May Day under dual shadow

Workers gather worldwide for International Labour Day — 500 organisations across 750 events in the US alone — while the Iran war inflates energy costs and purchasing power shrinks. The NEA, America's largest union, leads a "Workers Over Billionaires" boycott. Istanbul sees clashes. The collective processes this as annual ritual, as political theatre, as background noise.

The gap: May Day was born from the eight-hour workday struggle; today's labour crisis (gig precarity, AI displacement, real-wage stagnation) has no single demand to rally around. The solidarity machinery activates, but the problem has become diffuse enough that the machinery churns without purchase.