Nearly 350,000 service workers across the country plan to wage a strike on May 1, the traditional worldwide labor activism day to join their voices and capture the energy from labor organizations opposing President Donald Trump.
"We understand that there's risk involved in that," David Huerta, president of a Service Employees International Union branch in California, told BuzzFeed News, explaining why tens of thousands of workers from his state alone plan to participate. "We’re willing to take that risk in order to be able to move forward in this moment, while the most marginalized are in the crosshairs of this administration.”
There have been several wildcat strikes since Trump's election, but on May 1, organized labor will be behind the walkouts. A coalition of groups leading the strike said more than 300,000 food chain workers and 40,000 unionized service workers plan to walk off the job.
Huerta's chapter represents workers including janitors, security officers and airport staff.
Meanwhile, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, representing non-unionized workers throughout the food industry, said hundreds of thousands of its members are committed to the one-day strike.
“We are a workforce made up mostly of immigrants, women, African Americans, and indigenous people,” wrote the alliance in a statement.
"Without workers, who does Trump think will harvest the crops, craft the food, transport it to market, stock the shelves, cook in kitchens, and serve the meals?”
Axel Fuentes, an organizer with the Rural Community Workers Alliance, said approximately 1,000 workers from a Milan, Missouri pork plant, made up of mostly immigrants and refugees, plan to walk out on May 1.
“There are workers in this area that voted for Donald Trump,” Fuentes said, citing abortion as the decisive issue for many. “But what they are seeing is not what they were expecting to happen with this administration. They’re seeing freedom of religion under threat, immigration under threat, and they’ve expressed regret for voting for him.”
The last major general strike was the first Day Without Immigrants in 2006, when a million workers walked off their jobs.
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Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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