Working Class

A Critique Of The Rank-And-File Strategy

January 5, 2021 Jason Koslowski, Left Voice. Strategize! Electoral Politics, Labor Unions, Socialism, Working Class

Kim Moody first gave a systematic statement of the “rank-file strategy” in a working paper for the socialist organization Solidarity in 2000. Since then he has kept on refining it, such as in 2017’s On New Terrain and in more recent essays. The DSA adopted a version of it as its official position on labor organizing, and Jacobin constantly discusses it. Labor Notes, influential among union militants, is built around some of its basic ideas. And it has been a regular point of debate for leftists. Most recently, Kate Doyle Griffiths wrote an important set of articles in Spectre about its strengths and limitations. Moody formulated the strategy during a time of defeat and decline for the struggles of the working class and the oppressed.

The Year That Labor Hung On By Its Fingertips

December 29, 2020 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Strategize! AFL-CIO, Essential workers, Labor, Working Class

Broadly speaking, there have been two very large labor stories this year. The first is, “I have been forced into unemployment due to the pandemic, and I am scared.” And the second is, “I have been forced to continue working during the pandemic, and I am scared.” America’s labor reporters spent most of our year writing variations of these stories, in each company and in each industry and in each city. Those stories continue to this day. The federal government left working people utterly forsaken. They did not create a national wage replacement system to pay people to stay home, as many European nations did. OSHA was asleep on the job, uninterested in workplace safety related to coronavirus.

New Organizing Model Helps Build Worker Power

December 28, 2020 Erin Dirnbach, Waging Nonviolence. Organize! COVID-19, Essential workers, Worker Rights, Working Class

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and lockdowns started in March, a new class of “essential workers” continued to go to work across the United States under new dangerous conditions. As stories came out about workers lacking personal protective equipment, or PPE, and working in crowded workplaces, union workers began to take action. They stopped work, organized sick-outs, won hazard pay, protested employer COVID-19 policies that left them unsafe and negotiated for improvements. Unions have made workplaces safer, as research has shown that unionized essential workers have had better COVID-19 workplace practices during the pandemic.

1,158 Strikes Since March First

December 25, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Resist! Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs, Working Class

Back in 2019, Payday was one of the few national outlets in the country to cover the first-ever statewide teachers strike in South Carolina. Now, teachers in school districts throughout South Carolina are increasingly calling “sickout” strikes to protest unsafe COVID conditions. A growing sickout strike in the suburbs of the state capitol Columbia is now entering its second week. Our friends at The State have the story: “Our main thing is to go back to the hybrid model,” said an Airport High School teacher, who asked to remain anonymous. Schools in the district previously operated on a rotating two-day in-person schedule, with students spending part of the week on campus and the other three days learning remotely.

Workers Suffer As US Pandemic Relief Bill Goes Nowhere In Congress

December 18, 2020 Walter Smolarek, Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Congress, COVID-19, Recession, Working Class

Not only has the coronavirus pandemic taken a staggering toll in terms of loss of life in the United States but has also caused social and economic dislocation for the working class on a massive scale. The impact of this crisis is likely to last far beyond the distribution of a vaccine. When the pandemic began to spiral out of control in March, Will Harris was one of the millions of retail workers who lost their income. Harris, who worked two part-time jobs, said that as the months of unemployment dragged on, “I couldn’t afford all my groceries when I needed them… I felt bad for spending on anything even if it was absolutely essential,” and he had to start rationing medical treatments like testosterone.

Workers Should Run The World

December 16, 2020 Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times. Create! Labor Unions, Worker Rights, Working Class

We chat with Erek Slater, a bus operator for the Chicago Transit Authority, where he’s been working for the past 15 years. Erek is a family man, a father, and a three-term elected shop steward and executive board member of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 241. We talk about his working life and all that goes into being a bus operator, all the things that passengers never see — even though we depend on workers like Erek every day to live our lives. We also talk about Erek’s experience as a shop steward and about his unshakeable commitment to honor, justice, and empowering the working class. In fact, it was because he stood up for these things that he was unjustly dismissed from his job in May.

Austerity Is Still A Political Choice

November 30, 2020 Grace Blakely, Tribune Magazine. Strategize! Austerity, COVID-19, United Kingdom (UK), Working Class

When Rishi Sunak delivered the spending review earlier this week, the coverage focused predictably on levels of government borrowing. With GDP set to contract by more than 11% in 2020 – the largest fall in three centuries – and unemployment expected to reach 7.5%, government spending is the only thing standing between the UK economy and complete economic meltdown. As a result, we’re forecast to see the highest levels of public borrowing since the Second World War. In this context, Sunak felt the need to balance some new spending pledges...

COVID-19 Economy: A Deliberate Disaster

November 26, 2020 Bruce Lesnick, Counterpunch. Strategize! COVID-19, Joe Biden, Recession, Working Class

With nearly 12 million cases and a quarter million deaths in the US so far (over 55 million cases and 1.3 million deaths world-wide), the COVID 19 pandemic is ravaging civilization. The disease is on track to be the deadliest epidemic since 1918. The economic fallout for the working class has been severe. In the US, unemployment has skyrocketed, with 45.4 million new unemployment claims since March 14. At least 1/6 of those with jobs before the pandemic are now out of work. According to The New York Times, “The economic downturn is shaping up to be particularly devastating for renters, who are more likely to be lower-income and work hourly jobs cut during the pandemic.”

Left-Democrats Abandon Struggle For The Working Class To The Right

October 29, 2020 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. Educate! 2020 Elections, Democrats, Joe Biden, Working Class

All indications are that Joe Biden is heading for a landslide win. Losers will be Trump and those Republicans who have not already defected to the Democrat’s big tent. Collateral damage, however, may be the progressive cause. Some leftists have advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate. For example, the Open Letter: Dump Trump, Then Battle Biden argues for “the most urgent task — defeating Trump in the election with as big an Electoral College margin as possible, to undermine his predictable efforts to steal the election.”

The Nightmare Facing The Poor And Working Class

October 15, 2020 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Educate! Congress, Economic insecurity, Recession, Working Class

As millions of U.S. workers face unemployment, food insecurity and eviction amid the coronavirus pandemic, the limited aid provided by the federal government’s flawed CARES Act from March has long since dried up. Last week, following more than six months of stalled negotiations with congressional Democrats over a new economic relief package, President Trump abruptly announced he was halting talks until after the November election. While the president quickly backtracked and is now reportedly continuing to negotiate, the federal government’s ongoing failure to pass a new relief package spells catastrophe for a U.S. working class...

The Way Forward For NYU Graduate Students

October 7, 2020 International Youth and Students for Social Equality at New York University, WSWS.org. Strategize! Higher Education, Unions, Worker Rights, Working Class

Since July, the Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC), which is affiliated with the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and has over 2,000 graduate workers as members at New York University, has been involved in contract negotiations with the university administration. The previous contract, negotiated by GSOC and the university in 2015, expired on Aug. 31. GSOC has agreed to a second extension of the contract, which includes a no-strike clause, until Oct. 13. GSOC is affiliated with the UAW Local 2110, an amalgamated union that has repeatedly negotiated concessionary contracts for workers throughout New York City.

The Left And The Election Crisis

September 27, 2020 Larry Holmes, Workers World. Strategize! 2020 Elections, General Strike, Trump, Working Class

The political crisis in the ruling class that is playing itself out in the presidential election is not really about Trump, any more than it’s about saving democracy, decency and all the other stuff that Democratic Party leaders are shouting about. This crisis is about the capitalist system starting to break down and fall apart, and what must be done to rescue capitalism and U.S. imperialism from demise. This crisis has been building for a long time. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the course of the crisis; it’s like pouring gasoline on a burning police station.

In The Worst Of Times, The Billionaire Elite Plunder The Working Class

September 4, 2020 Nick Baker, Counterpunch. Educate! Pandemic, Recession, Ruling Class, Working Class

Since March, more than 58 million people in the U.S. have filed for unemployment. The Internal Revenue Service now predicts that the U.S. economy will have almost 40 million fewer jobs in 2021 than they predicted before the pandemic, as a result of the prolonged economic depression. As it becomes widely recognized that the economy is not going to “bounce right back” into full activity – even when coronavirus cases do eventually decline – and that the current depression will continue for a long time, companies are doing anything they can to drive their stock prices higher.

How Socialists Won Our Democratic Rights

August 10, 2020 Adam J. Sacks, Tribune Magazine. Strategize! Democracy, History, Socialism, Working Class

The myth of modern democracy is that it was handed down from on-high. In fact, the ruling class resisted extending the franchise at every turn – and it was socialists who fought them for the right to vote. Since the advent of the modern state, ruling classes have tried to restrain the voting power of workers and those not “well-born.” Contrary to the mainstream story that capitalism naturally gave rise to democracy, establishment powers in nineteenth-century Europe restricted the vote for as long as they possibly could. Only when faced with mass mobilization — or when continent-wide war wiped out working-class males en masse — was it clear that the franchise could no longer be withheld.

National Uprising Exposes Divisions In The Ruling Class…

August 9, 2020 Ari Saffran and John Peterson, Socialist Revolution. Strategize! Class war, Portland, Ruling Class, Working Class

For weeks on end, the George Floyd protests against racism and police violence shook America. Support for the movement overflowed all demographic boundaries as an estimated 10% of all American adults—some 25 million people—participated in at least one protest. However, although mass gatherings have continued unabated in some cities, in most of the country the torrential river has inevitably receded into its banks as it was deprived of a revolutionary outlet—for now. The revived BLM movement has been a treasure trove of practical experience for the millions who drove it forward.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »

Daily movement news and resources