When the United Auto Workers successfully concluded their strike against the Big Three auto manufacturers last fall, the unions president, Shawn Fain, invited other unions to lay the groundwork for an even more powerful strike on May 1, 2028. Now local labor activists are answering Fains call.

Theyre doing so by encouraging unionized workers to move the expiration dates for their contracts to April 30, 2028, just before International Workers Day, or May Day, as its commonly known. By aligning their contracts to end at the same time, unions could threaten to strike simultaneously, perhaps across industries, giving them greater economic and political leverage as they bargain with employers.

As Fain put it , Its important that we not only strike, but that we strike together.

To that end, several local labor councils around the country have recently passed resolutions endorsing Fains proposal, recommending their affiliates try to shift the dates on which their contracts come up. Collective bargaining agreements typically include a no-strike clause that forbids work stoppages while the contract is in effect, making the expiration date the most likely time for a walkout.

Eight councils affiliated with the AFL-CIO labor federation have endorsed the concept so far, said Connor Lewis, a union member, writer and president of the Seven Mountains Central Labor Council in central Pennsylvania. The councils span six states; the most recent to sign on was the council for Louisville, Kentucky, where Ford workers went on strike last year.

Unions have really been handcuffed in what we can do to effectively organize to get significant gains for working people, whether theyre union members or not, Lewis told HuffPost. I think its really a bold call for organized labor to set our aims higher than managing decline and to actually, like so many unions are doing now, fight for raising standards.

A website Lewis and others built called Bargain Together calls on workers to prepare for mass strikes on May 1, 2028.

UAW issued the call. Were answering, it proclaims.

The maneuvers backers see it as one way to work around U.S. legal restrictions on striking.

The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 weakened organized labor in part by banning secondary or sympathy strikes, in which workers would strike one employer in order to pressure another, such as a business partner or supplier. Congress passed the law following a historic wave of disruptive work stoppages in 1945 and 1946 that involved millions of workers in the auto, energy, food, film and other industries.