The Rank-and-File Tactic
The rank-and-file strategy is crucial to building a powerful labor movement. But it should be seen as just one part of a broader socialist approach to labor and politics — a tactic rather than a strategy.
Hundreds of Verizon workers strike outside of the telecommunications company’s Brooklyn offices on April 13, 2016 in New York City. Spencer Platt / Getty
In recent years, with the twenty-first century left on the move, the “rank-and-file strategy” (RFS) has developed renewed currency.
Momentum, the first formal internal group (now defunct) vying for national seats in the newly expanded Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in 2016, put it at the top of their list of approaches to DSA work, and Jacobin has dedicated a significant amount of real estate to RFS, including a recent piece by Barry Eidlin.
The dual insights that the Left has played an important role in labor upsurges throughout US history and that a surging labor movement will be essential to any attempt to democratize society and the economy fully are at the core of the RFS approach. In practice, Eidlin writes, RFS advocates argue that “socialists should make a concerted effort to find jobs in sectors deemed strategically important for building working-class power.” RFS partisans believe in the central importance of developing a so-called “militant minority” on the shop floor, to fight the boss as directly as possible. This, in turn, is central to developing the working-class consciousness necessary to build socialism.
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