Workers Over Billionaires on Labor Day in Greeley, Colorado

The morning is quiet as you turn down a main street, either side of the wide avenue lined with two-story buildings housing shops and restaurants. The small cafe has a few people seated outside but on this Labor Day morning the town center is nearly empty.

The Weld County seat, this northeastern Colorado town challenges the largely rural reputation for its area an hour east of the Front Range city, Fort Collins. Originally named Union City it was settled and financed by its contemporary namesake, newspaperman Horace Greeley, as a realization of his Free Soiler call for northern anti-slavery Americans to go west.

The original town moniker foreshadowed the strength of organized labor in its future. Colorado is a state settled by miners and ranchers, the industry brought along to support their efforts including railroads and power. The state was founded during the end of the industrial revolution, when unions were fighting for dignity for the working class and their members were engrained in the region’s DNA.

In 1914, in southeastern Colorado town called Ludlow, at a mine operated by John D. Rockefeller, 21 people were killed as the union struck for better working conditions – including the company following state safety laws. In 2024, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 organized against allegations of human trafficking and abuse of immigrant labor at a Greeley meat packing plant.

On Labor Day, 2025, though the streets were quiet near the cafes, a crowd was building in the city’s Lincoln Park in support of organized labor. Across the country, tens of thousands will join in solidarity as the Workers Over Billionaires day of action sewed a cohesive message of labor solidarity from town to town, coast to coast.

With protests planned in Denver, Golden, Loveland, Boulder, left-leaning towns across the Square State, what would this call to action look like in a worker-strong county where President Trump won by 21 points?

As the scheduled start time approached, more than one hundred people were walking along the tables set up by organizations and volunteers with further calls to action, more opportunities to raise their voices. Some carried signs, prepared for the march starting in an hour. With a tap on a microphone, a chant was encouraged by the amplified voice starting the programming.

Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, newly created in response to population change, stretches from the north Denver suburbs of Thornton and Arvada stretching to its farthest northeast population center in Greeley. Between lays a spectrum of exurban and rural communities, housing quite the range of philosophical and political ideologies.

Currently represented in the House of Representatives by Republican Gabe Evans, the seat was founded in 2024 by Democrat Yadira Caraveo. Now, it is widely considered one of the most competitive race in the fight for control of the Capitol. As the Governor rejects following California and Texas in redrawing districts (and Missouri joins that conversation), this Colorado race is one that could decide the balance of the U.S. legislature in 2026.

And to recognize Labor Day, the unions and political organizers did not miss the chance to make that clear. For an hour, the microphone was passed between candidates – vying for city council, mayor, and Representative Evans’ Congressional seat, including State Treasurer Dave Young – and union leaders.

“We are in a moment in history where the trials and tribulations of our ancestors are not so foreign to us…and the very people with the power and intent to keeping it that way want nothing more than us to be distracted,” AFL-CIO organizer Len Harris told the crowd. “The moment we decide to reach across the divide, to stand in solidarity with our community, to fully reckon with and understand that ‘an injury to one of us is an injury to all of us’ is the moment their rule over us falters.”

The crowd chanted, hooted, and hollered as speakers paraded personal anecdotes alongside calls to action and messages for support. The local candidates mentioned concern about federal policies impacting their growing prairie metropolis. The disappearance of neighbors by ICE in the nearly 50% latino community, cuts in funding for medical care and education, attacks on the state’s electoral processes.

“We can, we must, and we will do all the things,” Amie Baca-Oehlert, a candidate for Congressional District 8 said during the rally. “We must pull on all the levers.”

As the sun rose higher and the shade hiding the crowd shrank, marshals wearing orange high visibility vests held a banner aloft. The rallygoers picked up their own signs and voices filled the air. Chants of “si, se puede” rose from the throng as they navigated the narrow sidewalks around the park and toward the town center.

Car horns soon joined the protest’s chorus as marchers reached the busier main strip. Some making their way through the protest made a show of covering their ears, a quiet way to counter with their own dissent. A handful voiced support for MAGA and President Trump as they passed quickly, one person asked the activists how much they’d been paid to be present. The majority of this Monday morning in Greeley, though, greeted the sentiment of workers over billionaires with an excited energy.

The next federal election is still more than a year away and members of this community are already mapping out how they can flip this MAGA slice of Colorado. While thousands rally in Denver, and tens of thousands more find a backyard and a barbecue, one hundred rallied, raising their voices, around workers and winning elections in Greeley.

 

Best known for capturing striking content from the frontlines of social movements, Heartland EMMY-nominated filmmaker and photographer Vince Chandler has spent 20 years creating art and documentary visuals across the U.S. They served as Communications Director for Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, and Vince has earned national recognition for their work as a visual journalist for The Denver Post. Vince was the principal cinematographer for the feature documentary film Running With My Girls, which premiered at the 2021 Denver Film Festival.

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What does resistance & resilience look like in the Heartland of America?

Sometimes it’s a protest outside an ICE detention center. Sometimes it’s a rural nurse explaining how Medicaid cuts will shutter the town hospital. Sometimes, it’s a law professor teaching systemic racism at a University in a state where CRT is banned in public schools.

As Trump’s second term unfolds — and the One Big Beautiful Act guts healthcare, empowers ICE, and reshapes American life — independent journalism is more vital than ever. However, the national press rarely shows up in the places where policy has the most impact.

We do.

These American Crossroads is a collaboration between Vince Chandler, Emmy-nominated visual journalist, and Yellow Scene Magazine, Boulder County’s only independent newsroom.

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