Folks,
Greetings from the Burgh, where the NFL Draft has unfortunately arrived.
Be sure to check our story from earlier today “Pittsburgh Mayor O'Connor Boasts of Robert Kraft's Political Support as NFL Draft Arrives”
UPDATE 85 Cities Hosting May Day Strikes
Since publishing our story last night on the growing May Day Strike movement, Payday Report has received several updates to our map.
We can now report that there are May Day strikes in at least 85 cities across the United States, and the list is growing.
Please, send updates to melk@paydayreport.com
North Carolina’s Largest School Districts to Close for May Day
In North Carolina, the North Carolina Association of Educators is endorsing mass walkouts statewide on May 1st. In 2018, over 42 school districts closed as teachers walked out in support of #RedforEd strikes. (See Melk’s 2018 dispatch from Raleigh on the strike)
Already, some of the largest school districts in the state have announced that they would close including Durham, Chapel Hill, Asheville, Chatham County, Guilford County, Kannapolis City, and Winston-Salem. Wake County, home to Raleigh, has also announced that they would allow teachers to use May Day as a prep day.
“This is our line in the sand,” NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly said in a press release. “We will not back down when it comes to ensuring our children receive the education they need and deserve. We will not back down in demanding qualified educators in every classroom and safe, well-resourced schools for every student.”
For more, check out the News and Observer.
New Jersey Unions w/ 1 Million Members Backs May Day Actions
In New Jersey, a coalition of unions representing more than 1 million union members announced that they would also be backing rallies and protests on May Day. For legal reasons, many unions shied away from using the word “strike,” but they did encourage their members to take the day off of work to attend union rallies.
“We are under attack, the middle class, the poor, working families, and those who have been marginalized. We need to make this the biggest May Day ever,” said Charles Hall, President of RWDSU Local 108, UFCW.
For more, check out Insider New Jersey.
$1,748 Raised for May Day Strike Coverage
So far, we have raised $1,748 towards our $6,000 goal and need your help to do the labor-intensive work of tracking the May Day Strike movement.
Mike Elk
300,000 Defense Contractors Stripped of Union Rights
As the United States and Israel continue to push their war against Iran, they are using national security to strip nearly 300,000 defense contractors of union representation.
“To rip up the union contracts of civilian employees after touting a successful ceasefire in the Middle East, is not only a slap in the face to the employees who supported those efforts but again proves that this action has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with silencing workers’ voices,” said AFGE Union President Everett Kelly in a statement.
For more, check out how these cuts affect workers at the Portsmouth Naval Yard.
Palantir Employees Revolting Against ICE Work
Finally, WIRED has a long look at how Palantir employees are starting to revolt against their company supporting Trump’s anti-immigrant attacks. From Wired:
Palantir has always had a secretive reputation, forbidding employees from speaking to the press and requiring alumni to sign non-disparagement agreements. But throughout the company’s history, management has always at least appeared to be open to engagement and internal criticism, multiple employees say. Over the last year, however, much of that feedback has been met by philosophical soliloquies and redirection. “It’s never been really that people are afraid of speaking up against Karp. It’s more a question of what it would do, if anything,” one current employee tells WIRED.
While internal tensions within Palantir have grown over the last year, they reached a boiling point in January after the violent killing of Alex Pretti, a nurse who was shot and killed by federal agents during protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis. Employees from across the company commented in a Slack thread dedicated to the news demanding more information about the company’s relationship with ICE from management and CEO Alex Karp.
“Our involvement with ice has been internally swept under the rug under Trump2 too much,” one person wrote in a Slack message WIRED reported at the time. “We need an understanding of our involvement here.”
Around this time, Palantir started wiping Slack conversations after seven days in at least one channel where most of the internal debate takes place, #palantir-in-the-news. Because the decision wasn’t formally announced before the policy rolled out, one worker who noticed the deletions asked in the channel why the company was removing “relevant internal discourse on current events.”
News & Headlines Elsewhere
- Asylum-seekers could lose right to work under proposed Trump administration rules
- Lunchroom workers plan to block traffic as contract talks with CPS stall
- Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges
- Amid ICE fears, mental health workers report drop in immigrants seeking treatment
- Lehigh Valley’s ICE hotline is now serving a critical need for food delivery, assistance for immigrant families
- Meta targets May 20 for first wave of layoffs, additional cuts later in 2026
- Finally, Starbucks is asking workers to move to Nashville. It's not going well.
Alright folks, that’s all for today. Keep sending tips, story ideas, and comments to melk@paydayreport.com
Mike Elk