Nationwide General Strike Planned for May 1: No Kings Organizer

“No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”

By Brad Reed, Common Dreams

Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said on Saturday that a nationwide general strike is being planned for May 1 that will be modeled on the day of action residents of Minnesota organized in January against the brutality carried out by federal immigration enforcement officials.

Appearing at the flagship No Kings rally in Minneapolis, Levin praised the strength shown by the Minnesota protesters in the face of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) siege of their city this year, and said his organization wanted to replicate it across the country.

“The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest,” Levin said. “It is a tactical escalation… It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota’s own day of truth and action.”

Levin then outlined what the event would entail.

“On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, ‘No business as usual,’” he said. “No work, no school, no shopping. We’re going to show up and say we’re putting workers over billionaires and kings.”

Levin added that “we are going to build on that courage, that sacrifice” that Minnesota residents showed during their day of action in January, and vowed “to demonstrate that regular people are the greatest threat to fascism in this country.”

In an interview with Payday Report published Saturday, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg said that the goal of the nationwide strike action would be to send “a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”

The No Kings protests against President Donald Trump’s authoritarian government, which Indivisible has been central in organizing, have brought millions of Americans into the streets.

Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris estimated that the previous No Kings event, held in October, drew at least 5 million people nationwide, making it likely “the largest single-day political protest ever.”