Bernie Sanders joins May Day protesters in Philly to rally for workers and immigrants, and against Trump

Railing against “tax breaks for billionaires” and issuing a warning to Pennsylvania lawmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a firebrand speech Thursday afternoon to a crowd clustered outside City Hall.

On a day of national May Day protests against President Donald Trump’s administration that ended with the arrest of dozens of protesters a few blocks from City Hall, the 83-year-old former presidential candidate said: “The American people by the millions are saying no to oligarchy, no to Trump’s authoritarianism.”

After his speech, several hundred marched north on Broad Street, and some of them sat down at Broad and Vine Streets, chanting: “We shall not be moved.” After being warned that they would be subject to arrest, 70, according to police, were led away in handcuffs and charged with obstruction of a highway.

They were shouting: “We are the union, the mighty, mighty union.”

The demonstration came at the end of daylong protest events held in several locations around the region, and hundreds around the nation, many organized online under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.

The gatherings in Philadelphia and elsewhere took aim at a variety of issues, including the administration’s aggressive immigration policies and workers’ rights, but the leitmotif was what the protesters viewed as Trump’s threats to democracy.

The mass demonstrations are unlikely to make any immediate impression on Trump, said Billie Murray, a Villanova associate professor who specializes in the “rhetoric of protest.” But that may well come later, she said, for reasons implicit in Sanders’ comments directed at the state’s legislators.

Some in the City Hall crowd held signs reading “Trump: hands off our unions.”

Said Bucks County resident Phila Back: “There’s power in numbers, and this is for our unions. Thanks to them, we have decent wages for unionized workers, a weekend, and healthcare; we owe this to organized labor.”

For John Haak, 66, the protest was a novel experience. When he worked for the city he was banned from demonstrations such as this, but now, recently retired, he was “making up for lost time.” He said he showed up Thursday to honor “an abiding need to turn the tide” against the administration.

Lee Maxwell, 78, holding a “Trump is stealing our future” sign, said workers’ rights are at stake. “All the good things that our democracy has brought us are in jeopardy.”

The mass demonstrations occurred on a day that historically has been the province of a variety of causes. May 1 is “Loyalty Day” in the United States, first proclaimed during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s at the peak of the “Red Scare” and the Cold War era.

And its protest tradition has labor roots, dating to the Haymarket affair in the late 19th century.

With the rise of industrialization, labor unions had grown more powerful and demanded better working conditions. On May 1, 1886, 30,000 workers in Chicago went on strike, joined by others in New York and Cincinnati. Three days later, several people were killed when violence erupted in Chicago.

The American Federation of Labor called for a day of protests on May 1 in 1890, and the International Socialist Congress, meeting in France, passed a resolution to convene a “great international demonstration,” according to a Smithsonian history, and May 1 became known as “International Workers Day.”

In his remarks, Sanders (Ind., Vt.) said that millions of workers who want to join unions cannot do so and that Congress should pass a “Right to Organize Act. … We need to grow the trade movement in this country.”

Sanders appeared at the “For the Workers, Not the Billionaires” event hosted by Philadelphia’s AFL-CIO chapter.

“This rally is really to show when labor, immigration groups, and the community stand together, we’re a force that can’t be divided,” said Maggie Mullooly, a spokesperson for Philadelphia Council AFL-CIO.

Immigration also was a major theme of Thursday’s events.

In the morning, about 150 people representing 40 pro-immigrant groups gathered outside Philadelphia’s federal courthouse. Voices of prayer and protest echoed as an appeals court began to consider whether to fully restore a New Jersey state ban on contracts for immigration-detention centers.

“My parents came here to give me a better education,” said college student Sol Acabo, who drove an hour from New Jersey to take part in the protest on Market Street. “I’m using that privilege to fight for those that can’t.”

» READ MORE: Scores demonstrate in Philly as appeals court considers a N.J. ban on ICE detention-center contracts

The protests throughout the Philly region — including at the offices of U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican who represents a political swing district — evidently involved scores of senior citizens.

Among them was Burton Sutker, 90, who joined a group in Norristown — after running four miles. The demonstrators came from Shannondell at Valley Forge, a retirement community in Audubon, have a current events club that meets twice weekly, and lately have turned their attention to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration.

“It’s good that we’re waking up some senior citizens,” Sutker said. “It’s too easy to sit and rock in your wheelchair.”

» READ MORE: Seeking more certainty in their golden years, Montco seniors protest against Trump

In his speech, Sanders warned Pennsylvania legislators that if they voted for tax breaks for the rich or to cut Medicaid, they would be voted out.

» READ MORE: Bernie Sanders calls on Pennsylvania lawmakers to oppose cuts to Medicaid at Philly May Day rally

Murray said protests were having effects on local Republican lawmakers, if not Trump. “They’re scared,” she said.

“They’re seeing the front lines in a way that Trump doesn’t.”

Those effects, she said, may “eventually trickle up.”

Staff writers Fallon Roth and Nick Vadala contributed to this article.