2023 Was a Year of Hope Amid the Horrors
This year had plenty of horrors. But there was also much cause for hope, from the burgeoning pro-Palestine movement to the UAW’s historic strike.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain speaks during the press conference with union leaders and supporters of a cease-fire in Gaza on December 14, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
With a possible Donald Trump presidential victory on the horizon, and our tax dollars funding an unspeakably brutal slaughter in Gaza, it’s clearly a rough time in US history. But 2023 offered tremendous hope for the resurgence of left and working-class mass movements — which are, after all, the main way the world gets better.
A Year of Strikes
The Teamsters scored a major victory against United Parcel Service (UPS), with significant wage gains and safety improvements following a strike threat. The Writers Guild of America went out on strike against the major Hollywood studios and improved their wages by some $233 million compared to the last contract.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) — full disclosure, I am a member — had an especially triumphant year. After voting to make its elections more democratic (“one member, one vote”), the union membership promptly chose leadership with fire in the belly to fight for the rank and file, including new president Shawn Fain, who led the union’s “stand-up” strike to several stunning contract victories against the Big Three auto companies, hitting back against a divisive two-tiered pay system, reopening a shuttered plant in Belvidere, Illinois, expanding existing factories, and clearing the way to organize electric vehicle battery plants.
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