May Day specifically commemorates workers who struck and demonstrated in Haymarket Square in Chicago, one mile west of where the SAA headquarters resides today. May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, is celebrated around the world and is a public holiday in most countries.

Acknowledging and Supporting Workers

As we honor workers this May 1, 2025, we are struck with grief for the recent decimation of the archives labor force. Everyone in our communities, ourselves, and our colleagues have been affected in some way by recent federal attacks on workers, through losing employment or community services. We stand in solidarity with all public sector workers.

Here are some options for ways to support your colleagues and community this May Day. Are you already taking action? Tell us what you're doing and what support you need to keep it up!

Help introduce the Public Archives Resiliency Act

The Committee on Public Policy is working to introduce the Public Archives Resiliency Act to the 119th Congress. PARA supports long-term resiliency for archival institutions, libraries, and museums by direct funding to archives at risk of critical infrastructure failure due to understaffing or critical infrastructure failure. This supports SAA's May Day mission of providing disaster recovery resources alongside the more widely celebrated May Day mission of honoring workers. 

Do you see your legislator on this list? If you live in one of these key districts and would like to help get this legislation introduced, please contact the COPP chair at facilitator.jess@gmail.com .

Be ungovernable

We need more than ever for archives workers to band together across disciplines to share basic messages about the importance of archives. We must organize in solidarity with researchers across all disciplines to sustain our workforce and our profession. We must build a network of workers solid enough to withstand these times, just as our forebears did.

George Grantham Bain Collection, LOT 10876-2, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, link

You may wonder: But who will lead this broad coalition? Where do I go? What is the right organization to join? Can SAA lead this coalition? It is not as clean as a single organization or person that brings together broad coalitions. Our strength comes from a decentralized network of many groups and many people doing different things. The minority power that wants to do away with our work does not have the capacity or power to stifle us if we all act.

Each of us must act in community with others to form a movement that re-builds our future. There are May Day demonstrations today across many cities in the US where you may find your organizing home. Join your union and represent archival worker issues to the union. Or start organizing a union at your workplace. You can reach out to the Committee on Public Policy Chair if you need help finding an organizing home.

Increase access to information in  your community

Be yourself: a dedicated archivist/librarian with a passion for providing access to information. Make a flyer with basic information about what is happening in your community using accessible language. The goal is not persuasion or particular action, but information sharing for safety and resiliency. Drop these flyers on neighbors' doorsteps: How federal funding affects your neighborhood, what your local officials are doing, etc. You can also share basic information about immigration enforcement, tariffs, or other hot topic issues. We all live in news deserts, and basic information about how federal issues affect our communities specifically - what our local city council and state legislators are doing in response - can be difficult to find unless you are well connected. As an archivist, you already have the research and communication skills to help with this! Thank you Alison Macrina for modeling and inspiring this idea!!! Email COPP for a template.

RAISE AWARENESS AND BAND TOGETHER

Support archives workers today by finding ways to raise awareness about our work in your community. By subscribing to this listserv, YOU are already an expert. You already have the tools you need to raise awareness about archives. There are talking points here, here and here. 

• Write a letter to the editor in your local paper about the importance of archives and what day-to-day archives work looks like
• Engage with your America250 Commission – see if you can get legislators, celebrities, or other VIP community members and purse-string-holders to attend your local A250 celebrations. Write a proclamation for them to read about the importance of archives.
• Engage with your public library board to plan awareness-raising events or communications about your community's archives.
• Look for your city's annual budget hearings and when public comment is allowed. Show up and speak in favor of more funding for clerk, archives, or other records management-related municipal functions represented in the budget.
• Meet with your elected officials to tell them about archives and recent impacts to archives.
• Attend community events, organize neighborhood potlucks, etc. Be in community with your neighbors so you can support each other. Drop nuggets of information about how important archives and archival workers are to the community at these events.

Sharing and Reproducing Your Work

The list of potential actions could go on for 500 pages. So now we'd like to know - what are YOU doing? What do you HOPE to do? How has it been effective? What have been your barriers? How can the Committee on Public Policy support you? How might other archivists replicate your work? 

Please fill out this form if you have advocacy projects you are working on! We would love to hear about them, we hope to share some of them with colleagues, and we will be in touch if you need support.

Happy May Day!

In solidarity,

Jess Farrell, Chair, SAA Committee on Public Policy