Transforming the political and social character of the working class movement
By Larry Holmes posted on July 22, 2021
Based on remarks given at a June 28 leadership meeting.
Holmes is Workers World Party’s First Secretary.
The Teamsters union, the third or fourth biggest union in the United States, overwhelmingly voted at its convention June 24 in favor of launching a nationwide campaign to organize the nearly 1 million Amazon workers in this country.
It’s a clear indication to the working class, capitalist class and labor movement that the union drive in Bessemer, which ended in defeat several months ago, was merely the opening shot of a new epoch of class struggle. Taking on Amazon is a matter of survival for the Teamsters and several other unions. This includes the post office workers and perhaps a couple of other unions, because the growth and influence of Amazon is decimating unionized workers in transportation, one of the Teamsters’ main union bases.
As part of Southern trend, Elizabeth City workers strike for better pay
By Dante Strobino posted on July 7, 2021
Elizabeth City, N.C., strike, June 30
Durham, N.C.
After three years of receiving zero pay raises and working 16 months through a global pandemic with no recognition or hazard pay, city workers in Elizabeth City, N.C., staged a two-day work stoppage June 29-30. The Black-majority workers in the city’s Public Works and Water and Sewer departments were upset by City Council’s vote to deny their proposed raise this year.
Upon coming to work June 29, workers self-organized, loading up their work trucks and driving to City Hall, where they surrounded the building, honking their horns and clogging up traffic. They refused to work the entire day. They gave the city a deadline of 7:00 p.m. the next day to get it right. The next day, they all caught the “blue flu” at 10:00 a.m., clocked out and began a sit-down occupation of the sidewalk surrounding City Hall. Comm
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Mobilizing worker power for Amazon union now!
By Martha Grevatt posted on June 28, 2021
April 9 was no happy day for organized labor or for anyone in the global working class. The National Labor Relations Board announced the results of a union representation election at Amazon in Bessemer, Ala. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union lost the vote by a 2-1 margin.
But organizers had a forward-looking perspective. “I know the outcome is not what a lot of people wanted to hear,” said RWDSU organizer Michael “Big Mike” Foster, at a press conference April 9. “But I believe this is the foundation for something great . . . by no means is this the end.” (The Verge, April 10)
The US labour movement has an unfortunate practice of failing to publicly draw lessons from our setbacks. Yet it’s important that labour and the left learn from the Bessemer Amazon experience. After all, we’ve seen a series of defeats in the South from Volkswagen to Nissan and now Amazon. [On 29 March a government-mandated ballot on union recognition at the Amazon Bessemer distribution centre returned a clear anti-recognition majority].
In this article we want to focus a bit on problems with the strategies and tactics used in the campaign by the organisers; and especially what we need to do differently to win.