The NY Times reports:

For decades, workers in Europe, South America and China have been celebrated with an official holiday on May Day.

The United States, however, has not followed suit. (And Britain and Canada have tried to wash out the holiday’s leftist hues.) Even though the day’s origins date to a riot in Chicago in 1886 known as the Haymarket massacre, labor is celebrated Stateside in early September.

Socialists and trade union movements have long used May Day as a protest day. And on Tuesday, May 1, the Occupy movement will attempt to bring 125 U.S. cities to a standstill in commemoration of International Workers Day.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is orchestrating what its supporters hope will be a nationwide general strike with students, workers and everyone who is an employee skipping work.

Their lofty goals also include urging people not to buy anything that day. It has been billed as “A Day Without the 99 Percent.”

For the Big Apple, numerous protests and marches are planned to disrupt business as usual on Wall Street. New York’s billionaire mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, said Sunday that the city’s police force is ready and city officials are prepared to protect the rights of demonstrators.

But he warned: “They don’t have a right to disrupt other people and keep other people from protesting or just going about their business, and we will do as we normally do — find the right balance.”

READ MORE: NY TIMES