By Tom Wetzel
“The labor movement today is in miserable shape, probably worse than in any period of labor history,” writes Joe Burns. To get out of this situation and rebuild unionism as an effective fighting force, Burns proposes a …
Read moreCategory: Labor
“The Rank and File Strategy”: A Syndicalist View
By Tom Wetzel
Kim Moody’s writings on “the Rank and File Strategy” have gained a broad hearing within a variety of socialist groups, such as Democratic Socialists of America and smaller socialist groupings. His original pamphlet from 2000 talks about …
Read moreA New Labor Feminism
By Melissa Jameson
I’ve always been interested in labor feminism in particular, and the wider socialist-feminist tradition. Lately, I’ve been wanting to reconnect with our Anarchist Syndicalist roots.
The spirit of the older labor feminist movement was mostly reformist. It …
Read moreWSA 2020 Labor Day Statement —— The Time is Now
WSA 2020 Labor Day Statement —— The Time is Now
Over a hundred years ago a frightened President Grover Cleveland pushed congress to recognize Labor Day as a federal holiday in 1894 (the September holiday was first observed in 1882 …
Read moreSlaughterhouse Fight: A Look at the Hormel Strike
By Steve Boyce, Jake Edwards and Tom Wetzel – published in Ideas & Action #7, Summer, 1986
Note: As the COVID-19 crisis endangers us in our work places, we fight in solidarity with workers who face this virus with
…Washington DC Rent Strikes
By Ryan Paul
Tenants of Holmead Apartments in the Washington DC neighborhood of Columbia Heights have begun withholding their rent from their landlord: Urban Investment Partners Property Management (UIP). The residents have been complaining of poor housing conditions that have …
Read moreWayfair Workers Walk Out!
By Sachio Ko-yin
On June 26, hundreds of workers and those in support protested outside the Wayfair Boston outlet. The workers quickly organized a walk-out in response to an order the online furniture store received from a government contractor for …
Read moreThe Case for Building New Unions
By Tom Wetzel
The British writer R. H. Tawney once described capitalist management of the workplace as “autocracy checked by insurgency.” And, indeed, a kind of insurgency takes place when workers band together to form unions. Worker unions are a …
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