Workplace Fragmentation Demands New Organizing Strategies
In recent decades, structural changes in the US economy have dispersed workers across workplaces and geographic areas. Labor’s decline can’t be reversed without addressing this new reality.
89 Article(s) by: Eric Blanc
Eric Blanc is an assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University. He blogs at the Substack Labor Politics and is the author of We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big.
Seven Lessons from Starbucks Workers’ Historic Victory
The entire labor movement should wake up and pay attention to the lessons from Starbucks workers’ victory this week.
The US Labor Movement Had a Banner Year in 2023
From logistics to Hollywood to higher ed to auto, 2023 saw a promising upsurge in US labor militancy. Unions must seize this historic opening to reverse decades of decline.
Young Workers Can Provide the Organizing Energy That Unions Desperately Need
Gen Z and Millennial workers overwhelmingly support unions, and they’re at the forefront of the current organizing upsurge. Labor can take advantage of this opening — if union leaders get off the sidelines and devote massive resources to new organizing.
The Momentum Is on Labor’s Side Right Now
The US labor movement has a long way to go to reverse its decades of stagnation and decline. But it’s undeniable that things are currently looking up for unions — particularly in rank-and-file workers’ interest in organizing.
Workers Want to Unionize. Will Union Leaders Respond?
Conditions are ripe for labor’s revitalization. So why aren’t unions stepping up with massive financial and organizational support for workers’ organizing efforts?
10 Years Ago Today, the Chicago Teachers Union Strike Changed Public Education
When the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike against Mayor Rahm Emanuel ten years ago, corporate education reform was on the march. The CTU won that strike, beat back the neoliberal Democrats, and turned the tide in favor of public education.
Comrade Thomas Piketty, Welcome to the Socialist Movement
For years, Thomas Piketty has articulated a cogent critique of 21st-century capitalism. He now appears to be moving beyond just critique to call for a 21st-century socialism.
Amazon Workers Are Organizing, and Elected Officials Are Supporting Them
A reborn workers’ movement needs both organized workplace militancy and left-wing politicians that back them. Sunday’s Staten Island Amazon rallies — attended by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other elected officials — featured both.
Yes, Social Media Can Help With Real-World Organizing
We can’t change the world just by posting on social media. But as the 2018 red state teachers’ strikes show, if organizers make strategic choices about their online organizing, social media can be used to build mass militant actions like strikes.
Socialists Should Take the Right Lessons From the Russian Revolution
Socialists have rightly taken inspiration from the Russian Revolution for generations, but many of the lessons drawn from it are wrong for our own time. To make change today, we need to take democratic socialism seriously as a theory and practice.
The Birth of the Labour Party Has Many Lessons for Socialists Today
American leftists are constantly wrestling with the question of how to relate to the Democratic Party. The history of the UK Labour Party’s formation through a break with the Liberals a century ago is full of lessons for socialists today.
Learning to Strike and Win
If we’re going to reverse the ravages of neoliberalism, we’ll need to rebuild a global labor movement that knows how to strike and win. A recent international “Strike School,” led by labor organizer Jane McAlevey, brought 3,000 trade unionists and activists from seventy countries to try to do just that.
We Were Right To Celebrate Trump’s Defeat. Now We’ll Have To Stay in the Streets for the Next 4 Years.
The mass celebrations of Trump’s defeat yesterday were a beautiful outpouring of collective political joy. We can harness that energy to build a mass working-class politics against Joe Biden’s neoliberalism.
A General Strike to Stop Trump? Some Unions Are Saying It’s Time.
The Rochester, New York labor council recently resolved to “prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people” if Trump tries to steal the election. The rest of the labor movement needs to pay attention — labor can help stop an authoritarian power grab if unions start making plans right now.
The Teachers’ “Red for Ed” Movement Is Far From Dead
In 2018, the “Red for Ed” teachers' strike wave exploded, first in West Virginia, then in Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond. It shook the foundations of public education and teacher unionism in America — and may play a key role in fighting COVID-19–induced education austerity in the near future.
Trump Wants to Steal the Election. Only We Can Stop Him.
Trump has shown his cards. He’s determined to cling to office regardless of the election result — with no sign from leading Democrats that they’re willing to put up a fight. That means it’s up to us to defend democracy. And we have to start now.
Why Did Labor Leaders Vote Against Medicare for All in the Middle of a Pandemic?
Earlier this week, four labor leaders voted against including Medicare for All in the Democratic Party platform — a slap in the face to millions of Americans struggling through an unprecedented pandemic. We need a union movement that fights for all workers, both organized and unorganized.
Billionaires Want to Reopen Schools Amid a Pandemic. They Might Unleash a Teacher Strike Wave.
Business interests are eager to reopen schools so they can get the economy running again and turn a profit. But teachers across the country are insisting that schools should only be reopened when it can be done safely — and they might just go on strike to fight back against the billionaires.
Why the Left Keeps Losing — and How We Can Win
Being a socialist won’t stop being hard anytime soon. But if we want to start winning, socialists need to study the recent defeats of Syriza in Greece, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and Bernie Sanders in the US, along with the failures of twentieth-century social democracy and the declining relevance of Leninism.