The May Day Strong coalition is staging an economic blackout for International Workers' Day on Friday, with 3,500 walkouts, marches, block parties, and other gatherings planned across the United States. Organizers are calling on participants to skip school, work, and shopping, with events extending into the evening.

The coalition includes labor unions, immigrants rights groups, political organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America, and the organizers behind the No Kings protests. California organizers have planned more than 100 events, with some of the largest demonstrations expected in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Protests were under way on the East Coast by early morning. In Manhattan, a group of Amazon workers, Teamsters, and local politicians marched from the New York Public Library's main branch to Amazon's corporate offices to demand that the company cut its contracts with ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. In Washington, D.C., protesters with the organization Free DC shut down intersections across the city and held handmade banners reading "WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES" and "HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE."

Neidi Dominguez, founding executive director of Organized Power in Numbers and an executive team member of the May Day Strong coalition, said organizers expect more than twice the number of May Day events this year compared to last year. Leah Greenberg, who is associated with the organization Indivisible, described the economic blackout as a "structure test" for the movement. "We are asking people to take a step into further exerting their power in all aspects of their lives – as workers, as students, as members of local organizing hubs," she said.

Teachers' unions and students, who have organized against ICE for months, are active participants in the actions. At least 15 school districts in North Carolina gave teachers the day off to join a statewide "Kids Over Corporations" rally for public education funding. The Chicago Teachers Union successfully campaigned to have May Day declared a day of civic action.

"As educators, we feel a very real accountability to the young people in the families that we serve," Chicago Teachers Union and Illinois Federation of Teachers President Stacy Davis Gates said. "We want to connect people not just to the affordability crisis but the crisis of our institutions being marginalized in this moment and the impact on our young people."

Organizers intend the day of action to build toward a general strike, which has not occurred in the United States since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1946 took effect.