Dozens of rallies are planned Friday in the Bay Area and across Northern California. The demonstrations are part of May Day marches across the country in support of rights for workers and immigrants. In some countries, May Day is a public holiday honoring labor. Visit maydaystrong.org for a full list of planned May Day actions around the Bay Area. May Day protests planned in San Jose Alum Rock Union School District’s International Workers Day March and Celebration is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Avenue. Student performances are planned, including a poetry reading. East San Jose student walkouts are also planned throughout the day. In the afternoon, a march for international workers will start at 2 p.m. with participants gathering in the area of Story and King roads. The march is expected to start at 3 p.m. and end at city hall. Protests May 1, 2025 May Day rallies: Activists march for workers' rights and justice for immigrants Protests May 1, 2025 University of California workers walk off job as part of May Day strike San Francisco May Day protests Hundreds of San Francisco International Airport workers will hold a rally at 11 a.m. at the International Terminal. At 2 p.m., a march starting at the Civic Center Plaza is scheduled to go past the Federal Building, Salesforce and Target to protest attacks on immigrants and workers, organizers said. A “Workers Over Billionaires Rally” is planned to start at 4 p.m. at the Embarcadero Plaza. May Day rallies in the East Bay In Berkeley, a march is planned for 11 a.m. with participants first gathering at 2300 Ellsworth Way. The march will head to a rally planned from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the MLK Plaza, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. In Oakland, a march and resource fair is planned at 2 p.m. at the Fruitvale BART Plaza. The march is expected to start at 3 p.m. Organizers said marchers will travel up 35th Avenue to Foothill Avenue and back down Fruitvale Avenue before returning to the BART plaza. What is May Day? The roots of May Day, or International Workers Day, stretch back over a century to a turbulent and pivotal time in U.S. labor history. In the 1880s, unions pushing for better workplace conditions began advocating for an eight-hour workday with widespread demonstrations and strikes. In May 1886, a Chicago labor rally turned deadly when a bomb was thrown and police retaliated with gunfire. Several labor activists, most of them immigrants, were convicted of conspiracy to incite violence among other charges. Four were hanged. Unions later recommended that the workers be honored every May 1. A sculpture in Chicago’s Haymarket Square commemorates them with an inscription that reads: “Dedicated to all workers of the world.” May Day immigration marches While labor and immigrant rights are historically intertwined, the focus of May Day rallies in the U.S. shifted to immigration in 2006. That’s when roughly 1 million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would’ve made living in the U.S. without legal permission a felony. Crowds for May 1 demonstrations have since dwindled with advocacy groups splintering and shifting activism arenas such as voters rights. Who celebrates May Day? In some countries, May Day is a public holiday for workers, including France, Kenya and China, where it lasts five days. In Russia, Communist-led May Day celebrations were once massive affairs. It’s also a traditional spring celebration that’s observed in ways that don’t involve marching in the streets or civil disobedience. In Hawaii, May 1 is called Lei Day, which isn’t an official holiday, but a statewide celebration of the Hawaiian culture and the aloha spirit through the creation and giving of lei — usually a necklace of flowers. Elsewhere, people mark the holiday by leaving May Day baskets filled with gifts and flowers on the doorsteps of friends. ...read more read less