because, amid the Trumpist reactionary offensive which dominates the world, it will be a day of mass fightback in “the belly of the beast”. International Socialist Alternative members will be at the forefront of protests, walkouts, and in some cities de facto mass strikes as part of an historic day, with a section of union and community leaders supporting a call for “No Work, No School, No Shopping.”
This was the same call which led to the general strike in Minnesota, and which defeated Trump’s ICE invasion of the Twin Cities in January. Together with the historic general strikes which shut Italy down last winter, this shows the way to push back the forces of war, racism, and reaction: mobilize the power of the working class. International Workers’ Day, which this year also takes place on the centenary of the historic May 1926 General Strike in Britain which saw the working class taste power, must continue to propel forward the recovery of the most militant and winning traditions of class struggle. The coming years must be a period of many strikes, general strikes and international general strikes against war, imperialism and capitalist reaction as a whole
Build Working-Class Parties to Fight for International Socialism
This year’s May Day also takes place in the aftermath of the powerful wave of ‘Gen Z’ revolts which toppled governments and rocked dictatorships across the global south. These, and many other recent mass movements have both shown the power, energy and resilience of the youth and working class, but also the burning need to address political and organizational weaknesses of the labour and social movements globally.
Their central lesson is that energy, heroism and determination are necessary but not enough. To win decisive victories against reaction, mass movements must be anchored in a democratic, powerful and combative labour movement, and provided with a clear-sighted political leadership armed with a radical socialist alternative to the endless crisis of the capitalist system.
Therefore, May Day 2026 must raise not only the banner of mass protests and strikes, but also the banner of political struggle. The working class must be politically independent and politically organised. Mass parties must be built, rooted in everyday struggle, and armed with a programme whose goal is not to patch up the capitalist system, but to transform it. The international labour movement must fight with the clear horizon of a socialist world free of war and oppression, in which people and the planet can flourish based on rational planning of collectively and democratically owned production, wealth and resources. If you agree, join ISA today.
