May Day and St. Joseph the Worker
Honoring the Dignity, Rights, and Power of Workers
Each year on May 1, communities around the world mark May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day or the Day of the Worker. It is a day rooted in the long struggle for dignity, safety, fair wages, and the rights of working people. It is also a day that invites us, as the St. Joseph Fund (SJF), to reflect on St. Joseph the Worker, a humble carpenter, protector, immigrant, and model of faithful action.
May Day’s history dates to the late 19th-century labor movement and the fight for better working conditions. The Second International organization designated May 1, 1889, as a day of support for workers, and decades later, in 1955, Pope Pius XII established the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker on May 1, offering St. Joseph as a model and protector of workers and affirming the dignity of human labor.
For SJF, May Day offers us a time to reflect on and honor the people whose labor sustains families, communities, movements, and systems of care, especially those whose work is too often unseen, undervalued, or made vulnerable by inequitable systems.
St. Joseph’s life reminds us that work is not about the two extremes of production and survival. It is also about love, responsibility, sacrifice, and care. As we have reflected before, Joseph showed up every day with unwavering love, faith, and sacrifice. His story mirrors the courage of families who risk everything to protect and provide for those they love. Joseph’s story speaks directly to immigrant workers and families today, many of whom continue to carry both the burden and the blessing of building community under difficult circumstances.
Honoring workers means honoring the full humanity of people, including their labor, leadership, lived experience, families, and their dreams for a more just future.
It also means honoring the community leaders, organizers, partners, caregivers, educators, health workers, and movement builders who show up every day with commitment and courage. Many work closest to the pain of injustice while also carrying the vision for what healing can look like. They organize, listen, respond, advocate, build trust, and help communities move toward power.
Joseph was compassionate, humble, and committed to his family and to protecting workers. On May Day, his quiet call to action urges us to stand with workers whose dignity is threatened by poverty, racism, exploitation, displacement, and exclusion.
As we celebrate the Day of the Worker and the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, we honor all workers in our communities. We honor our partners who continue to build power and possibility. And we honor Joseph by carrying forward his legacy of faithful action, protection, and care for the dear neighbor, without distinction.
Rooted in Love, we celebrate workers today, and we continue the work of building a future where every person, every family, and every community can thrive.
