Virginians protest Trump’s anti-worker policies at Richmond Labor Day rally

Speakers urged workers to organize to fight back against poverty wages and union busting.

Hundreds gathered in Richmond’s Monroe Park on Monday to celebrate Labor Day and protest the Trump administration’s anti-worker policies. 

A big theme of the day was the need to organize to fight back against the Trump administration’s attacks on workers and immigrants. 

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has fired thousands of federal workers, rolled back workplace safety regulations, taken away collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and proposed ending the minimum wage and overtime protections for millions of home-care and domestic workers. 

Among the many anti-Trump signs, one in the shape of Trump’s hair read: “Don’t let him steal our livelihoods.” 

Angela Arrington, a lead contract janitor in Richmond and a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 32BJ, said the people in power were trying to “sweep us under the rug.” But with the power of a union, workers like her feel more emboldened to speak out knowing there’s an organization backing them up. Arrington makes $17.30 an hour, but wants to make at least $25 an hour. 

“Once I pay my rent on the first of the month, I got to rob Peter to pay Paul just to survive for the next two weeks until I get another paycheck,” Arrington said in an interview. 

Arrington said she and her fellow workers were tired of asking to be able to afford the basic necessities of life. 

“They don’t want to give you food stamps, they don’t want to give you Medicaid, they don’t want to give you anything,” Arrington said. “But we’re not asking them to give it to us because we’re out here working hard every single day.”

Virginia members of Starbucks Workers United had a table at the rally to help build momentum for their efforts to unionize. More than 20 Starbucks in Virginia have unionized. 

Haley Porter, a shift lead at a Mechanicsville Starbucks, said until she and her fellow workers have a union contract, people should not support Starbucks: “No contract, no coffee,” she said in an interview. 

“We’re fighting for guaranteed better hours to curtail understaffing and to actually get baristas their promised benefits,” Porter said. 

The rally also featured speakers from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Jonas James Eppert, a Democratic challenger for a Chesterfield County-area seat in the House of Delegates.

James Eppert said the Democratic Party needs to step up and be the voice of the people and called for a “political revolution.” 

He added that Virginia should abolish its “right-to-work” law that prevents workers from being required to join unions, arguing it’s rooted in the Jim Crow era, when White segregationists feared a united working class. 

Phil Wilayto, editor of The Virginia Defender, noted there is a movement to organize a general strike on May 1, 2028, but called for one to happen sooner. Wilayto urged rallygoers to fight back against Trump administration policies that he said mimicked the same playbook followed by Hitler. 

As one common refrain at the Labor Day rally put it: “If we don’t get it. Shut it down.”