Mayor Brandon Johnson joined union leaders and advocates at a rally Monday in the West Loop decrying President Donald Trump and other billionaires and calling for workers’ rights as part of nationwide Labor Day protests.
Hundreds gathered at a memorial to the victims of the 1886 Haymarket bombing targeting a pro-labor demonstration and slammed Trump’s plan to send federal immigration agents and potentially National Guard troops to Chicago.
Johnson, who cut his teeth at political rallies and served as a Chicago Teachers Union organizer, began his speech with a chant: “No federal troops in the city of Chicago! No militarized force in the city of Chicago! We’re gonna defend our democracy in the city of Chicago!”
“Are you prepared to defend this land? … If this president decides to continue to break this Constitution, it’s going to be the labor movement that stitches it back together,” Johnson added.
The protest was part of “Workers Over Billionaires: A Labor Day of Action,” a series of demonstrations that are expected to stretch throughout the country and across the Chicago area.
The crowd was peppered with signs reading “Democracy doesn’t save itself,” “Immigrants strengthen America” and “Shut Down ICE!” Protesters had a slew of messages they wanted to get across to Trump — from criticizing what they see as anti-labor policies to protesting the war in Gaza.
John Kelleher, a building inspector with the city who lives in Lincoln Square, said his primary message was “that we don’t need the National Guard in Chicago.” Trump has threatened to send troops to the city to address what he describes as out of control crime, although crime has been falling for years.
“The police can handle it,” Kelleher said. “Chicago cops are the best. And … labor is a force to be reckoned with.”
Bob Reiter, the powerful president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, kicked off the program to raucous cheering from members of the CTU, the Service Employees International Union and other workers, saying they were “standing up to Donald Trump’s attacks on working people.”
“He thinks he can just rip up union contracts and give tax cuts to billionaires like Elon Musk and Antonio Gracias,” Reiter said, referring to the CEO of a private equity firm in Chicago who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency Service, the initiative Trump and Musk used to slash government programs and jobs.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates, Johnson’s close ally, denounced “billionaire tyranny on our city” and the Trump administration’s attacks on public health and education.
“Solidarity is the antidote to white supremacy,” Davis Gates said. “Solidarity is the antidote to anti-immigrant fever. Solidarity is the antidote to homophobia and transphobia. Solidarity is the antidote to people not having and needing. It is solidarity that reunites us.”