US Muslim activist urges workers to come together ahead of Labor Day

With mass demonstrations planned for US Labor day on Monday, workers’ activists are preparing to take to the streets. Among them is Maliha Noamani, who will be demonstrating for multiple causes in what is expected to be one of the biggest nationwide turnouts since President Donald Trump took office in January.

“This is our time. Labor Day is when labour really shows up,” she tells The New Arab. “With everything happening with this administration – cuts to Medicaid, the Fed [Federal Reserve], the CDC [Centers for Disease Control], redistricting to try to rig the elections – there are a lot of reasons we’ll be in the streets.”

“There’s so much on the line on every front. For labour, we need to come together as one to do what we need to do to push back on what’s happening.”

The “Workers Over Billionaires” Labor Day events are expected to number over 500 across the country – from big cities, to suburbs, college towns, rural communities and highway overpasses.

“We’re sending a bunch of our members out there,” says Noamani, who will be marching at an event in the San Francisco Bay Area, where more than a hundred events are planned.

Noamani, who studied healthcare, got involved in workers’ rights as a student in southern California, then went on to work as political coordinator for Seiu Local 2015, which represents healthcare workers in the Bay Area and the central coast.

As someone who is representing healthcare workers, she has also been in the position of relying on their work for her grandparents.

“All these years later, I’m fighting for legislation to benefit those same workers who helped my family,” she says. “There are people in the 50-70 age group still working several jobs. We’re constantly trying to give them a better life and let them rest.”

Noamani is aware that labour organising is not a typical career track for a South Asian Muslim woman, something she hopes will change with more people like her in union representation positions.

“For a South Asian woman of colour, it’s not something people think of as a career path,” she says.

Along with workers’ advocacy, over the past two years some of the largest unions in the US have been outspoken in condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, a key issue for Muslims, as well as many in the labour movement.

“After October 7th, a lot of our members were very concerned. They asked a lot of questions. How can we show our support? We came out with a support letter, wanting to end the war and finding a two-state solution,” she says.

“Labor has collectively come together in wanting to stop this war on both sides. We just can’t go on like this,” she says.

“I hope there are more people from our backgrounds that will get involved in labour and choose labour as a career,” Noamani says. “We need representation. If we want to create change for our own people, we have to be involved.”