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The Chicago Teachers Union is advocating for a day off for teachers and students on May 1, for the national May Day movement.
May Day is also known as International Worker’s Day, which celebrates workers and advocates for labor rights.
On Wednesday, the union approved a resolution to designate May 1 as the day of “Civic Action and Defense of Public Education,” and seeking support for this from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago’s Board of Education.
“If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual,” CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said in a statement.
The union claimed in the resolution that public education is under attack by “MAGA politicians,” seemingly referring to supporters of President Donald Trump.
The resolution says “public education is facing an unprecedented national assault driven by MAGA politicians, billionaire donors, and corporate interests who seek to privatize our schools, censor educators, ban books, dismantle civil rights protections, criminalize and separate immigrant families, and weaken workers’ unions.”
The union said it was standing with Minnesota and advocated for keeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) out of cities.
It also called for policies to “tax the rich.”
The resolution called for “No Work, No School, and No Shopping” and instead spending all day “engaging our students, their families and our neighbors, and supporting mutual aid efforts, leading civic education, participating in voter registration, know your rights, and mass resistance training from the beginning to the end of the day.”
Anti-ICE protesters gathered in Minnesota on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
The union argued that Mayor Johnson could use state law to allow an excused absence to attend a “civic event.”
“Teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks when the President sends federal agents to occupy our cities and the Governor chooses to continue giving tax breaks to billionaires instead of giving our students the school day they deserve,” Potter told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual,” he added.
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Johnson called May Day an “important demonstration of collective power.”
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“Ultimately, it is up to each individual family to decide how and if they participate in any civic action,” Johnson told Fox News Digital. “As Mayor, I will work with our partners at CPS and in our school communities to find solutions which ensure there is no loss of instruction time.”
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