unions

I don't disagree on the latter point. That said, the national call for no work and no shopping is primarily what organizers call a "structural test": are we able to gather support? How many people actually participate? Is our infrastructure, such as strike funds, able to sustain an action? After all, how can we possibly manage more extreme actions (eg, a general strike) if we can't even handle one day of not working?

Secondly, May Day's economic disruption, small-scale though it is, is an escalation from simple protests. I expect that actions will continue to escalate in the coming months and years.