Hundreds of workers and union members from around the state gathered at the Georgia state Capitol on Thursday for a May Day labor rally. The event was part of a national day of labor organizing.
🛠 What Is Labor?: Labor means people who work for a living. That includes folks who punch a clock, work hourly shifts, or get paid a salary. If you pack boxes, teach school, build houses, run a machine, wait tables, drive a bus, clean buildings, answer phones, fix things, care for kids, or pretty much do anything where you trade your time and effort for a paycheck — that’s labor. It doesn’t matter if it’s behind a desk or in a hard hat. If you work for someone else and get paid, you’re labor.
👷♀️ Are You Labor?: If someone else signs your paycheck, you’re labor. If you rely on a boss, a contract, or a company to pay you for your work, you’re labor. It doesn’t matter what job title you have, how you dress for work, or whether you have a college degree. You don’t have to be in a union to count. You just have to work. If you’re not the one hiring people, you’re probably one of the people being hired — and that makes you labor.
The rally began with a variety of speakers from farm laborers to baristas to teachers all stressing the importance of solidarity and workers’ rights.
Speaker Katie Giede represented the Union of Southern Service Workers. She said they’re pushing back against the idea that all fast food workers are teenagers who don’t need benefits.
“Teenagers cannot work at midnight when you’re drunk and trying to come in to get a waffle to sober up,” Giede said. “It’s grown women. It’s your grandmother still working. It’s your aunts, your uncles. It’s the people of this community.”
Demands from the USSW include a $25 hourly wage, fully funded health care, and an end to what they called targeted attacks on Black, transgender and immigrant communities by the Trump administration.
Amaia Ward is with the Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta. She said workers deserve every right and opportunity.
“We will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, and we will not be replaced by cheap labor and we will not be stripped of our dignity,” Ward said. “Come 2028, Teamsters will secure an even stronger contract.”
The rally concluded with a march with stops at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Building, and Atlanta City Hall.
Amanda Andrews | GPB
Amanda Andrews is a general assignment reporter for GPB News. She previously worked at KUNC as a Morning Edition producer and backup host.
