OK, so the US doesn't really celebrate May Day, aka International Workers' Day, opting instead to have its own Labor Day in the fall. Nope, today's Loyalty Day in America, because May Day is just too damned socialist for America. Red-blooded, my ass. The Santa Fe Public Library's ICARUS Blog has a great little post about the holiday's history and traditions if you wanna learn more.

Here at SFR, we thought we'd check in with Daniel Trujillo, president of 810-member AFSCME Local 3999.

SFR: What does today mean to you?

DT: Well, I'm in negotiations. So, I'm here with City of Santa Fe management and we're trying to get our 4 percent raise for our members.

When you say 4 percent what do you mean?

We were supposed to get 4 percent automatically, but they're tyring to say the budget's not there, but we've done some research and there is funds there. There's different reserves they have. But they;ve opened the contract and we're back at the table now. My goal is to get my members the 4 percent on July 1. I'm hoping the city council and the mayor support us on this.

Can you tell me one major achievement for AFSCME in the last few years?

Our membership is up to 85 percent right now of city employees. In the last year and a half since I took over as president we've gotten about 270 more employees signed as full dues-paying members.