Labor Unions Need to Activate Their Members to Defeat Trump
If the labor movement is going to defeat Donald Trump and other anti-worker politicians, Painters union president Jimmy Williams Jr writes, it will need a wellspring of organized workers.
To defeat Donald Trump’s authoritarian power grab, labor unions have to organize new members, build independent political power, and educate our fellow workers and our communities about what is at stake. (Jason Connolly / AFP via Getty Images)
I’m a fourth-generation union glazier. I remember being a kid sitting around the dinner table when my dad was on strike, thanking God for the Painters union (IUPAT) even when times were hard. The history of our union’s struggle is in my blood, and I’ll never take the sacrifice members before me made for granted.
But a lot of our members today are disconnected from our union, and I get why.
This certainly isn’t a problem unique to the Painters. For as long as I’ve been alive, the labor movement has been complacent, coasting by and believing our wins to be permanent and guaranteed — and that if we stay under the radar, the corporate elite and the politicians won’t bother us. All of this while we watched union density drop to new lows.
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