Denver, CO — This May 1, 2025, workers across Colorado will rally at the State Capitol at 3:00 PM to reclaim May Day as a day of action, solidarity, and working-class power.
What: Reclaim May Day
Where: Colorado State Capitol West Steps
When: May 1st at 3:00PM
May Day began here, in the United States, in the streets of Chicago in 1886, where immigrant workers demanded an eight-hour day and were met with police bullets and gallows. But today, the billionaire class would rather we forget that history because they know the truth: everything workers have ever won, we won by organizing together and fighting the ruling class for it.
Today, our demands are clear and urgent:
- Sign the Worker Protection Act to give Colorado workers the right to organize freely and eliminate the 2nd union election requirement under the Colorado Labor Peace Act.
Pass SB25-276 to protect civil rights regardless of immigration status, so all workers, no matter where they were born, can fight back against wage theft, abuse, and exploitation. - End unjust immigration raids, like the violent and unnecessary raid at a Colorado Springs nightclub this past Sunday, which terrorized immigrant families and criminalized workers for simply gathering in community.
- Stop the unchecked union busting at Boulder County, UCHealth, and across Colorado, where employers spend public funds and corporate profits on union busting law firms and target their own workers for retaliation.
- Release Jeanette Vizguerra, a beloved SEIU 105 union member and nationally recognized immigrant rights leader, who is currently facing unjust detention by ICE.
Today, workers across Colorado are picking up that fight, because corporate greed, exploitation, and injustice haven’t ended, they’ve only evolved. Immigrant workers are criminalized. Union leaders are jailed. Wages are stolen. Our rights are under assault and unions are fighting back.
Colorado’s Labor Peace Act may try to silence workers and handcuff our ability to organize, but the message on May Day will be clear: there will be no “labor peace” while union leaders are arrested, our families are separated, and our rights are stripped away.
“We are not here to celebrate what little we’ve been given, we are here to build worker power to take back what we are owed,” said Jade Kelly, President of CWA Local 7799. “Our fights are not isolated. Public sector workers, healthcare workers, educators, truck drivers, retail clerks, immigrants, students, we are all fighting different battles in the same war. When we fight, we can win. But when solidarity knows no borders, when workers fight together, we change the world.”
“Denver is the birthplace of the Justice for Janitors movement, and today, the spirit of that fight lives on in the immigrant workers who clean our buildings, care for our loved ones, and keep our city running,” said Stephanie Felix-Sowy, President of SEIU Local 105. “On May Day, we stand shoulder to shoulder—workers from every background—demanding dignity, safety, and a future where every worker, no matter their race or immigration status, is respected and protected. This is our city, our labor, and our fight for a better tomorrow.”
Our labor movement knows that symbolism isn’t enough. We are preparing for real action. Workers across the country are beginning to align contract expirations, organizing union drives, and strikes around May Day, not as a holiday, but as a call to action. We understand: if working people stand still, nothing changes. But if we move together, across sectors, across industries, across borders, the world will move with us.
“Workers are the unsung heroes of this country, the ones who built it, and we, the workers, will reclaim it. Immigrants, teachers, construction workers, nurses, and truck drivers — we are the ones who make this world run. We are done begging for scraps from a system built to exploit us,” shared Gladis Ibarra, Co-Executive Director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.
“At this crucial moment in history, we’re coming together as public healthcare workers to demand the dignity and respect we’ve earned,” said HSA Co-President Dr. Allison Martin, MD, MSc. “For decades, CU has leaned on us when it suits them. They consult and negotiate with us because they know we’re the true voice of CU residents and fellows. But when we request collective bargaining, suddenly they claim we don’t represent housestaff. So today, on May Day, we’re standing in solidarity and saying loud and clear: No more runaround. No more union busting. No more delay. We want collective bargaining for CU.”
Following the rally, workers will march to the Byron Rogers Federal Building to underscore the connections between the attacks on workers and the attacks on immigrants, because an injury to one is an injury to all.