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By: Vanessa B

BOSTON – On Sunday, February 22, postal workers gathered for a rally in front of South Station. Agitated by growing managerial bloat and stagnant starting wages, postal workers affiliated with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) are looking to win a contract in 2026 that will make the postal service a sustainable place to work for years to come. 

In speeches, workers repeated the call for “30/30”, demanding a $30 starting wage and a ratio of 30 workers to 1 manager.

“If this job is going to survive, if we’re going to recruit and keep people, $30 an hour should be the floor, not the ceiling,” said a rally speaker. “The cost of living didn’t freeze in 2006; housing didn’t freeze, gas didn’t freeze, groceries didn’t freeze. The only thing that froze was us on the streets, and our starting wage.”

Rally speakers outlined a list of demands, such as an all-career workforce, as well as shorter timeframes for moving up the pay scale and overall pay scale reforms, which postal workers hope will help increase retention rates for newly hired letter carriers. 

The fight illustrates an upsurge in letter carrier rank-and-file organizing locally – but why? What brings rank-and-file postal workers together amidst a bad contract, tensions within the union over its bargaining process’s (dis)empowerment of members, and a hostile federal environment?

2024 NALC Conference Opens the Door to Democratic Reforms

Rank-and-file worker organizing has been steadily accumulating into a nascent reform movement within NALC. Workers brought proposals for constitutional reforms to bargaining to the national NALC conference in 2024, aiming to increase transparency around the process. 

Prior to a national NALC convention in 2024, NALC’s constitution empowered just one person to negotiate contracts between the union and USPS: NALC’s national president, Bryan Renfroe. Much of the ire about the lackluster contract campaign that emerged in 2025, following the 2024 conference debates, has been directed at Renfroe.

The anger of many rank-and-file members towards their union president over the contract stems from the ways in which 2024 reforms did not go far enough. At the NALC Conference, membership won some bargaining reforms. For example, rather than solely having closed-door meetings between the union’s president and management, there will be an appointed group of worker leaders from across the country invited to give input on bargaining. 

Despite improvements, members of NALC still have not won a fully transparent open bargaining process. 

According to Read Wilder, a young letter carrier and shop steward in Cambridge, the lack of transparency, slow negotiations, and a disappointing contract last year have all led to an upsurge in rank and file organizing amongst postal workers in the greater Boston area. 

“The same activists who got open bargaining passed are also looking for a better contract campaign this time around,” Wilder said. 

2025 Contract: Too Little, Too Late, Say No

Adding to the urgency organizers feel around the 2026 contract fight is a widely-held feeling that the recently settled 2025 contract was ‘too little, too late’ for many. The contract was voted down by members following a nationwide vote no campaign. The final vote tally: 63,680 no votes to 26,304 in favor.  

The contract went to arbitration before a judge, where a deal was reached between the postal service and NALC virtually identical to the one that was rejected by membership. Despite leadership’s promises to “fight like hell,” NALC wrapped up arbitration with the US Postal Service after just two days spent in mediation.

NALC’s 2026 contract fight comes only a year after the previous contract was settled in March 2025. Letter carriers went on working under an expired contract for 700 days. Boston postal worker Harman said:

I was on the phone with my steward when he found out that we got a new contract. It was pouring rain. We were both working a 12-hour that day, but finding out that we got the same contract that we voted down was just like a punch in the gut… It killed any morale, finding out that they took 700 days to negotiate, but only a few days in arbitration to give us the same thing we said no to.

The Movement of Building a Fighting NALC (BFN)

For those committed to building a rank-and-file reform movement within NALC, the focus isn’t toppling the establishment overnight. Their priorities lie in strengthening locals and empowering union members to take ownership of their union, their work, and their contract fights. 

In a July statement, NALC reform caucus BFN stated that:

Build a Fighting NALC (BFN) aims to build a national rank and file reform movement to transform NALC into a democratic, fighting union that engages with and mobilizes the membership to fight for better wages, working conditions, and a high quality public postal service.

BFN organizer Derek Liehmon, a Boston-based postal worker, said that he hopes the caucus will “give people an opportunity to learn how to do union democracy.” He continued:

BFN is not doing something because one person or some leader who’s three or four levels of bureaucracy above the rank and file, decides we’re doing it. We vote on stuff, we decide together.

Establishing union democracy internally has involved electing leadership for the caucus, and drafting a constitution for the reform group to follow. Liehmon said the group has looked to other reform caucuses, such as UAW’s Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), for guidance as they start the process of reforming the letter carriers’ union from within.

“We are trying to apply the last 50 years of reform caucus history in our context, and this is something that really hasn’t existed in the postal unions. From my understanding there aren’t reform caucuses in the other ones,” said Liehmon.

Growing concern about the future of USPS

While union leadership are under increased pressure from members to win a stronger contract this time around, questions remain about the USPS’s ability to remain afloat financially. In their financial report for fiscal year 2025, USPS reported a loss of $9 billion.

At a House subcommittee meeting about the financial future of the USPS, Postmaster General David Steiner testified that the USPS may not be able to provide the current level of service a year from now. Steiner cited decreased usage of the service and high labor costs as factors in the current crisis, and asked that Congress increase the service’s borrowing authority while they “determine what the Postal Service should do to best serve the American public.” Rather than a government that wants the massive funding the USPS requires to fully succeed as a public service, the USPS faces a government deeply invested in its disinvestment. 

According to the Office of the Inspector General, USPS spent over $800 million from 2022-2024 on grievances, which are typically related to violations of the collective bargaining agreements between unions and employers.

In a statement published on NALC’s website, the union agreed with the Postmaster’s call for Congress to extend USPS’s borrowing limit, but pushed back on Steiner’s suggestions related to the workers who deliver the mail. 

“We will fiercely fight limiting letter carriers’ workers’ compensation benefits in any way or increasing usage of non-career employees in our craft as some in the hearing suggested. Even suggesting such foolish actions are insulting to America’s hardworking letter carriers,” said NALC president Renfroe.

Liehmon told Working Mass:

If you listen to how Renfroe and the union admin talk, they’re really worried that pushing management too hard is going to destabilize the Post Office, that pushing too aggressively is going to create a target for our union and for the postal service, that trump is going to DOGE us. But he might just do it anyway. What happens when they do to us what they’ve done to everybody else?

“The answer to this is not austerity or lower wages,” Liehmon said. “It’s a political decision. Where do we want to spend our money? Do we want to spend it on this public service that mostly funds itself, or do we want to spend money on the military? We (NALC) have to be left wing, and have left wing politics because at the end of the day, it’s a political question.”

That political question may be solved beyond the shopfloor of the Post Office, but NALC faces its own political decision in engaging the question. NALC can work within the broader labor and reform movements to create the political conditions needed for its needed survival. But without leadership from below, there’s no guarantee.

The future of NALC, in other words, relies on the workers. As always.

Vanessa B is a member of Boston DSA and contributor to Working Mass.

The post Postal Workers Demand 30/30 Amidst Organizing Surge Among Rank-and-File Letter Carriers appeared first on Working Mass.

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Enjoy your April National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) that functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, sign the May Day pledge, learn organizing skills, hear about our summer conference, and more!

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

• From the National Political Committee — Tax the Rich, War no More!
• DSA National Labor Commission Action Ask: Sign the May Day Pledge!
• Congressional Endorsement Alert — Help Elect a Socialist in the South!
• Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Sunday 4/19
• Help Support DSA — RSVP for Phonebanks Starting Sunday 4/26
• Are You a College Student? Join YDSA Today!
• DSA National Budget and Finance Call Wednesday 4/22
• Apply for Our Summer Organizing Conference — Deadline Monday 5/18
• Make Your Voice Heard! ICE Response Member Input Question
• BIPOC Members: Join AfroSoC! Next Meeting Sunday 4/19
• Fundraising Committee Training Saturday 5/2
• Learn Tenant Organizing Skills — Housing Justice Commission Training Series Starts Monday 5/9
• DSA Buddhist Circle Meeting Thursday 4/30
• Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee Nominations
• Socialist Forum Call for Submissions: Homeland Insecurity and US Imperialism
• Work for DSA — Organizing Bookkeeper Applications Open Until Sunday 4/26
• Welcome New Chapters — With YDSA Spotlight!

From the National Political Committee — Tax the Rich, War no More!

Dear Comrades,

You don’t hear many people say “Happy Tax Day.” And on this particular Tax Day, we are really feeling what Martin Luther King, Jr. said almost 60 years ago:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Just a few weeks ago, President Trump laid out the ghoulish vision more bluntly than ever, saying it’s “‘not possible’ for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare, and day care because “we’re fighting wars.” In 2026, our taxes are funding a trillion-dollar military budget to wage imperialist violence on peoples all over the world, plus billions for ICE thuggery against people within US borders. Meanwhile, the already rich get trillions in tax breaks to enable their corporate plunder. What do the rest of us get? Our public goods and social services sold off for parts.

It doesn’t have to be this way! All over the country, we are organizing in our communities and our workplaces to transform our society to work for the many, not the few. Check out our Tax Day 2026 call from last night, where organizers and policymakers from Florida to Minnesota to California laid out how, instead of funding endless war, ICE brutality, and handouts to billionaires, our tax dollars could fund everything for all of us!

From coast to coast, we’re showing what socialists can deliver for the working class. In the first 100 days of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, it’s clear what socialist governance is bringing to the world’s wealthiest city: getting millions in the bag for worker restitution from bad bosses, securing over a billion dollars for universal childcare, and filling 100,000 potholes through blizzards. It’s a “sewer socialist” agenda for the 21st century. And NYC DSA is fighting to give 8 million New Yorkers the resources they deserve, even pushing centrist Gov. Kathy Hochul to make concessions on taxing the rich. 

On the West Coast, California DSA chapters are pushing hard to tax the rich this year. Against the unchecked expansion of data center projects that Big Tech companies are using to extract our resources, DSA members are mobilizing with our communities from Arizona to Wisconsin to Michigan to Maryland to Georgia, and organizing instead to invest in green projects that tackle the climate crisis. Local opposition is slowing down this surge of AI data centers — nearly half of the projects planned this year have been delayed or cancelled. That’s just a taste of the massive work we’re undertaking across the country to transform our society away from the ills of capitalism. As Zohran said in his first 100 days address: “You eventually need socialists to clean up the mess!”

We’ve got just two weeks until May Day, the International Day of Workers — a day to celebrate class struggle all over the world. DSA is part of the May Day Strong coalition, which means we’ve joined hundreds of labor unions and organizations across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, and organize for an affordability agenda that works for all of us — to tax the rich and build the world we deserve. Together we pledge to make May Day 2026 a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” Join us and take the pledge!

We’re also organizing in solidarity with immigrants across the country to make this May Day a day of action against raids and deportations, toward the goal of abolishing ICE. We hope your chapter is planning a May Day action of some kind. Contact them to get involved! And if you don’t have a DSA chapter where you live, we encourage you to get out to one of the hundreds of May Day Strong actions across the country — maybe you’ll meet some folks to start a chapter with!

We are also asking you to join us in continuing to demand that Congress pass a War Powers Resolution and an Arms Embargo. Our National Electoral Commission is hosting a series of Block the Bombs phonebanks and we would love to see you there – you’ll be calling folks and helping them contact their congresspeople. Being an organizer often means being a force multiplier, and we need all hands on deck to stop the war with Iran, the genocide in Gaza, and whatever violent nightmares this administration is dreaming up next.

“On May Day the workers of the world celebrate the beginning of their international solidarity and register the high resolve to clasp hands all around the globe and to move forward in one solid phalanx toward the sunrise and the better day.

“On that day we drink deeply at the fountain of proletarian inspiration; we know no nationality to the exclusion of any other, nor any creed, or any color, but we do know that we are all workers, that we are conscious of our interests and our power as a class, and we propose to develop and make use of that power in breaking our fetters and in rising from servitude to the mastery of the world.” — Eugene V. Debs

This May Day and beyond, we have a world to win!

In Solidarity,

Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer
DSA National Political Committee Co-Chairs

DSA National Labor Commission Action Ask: Sign the May Day Pledge!

May Day is coming up very soon! And DSA chapters across the country are bringing socialist politics to May Day by organizing actions with their local unions and labor bodies. No matter where you live, sign the May Day Pledge to commit to calling off of work, walking off campus, or not spending money this May Day!

Congressional Endorsement Alert — Help Elect a Socialist in the South!

DSA has endorsed our first Congressional candidate of 2026! DSA member Oliver Larkin is taking on pro-war, anti-worker Democrat Jared Moskowitz in Florida’s 23rd district. Larkin is fighting for Medicare for All, an arms embargo to Israel, and for true democracy in America. Can you donate $20 to take on an AIPAC-backed slush fund pretending to represent Floridians in Congress?

Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Sunday 4/19

The Growth and Development Committee has launched our Spring ‘26 Semester of trainings! We have a core curriculum of trainings spanning topics from meeting facilitation to membership engagement. Spots are available now for sessions through the end of June!

Help Support DSA — RSVP for Phonebanks Starting Sunday 4/26

Join the Growth and Development Committee for an upcoming phonebank!

• Recommitment Phonebank Sunday 4/26 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT
• Solidarity Dues Phonebank Wednesday 5/13 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Recommitment Phonebank Sunday 5/24 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT

Are You a College Student? Join YDSA Today!

Are you a college student? Take a few seconds to let us know! Affiliate with one of 150+ YDSA chapters and get updates from your YDSA chapter and YDSA National on elections, programming, and more.

DSA National Budget and Finance Call Wednesday 4/22

Join our DSA National Budget and Finance Call on Wednesday 4/22 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT! Come out to hear the DSA Budget and Finance Committee present on the 2025 Actuals and 2026 budget. And get updates on new projects, such as the Chapter Support Subcommittee and a space for Chapter Treasurers, Finance committee members, and comrades with financial know-how!

And Budget and Finance Chapter Support Sub-Committee applications are open now. This is a sub-committee of Budget and Finance Committee focused specifically on providing support to Chapter Treasurers.

• If you’re interested in training, helping maintain a space for chapter treasures, finance committee members, and comrades with financial know-how, and making materials, fill out the form here!
• To hear more about organizing our budgeting and finance, fill out the form here.

Please email budgetinfo@dsausa.org with your Budget and Finance questions! 

Apply for Our Summer Organizing Conference — Deadline Monday 5/18

Join DSA in Chicago, July 31–August 2 for the 2026 Democratic Socialists Summit, DSA’s National Organizing Conference! Our membership will gather to learn through political education, skills training, organizer development, general programming, and social activities. In order to cover a variety of topics, the NPC has created 5 different programming tracks. You can apply for up to two of the following:

• Palestine Solidarity and Anti-War
• Abolish ICE 
• Electoral
• Labor
• General Organizing

The application deadline is Monday 5/18 by 11:59pm PT. For questions, contact DSAcon@dsausa.org, subject line “2026 Conference Application.” Apply today!

Make Your Voice Heard! ICE Response Member Input Question

The new Member Input Policy, part of the 2025 Convention Democracy Commission suite of resolutions, aims to foster simultaneous discussion within chapters and across the country. 

The first question is designed to facilitate debate around how individual chapters are responding to ICE presence in our communities. It will also help the NPC and other national bodies better understand responses throughout the country. You can use this opportunity to reflect on the work that has happened thus far and strategize about what is to come, especially as the ICE invasions grow more insidious and less directly confrontational.

You can read more about and discuss this month’s question on the DSA Discussion Board. And bring the Member Input Question to your chapter!

Chapters (or branches of chapters) can submit resolutions via this link through early May, and are invited to tune in for a presentation and discussion at the May 17 NPC Political Discussion meeting of the analysis by members of the NPC, DemCom, and Abolish ICE Committees. If you have any questions or need support in any stage of the process, please reach out to the NPC at npc@dsacommittees.org or the Democracy Commission at demcommoutreach@dsacommittees.org.

BIPOC Members: Join AfroSoC! Next Meeting Sunday 4/19

Are you a BIPOC DSA member in good standing? Join AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color (AfroSoC)! The next meeting will be held this Sunday, 4/19 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT.

And joining an AfroSoC working group or committee is always open to BIPOC DSA members in good standing. You can sign up to join one here!

Fundraising Committee Training Saturday 5/2

Get to know the basics of fundraising! Join the Fundraising Committee’s May training on Saturday 5/2 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT.

Learn Tenant Organizing Skills — Housing Justice Commission Training Series Starts Monday 5/9

The Housing Justice Commission’s Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) promotes the formation of militant tenant unions through tenant-to-tenant training and instruction. ETOC is now accepting prospective tenant organizers through our Spring training series! 

In this series, you’ll learn the fundamentals of tenant organizing on a citywide or regional scale. Sign up here! The series begins Monday 5/9, and take place each Monday in May at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT.

DSA Buddhist Circle Meeting Thursday 4/30

Refuge/Rest/Decompression space for organizers, activists, everyone. Buddhism and socialism discourse. Compassion in (direct, public) action. The DSA Buddhist Circle is in on all of it! Help make it all happen! 

Join us Thursday 4/30 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT. And catch up on the conversation here.

Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee Nominations

Following the passage of the amended Green New Deal Campaign Commission (GNDCC) Consensus Resolution in November 20525, the GNDCC is transitioning into an open standing commission (the Ecosocialism Commission Transition Committee) and formally broadening the scope of its ecosocialism campaign work.

The process is underway with members of the previous GNDCC Steering Committee and NPC liaisons. The amendment also calls for up to five additional DSA members to support the Transition Committee as it writes new bylaws, establishes its membership, and conducts an election for the new EcoCom Steering Committee and other leadership.

Please fill out this form as soon as possible to be considered for appointment. The NPC will be seating these positions on a tighter-than-usual timeline, as the transition work is already underway.

Socialist Forum Call for Submissions: Homeland Insecurity and US Imperialism

Socialist Forum, one of our two member publications, is an open and wide-ranging venue for thoughtful discussion and debate among DSA members. We are currently accepting submissions for Spring/Summer. For this issue, we are looking for pitches exploring connections between the homefront and U.S. policies abroad. You can find the full pitch guidelines, suggested topics, and submission procedures here. For any questions, please email us at socialistforum@dsausa.org.

Work for DSA — Organizing Bookkeeper Applications Open Until Sunday 4/26

DSA is hiring an Organizing Bookkeeper to support our Finance Department. The application deadline is Sunday, 4/26. You can apply via our careers page here.

Welcome New Chapters — With YDSA Spotlight!

And a warm welcome to our newest DSA Chapters and Organizing Committees! This month, we have a bumper crop of YDSA chapters. Congratulations to all!

New DSA Chapters: 

• Southeast Kansas
• River Region, Alabama 

New DSA Organizing Committees:

• Fort Wayne, Indiana
• Central Oregon
• Sun Valley, Idaho

New YDSA Chapters: 

• William Cullen Bryant High School
• University of Oklahoma
• SUNY (State University of New York) Geneseo
• West Virginia University
• University of Hawai’i
• Syracuse University
• Chapel Hill High
• Cal Poly Humboldt
• Sylvania Northview High School
• Rutgers University New Brunswick
• Portland State University
• Pennsbury High School
• Michigan State University
• Concord High School
• Clemson University

The post Your National Political Committee Newsletter — War is Taxing appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

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By: Jake S

WORCESTER COUNTY – On Thursday, March 26, UMass workers organized within the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) — the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth with over 26,000 members — held informational pickets for their contract fight across five hospital campuses: in Worcester, at Memorial, University, and Hahnemann; in Clinton, at UMass Memorial Health-Alliance; and in Marlborough, at UMass Memorial Medical Center.

Nurses have been in contract negotiations since as early as June 2025 with many forced to work without a ratified contract for nearly a year.

Hundreds of nurses gathered, marched, and chanted — some with children in tow, others staying out for as long as their 15-minute shift break would allow, but all bursting with energy. The message to UMass was clear: MNA members are ready to fight.

Negotiations with UMass

Bonnie S is an operating room nurse at UMass Memorial and the treasurer of her bargaining unit. She has worked at UMass Memorial for twenty-eight years, after a previous stint in the NICU. 

Bonnie told Working Mass:

We’re here because we’ve been trying to negotiate our contract for many months, coming up on a year. UMass hasn’t moved much at all in negotiations. Anything that has to do with what we’re really passionate about has gotten nothing. We just want to give our patients the best quality and safest care that we can – we need these things in order to do that. Management hasn’t really worked with us. A lot of talk, but not a lot of movement.

The escalation by workers arrived as Worcester approaches the five-year anniversary of the historic MNA strike at Saint Vincent’s Hospital, which launched in April 2021 and extended, uninterrupted, for 301 days. Nurses who served as co-chairs of the Saint Vincent’s bargaining unit during their strike walked alongside UMass nurses for their picket. Nurses with decades-long careers — some long enough to recall UMass hospital strikes of the past — held their signs and their heads high.

Passers-by on the streets and sidewalk of each and every one of the five campuses cheered, honked, and waved.

Ben P, vice chair of the Hahnemann Campus bargaining unit and an operating nurse of seventeen years, told Working Mass that safer staffing levels and working conditions, fair wages, and limits to shift rotations are top concerns for MNA members which UMass has yet to address at the bargaining table.

Safe Staffing Levels and Retention

“Number one is safe staffing and patient care,” said Phil B. 

Phil works in a recently-constructed building on the University campus. He’s worked for UMass for eight years as a nurse and now operates in his third year of acute care nursing. 

We have contract language about staffing now that isn’t even respected. The hospital doesn’t follow through on any of their staffing policies. Resource nurses — the ones that are meant as all-around support on their floors, especially in emergencies — have upwards of half a dozen patients at a time, which is more than a regular floor nurse should have. The whole unit becomes strapped. Care doesn’t get done; things get missed; we have negative outcomes.

We file unsafe staffing reports, and UMass just sits on stacks of them until their staffing committee just writes them all off at once. So, you could be in an emergency, but staffing problems haven’t been resolved when you really need them to be. There’s all kinds of red tape around it.

Beyond the hospital’s lack of follow-through and overload on staff, rank-and-file nurses report that Worcester County hospitals can’t retain nursing staff in the long haul. A lack of “new blood” to take on their roles leaves an older, aging staff pool to take on increased burdens at work, and low wages at UMass force younger nurses to seek opportunities elsewhere. At the time of writing, the bargaining unit at University has been offered annual wage increases as low as 1% by management. 

Since 2022, when many MNA nurses ratified their last contract with UMass hospitals, electric bills in Massachusetts have increased by about 30%.

Heather J, a registered nurse of twenty-seven years in the maternity postpartum unit at UMass Memorial, said:

We need new, young talent in the hospital because we’re all getting older. Some of us are going to be retiring soon, so we need new nurses to come along and pick up where we leave off.

Heather L works in Marlborough’s cancer center. She told Working Mass:

I became a nurse twenty-five years ago so I can sit there to hold their hands in the worst of times, and to celebrate with them in the best of times. That’s what I want to continue to do, but in order to do that, we have to retain our staff — we lose seasoned and specialized workers to other areas where the prospects and the wages are better and the hospitals are safer.

The Political as Personal

For Heather L, there was also a personal element to the contract fight. Unions are most successful when people see the individual texture of their dreams in the organization’s.

My daughter is a nursing student. I want this to be a great profession for her to join. She’s my baby, I want it to be safe for her and I want her to be able to pay her loans off.

Phil B also focused on the impact of student debt. 

It makes more sense for new nurses to eat the cost of a commute than to stay here, especially when you need to get a Bachelor’s degree to work at UMass. You’re telling us we need to take on huge amounts of student debt, then pull ourselves up by our bootstraps — all while we’re trying to pay outrageous rents in the city!

Roughly 1 in 6 households in Massachusetts spend more than half their income on housing.

I have coworkers who have families and kids, and they’re having trouble making ends meet in a dual-income household! People can’t afford their basic necessities.

Working Mass asked Phil how UMass justified new building projects, recent hospital acquisitions, and large administrative pay packages in contract negotiations while offering nurses no meaningful improvements to wages or working conditions.

Phil laughed: “they don’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. It doesn’t look very good for them. There’s never a conversation about executive pay or where they’re going to get the staff for all these new developments. Did you know our CEO has a stable of horses at home?”

Dr. Eric Dickerson, President and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, owns 9 horses and a 35-acre ranch in Princeton, Massachusetts. 

In 2023 — not long after many UMass nurses had ratified their most recent agreement — Dickerson was paid a total of over 3 million dollars, placing him as the highest-paid nonprofit chief executive in Central Mass for his third year in a row. His pay has more than doubled since he was hired. Including Dickson, UMass Memorial Health executives accounted for 6 of the 18 highest-paid nonprofit executives in Central Mass that year.

As Phil indicated:

We’ll have a real healthcare desert in our community if we can’t fill these roles with new nurses. Hundreds and hundreds of us are getting close to retirement. There’ll be a lapse in nursing care, and patients will suffer.

Solidarity from Within and Without

Members of other unions representing thousands of non-nursing staff workers across UMass — the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) whose members had a contract fight of their own with the University hospital just last summer, the State Healthcare and Research Employees Union (an affiliate of AFSCME), and the United Auto Workers — joined the picket. So too did MNA nurses working at Saint Vincent’s.

Marlena P has been a nurse at Saint Vincent’s for thirty-nine years. When asked why she and her coworkers showed up at the UMass pickets, she said:

You know the old saying: an injury to one is an injury to all. Our sisters and brothers are hurting out here, they’ve been fighting for a fair contract — better wages, safety, staffing — for many, many months. When their needs aren’t being met, it means all of our patients aren’t being cared for. That affects our whole city. UMass Memorial is one of the premier hospitals in the city, and we’re their sister hospital, and it’s important that we all show solidarity and our power in numbers. It’s not just a cliche, it works, and these big corporations who make billions of dollars off of our hard work need to know that. So it’s very important to stick together. It’s that simple: stick together.

The Steering Committee of Worcester DSA issued the following statement supporting the rank-and-file nurses:

Central Mass and Worcester DSA stands in complete and unwavering solidarity with nurses at UMass. 5 years ago, our chapter was built around the historic MNA strike at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Many of us work in these hospitals as nurses ourselves. By our own lived experience, we know that the purpose of the healthcare industry in this country is not to provide quality care, but to line the pockets of executives and investors. We will commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the working-class struggle until that’s no longer the case. On the hospital floors — not in the C-suites or boardrooms — are where we find some of the strongest and most dignified human beings in our communities.

When asked what their union meant to them, UMass nurses responded.

“My union? My union, it’s our family, it’s our support, it’s our strength, it’s the soul of everything that we have.”

“We can be stuck with things as they are, or we can push for something bigger, together.”

“Oh, it means solidarity, it means pride, it means honor. The honor to stand up for our patients, for our profession — it really means everything.”

“It means sisterhood and brotherhood, standing for and with each other and making sure that the big corporations and the hospitals aren’t taking advantage of us or our patients. You know, not looking at our patients or our coworkers like they’re just a profit margin. It means everything.”

Jake S is a member of Worcester DSA and a Working Mass correspondent. Interviews were conducted by Worcester DSA members and Working Mass correspondents Jason M, Lewis L, Lily L, and Jake S.

The post UMass Nurses Sound Alarm of Depraved Working Conditions Amidst Contract Fight appeared first on Working Mass.

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By Jane Slaughter

In 2011 Frank Bardacke published an 800-page history of the Farm Workers union: Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. It opened many eyes to the reasons the UFW became a shadow of its former self.

Bardacke starts the book with an epigraph, a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down…”

Bardacke was a farmworker in the fields of the Salinas Valley for six seasons in the 1970s. When he decided to write his book years later, he went back to his carpool co-workers, finding them still at work in the fields. In 1994, the union had been thoroughly defeated for nearly 10 years — but his old friends were afraid even to mention its name where the foreman might hear.

I interviewed Frank Bardacke after a New York Times investigation revealed evidence that Chavez had sexually abused young girls who were volunteering with the union, and the allegation that he had also assaulted union co-founder Dolores Huerta. –Jane Slaughter

Labor Notes: The revelations about Cesar Chavez as a sexual predator: many people have said they were “surprised but not shocked” or “shocked but not surprised.” How did you react?

Frank Bardacke: The abuse of Ana Murguia was rumored at the time among UFW staff, primarily at the La Paz headquarters. Many of the rumors originated with Ana’s stepmother, Kathy Murguia. But people just didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want to look into it very deeply because Cesar was one of these powerful men who could do anything he damn well pleased; he was immune from investigation.

It puts him in the category that seems to be so prevalent these days, or at least more known about: powerful men who can do whatever they want to do, including groom children and abuse women, and they don’t have to answer for it.

WHERE DID IMMUNITY COME FROM?

The next question is where did that power come from. The men we know about, it comes from money or political connections or celebrity. Where did Cesar’s power come from?

The first answer is that he had just turned a losing 1965 grape strike into the most successful boycott in American history, at the conclusion of which in 1970 farmworkers won the most substantial contracts they’d ever had: a hiring hall, grievance procedures, seniority lists. They’d never had those before.

That’s the first reason he had power. Through that he became a celebrity. He was the organizer, the architect, and the main energy behind that boycott, a hero and a celebrity with the kind of immunity that modern celebrities have.

But the second reason was an internal reason within the UFW. Everybody within the organization owed their job to Cesar. He appointed everybody, he could discharge anybody at his will, which he often did. That wasn’t just theoretical power; periodic purges pulsed through the organization. So you didn’t disagree with Cesar except at the peril of losing your job.

Those were the two reasons that no one wanted to follow up on the rumors of abuse. He was an authentic hero who had led and directed that boycott, and everybody in his organization owed their job to him.

Tell us more about the structure of the UFW.

That’s a crucial part of this. From the beginning, say in the early 1960s, the structure was basically volunteer organizers appointed by Chavez who earned $5 a week, plus expenses if on some kind of assignment.

That structure lasted even when the UFW Organizing Committee (UFWOC) became an actual union. They continued this organizational structure of volunteers. They did not set up union locals. The union constitution did not have provision for union locals. There was no way that an ordinary farmworker could elect anybody; everybody served at Chavez’s pleasure. That included the field offices in local places where there were farmworker contracts.

REVOLT OF THE FIELD REPS

Then in 1969 there was a victorious farmworker strike in the Salinas Valley. There was a provision in the agreement that allowed for farmworkers to elect their own reps, called field reps, who would help enforce the contract in the local areas.

Field reps were in place in addition to the field offices, where everyone owed their jobs to Chavez. But the paid reps owed their jobs to their crews. They got the pay equivalent to what their former crews were making. They were highly skilled, high-paid crews, earning as much as $500 a week back in the day.

This was an entirely new situation in the UFW and Chavez had tremendous trouble from the outset with the field reps — who could disagree with him. People hadn’t successfully disagreed with Chavez for nearly 15 years. There was no tradition of arguing and debating and voting as in other unions.

The paid reps became quite independent and collectively they decided that the big problem in Salinas was that they only had half of the valley organized, and for the union to survive, they had to organize the nonunion companies.

So they started organizing the nonunion companies and had some success. But Chavez was never comfortable with the Salinas contracts. There were lots of contract disputes and Chavez had never dealt with contract disputes. He was sick of the complaints, he thought contracts were a pain in the ass. He was busy with the boycott, which he thought was the most important tool the union had.

But what was the boycott for if not to win more contracts?

The reality of contracts was different from the idea of getting more contracts. Contracts brought problems, especially in 1970 in Salinas after a victorious strike. The workers were testing the extent of their victory. They were filing grievances and fighting for seniority rights.

It was the year I went into the fields and I was astounded by the militancy. I was on a crew that was told to thin the lettuce, and people wouldn’t leave the bus because they said the fields had been fumigated too recently — this was a right which was in the contract. The foreman was furious. He ordered us to go into the fields and somebody went to the union office and somebody came out and argued with the boss and we never went to work that day.

Chavez was primarily a boycott leader by this time. He was not really interested in rank-and-file problems on the ground. Moreover, he could see the reps were expanding their constituency and he thought they would become even more powerful. He ordered them to stop organizing, and when they didn’t, he fired them. Even though he didn’t have a legal right to do so.

There was a big battle and it all came out at the UFW convention — and the growers knew about it. They knew the union was divided, and in 1980 they went on the offensive and basically defeated the union. This story in all its gory details can be found in my book.

TAKE-HOMES

Is there a lesson here for unionists about how their unions should be run?

Yes. Democratic unionism is essential to union strength. Open discussion and debate is essential to building the kind of unity that you need. The lack of democratic organization is what caused the downfall of the UFW. The lack of democratic organization not only gave Chavez immunity in his abuse of girls but is also what caused the downfall of the UFW.

Is there a lesson about making it all about one leader?

I’m not against leaders. Good leaders are essential to a movement. The main lesson I see is that the good leader has got to emerge out of a democratic tradition and democratic discussion and shouldn’t serve for life.

What about the rumors that the union was opposed to undocumented workers?

That is another long, sad story. At various periods the union was actively opposed to the undocumented. They even set up their own border patrol line in the Imperial Valley, called the “wet line.” The UFW had an anti-illegals campaign in the early ’70s in which they actually fingered to the INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] undocumented people. UFW loyalists would provide a list to the local INS office of the undocumented people working in the fields.

These were their co-workers.

Yes. Close to half the workers in the fields were undocumented by this time. Why would an organization that was trying to organize field workers set one half of field workers against the other half?

Chavez’s answer was, “We have to explain to the boycotters why we are losing contracts. Illegals is the answer. The undocumented are taking the contracts away from us.” Which points to the fact that the best way to understand Chavez in the mid-1970s was as a boycott leader, not a farmworker leader. He sacrificed the organizing of farmworkers to strengthen his boycott organizing.

What now?

I’m for taking down the statues and renaming the schools and the streets. I’m not for replacing them with the name of Dolores Huerta, who was a loyal lieutenant and very often the point person in the various purges of people who had elicited Chavez’s displeasure.

If you want to give them a name of a farmworker, give them the name of one of the reps who are still known in the fields. Cleofas Guzman. Mario Bustamante.

[This article originally appeared in Labor Notes and Jacobin.]

A Lack of Democracy in the United Farm Workers Gave Chavez Immunity was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Comrade Drake

It is an unfortunate reality in our capitalist society that divisiveness is endemic in our daily lives. Despite our best efforts such divisiveness can enter our organizing spaces, manifesting in sectarianism and compromising unity and impacting our ability to effectively organize our workplaces and our communities. 

The rich history of our movement grants us the privilege of looking to the past to determine our path forward, and in this vein I’m reminded of a phrase from the Chinese socialist period: “Cure the sickness to save the patient”. In context:

Finally, in opposing subjectivism, sectarianism and stereotyped Party writing we must have in mind two purposes: first, “learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones”, and second, “cure the sickness to save the patient”. The mistakes of the past must be exposed without sparing anyone’s sensibilities; it is necessary to analyse and criticize what was bad in the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future will be done more carefully and done better. This is what is meant by “learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones”. But our aim in exposing errors and criticizing shortcomings, like that of a doctor curing a sickness, is solely to save the patient and not to doctor him to death. A person with appendicitis is saved when the surgeon removes his appendix. 

So long as a person who has made mistakes does not hide his sickness for fear of treatment or persist in his mistakes until he is beyond cure, so long as he honestly and sincerely wishes to be cured and to mend his ways, we should welcome him and cure his sickness so that he can become a good comrade. We can never succeed if we just let ourselves go, and lash out at him. In treating an ideological or a political malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the approach of “curing the sickness to save the patient”, which is the only correct and effective method.

There was a comrade in my old organization who would show up consistently late to meetings and events and forget to complete tasks they had volunteered for. Perhaps understandably, this was incredibly frustrating for not only me but for the other members in the organization as well, and this frustration ultimately came to a head when they were an hour late to an event we were tabling at they had committed to bringing supplies for. In our debrief meeting we brought this up, and they apologized for it, saying that they had a variety of personal issues that made it difficult for them to keep on top of a schedule, and also correctly criticized me for being undisciplined about planning events ahead of time. 

My own frustration blinded me to not only the underlying issue behind their truancy but also to my own unprincipled behavior. Had I approached the issue as “curing the sickness to save the patient” then perhaps I would’ve also seen the sickness within myself that needed curing. With this in mind, we reengaged from a place of mutual best interest. They committed to showing up on time, and I committed to being more disciplined about event planning.

The analogy isn’t exact in the sense that all of us hold some mix of correct and incorrect ideas and in practice they are often rarely as clear cut as something like appendicitis is. However in today’s “rough and rash” political environment where debate amongst the broader left tends to be fought in the heavily polemicized social media thunderdome we should actively work within ourselves to approach disagreement with the understanding of mutual interest. Like an immune system fighting off an infection we are all constantly waging a struggle between bourgeois and proletarian ideas within ourselves and it would be a disservice to ourselves, our movement, and our comrades to be unnecessarily harsh during periods of ideological conflict.

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Reflections on ICE's presence abroad and the public backlash it has caused.

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Pro wrestlers face dangerous conditions without basic protections or representation. See how close some wrestlers have come to winning more than the belt.

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[[{“value”:”

The Palestine Papers aim to spotlight Massachusetts organizations to increase local engagement, accessibility, and solidarity in the fight for Palestinian liberation. This newsletter is produced yearly by organizers in Boston and has been published by editorial consent of Working Mass.

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Boston DSA is proud to endorse Evan MacKay for State Representative in the 25th Middlesex district! Evan is the former president of the Harvard Graduate Students Union, a local organizer on issues of social, racial, economic, and environmental justice, and an active member of Boston DSA. They are seeking office to be a strong advocate for a transparent government and for working class issues such as rent control, and to take a stand against the failures of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and state house leadership.

Iran is under savage imperialist military and economic onslaught against its people and soil. At this existential moment, we must stand unequivocally with the Iranian people and against their aggressors. At the same time, we must not forget that standing with the Iranian people requires an ongoing defense of their democratic rights. Serious deficiencies in addressing both of these urgent tasks are apparent in Western leftist currents.

At the moment, there is no anti-war movement similar to the 2003 opposition to the war on Iraq, when the left mobilized millions of people around the world to say no to the U.S.-led invasion. At the same time, a minority but vocal segment of the Western left that correctly prioritizes anti-imperialism as its primary strategy, displays a lack of creative internationalism in dealing with Iran. This view, particularly espoused by the so-called Campists, seems disinterested in the sacrifices of Iranian protesters–who are literally being killed when they stand up for freedom and economic justice–by either avoiding any criticism of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), or sometimes exalting it. ¹ Conversely, much of the Iranian left in the diaspora, while aware of the imperial designs on Iran, has suffered from its own lack of creativity in delivering a cohesive and compelling internationalist vision–of simultaneous resistance to autocracy and colonialism–especially to the Iranian people.  A significant part of this Iranian left, at this vital moment, insists on equal condemnation of the IRI and the aggressors, and as such, in practice, remains in the gray zone. This group, consisting of different Marxist and republican (see below) tendencies, rejects those voices on the left—some with similar views as Campists—that side with the IRI’s resistance to U.S. imperialism, as resistance leftists. From fundamentalist perspectives, both views—articulated by the Campists and proponents of equal criticism—may be plausible. However, we must act both strategically and with the sense of urgency that this moment demands. This article will argue that in the face of naked and highly destructive aggression on Iran, opposition to imperialism, especially in the U.S., must take the highest priority for the left: we must oppose this aggression–unequivocally and vociferously. On the other hand, this opposition must not descend into blind support for the Iranian state. Assuming that Iran and the IRI will survive this insane war, most observers believe that if anything, the state will become more repressive domestically. Therefore, even now, the left must strengthen its support of Iranians struggling for democracy and social justice.

The IRI presides over a capitalist, rentier economy–in which the majority of the national income results from the extraction of oil and not productive activity–while refusing to play the role of a U.S. surrogate. It supports resistance to Israeli colonialism in the Middle East, but only within the confines of its own theocratic ideology. Yet the IRI’s domestic repression—executions, imprisonment of dissidents, suppression of labor organizations, patriarchal policies, and its brutal “war on drugs”—has countered the Iranian aspirations for justice and democracy for decades. To confront these seemingly contradictory challenges facing Iran, the left needs to articulate a stance that is unequivocally pro–social justice, democratic rights, and human rights, while being loudly against all foreign machinations and interventions in Iran, whether military or economic. Developing this stance will require building more bridges between Western and Iranian progressives. It also requires a deeper participation of the latter in all internationalist causes.  Our collective position must embrace an expansive solidarity sensitive to the reality of Iran’s political sociology, with the welfare of its people at the center of our vision for change.

Promises Betrayed

Before the 1979 revolution, the left’s position on Iran was straightforward: oppose the Pahlavi dynasty and its imperialist patrons. The Shah, acting as Washington’s regional proxy, lacked legitimacy: with an Americanized military, he helped create a regional tableau reflecting the Washington (and London) hegemony, e.g., by arming the Iraqi Kurds against an Iraqi Arab-nationalist regime, by direct military intervention to suppress the Dhofar uprising in Oman, and furthermore, as a buffer against any southward projection of power by the U.S.S.R. Inside Iran, much of the opposition sought independence from foreign interference, freedom, and economic justice. Yet in the absence of democracy—and with the growing influence of clerical Islam—debates about Iran’s post-Shah order were suppressed.

Ayatollah Khomeini, a dissident while living in Iran and later in exile, commanded widespread respect. As the anti-Shah movement gained momentum in 1978, he consolidated leadership and guided the revolution. From exile in France, he assured Iranians and the world that he did not intend to rule, promising economic justice and political freedom in a post-Pahlavi Iran. The revolution was celebrated domestically and abroad, including by leading advocates of human rights and social justice. Western governments, fearing Iran’s drift toward the Soviet bloc, soon abandoned the Shah and accepted the rise of an Islamic regime hostile to communism.

The post-revolutionary reality diverged sharply from Khomeini’s promises. After a brief period of openness, it became clear that Khomeini and his inner circle envisioned a theocratic state, with ambitions to export their model across the Muslim world. Within two years, they orchestrated systematic assaults on free speech, shuttered independent newspapers, banned many political organizations that had helped topple the Shah, imposed severe restrictions on women, and launched military campaigns against pro-autonomy regions such as the Turkmen northeast and Kurdistan in the west. By June 1981, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr—the liberal-minded first elected president of the IRI and once a strategist for Khomeini—was ousted and forced into exile. Much of the opposition now recognized that the revolution had been betrayed.

The left’s response was fractured. A significant segment, influenced by pro-Soviet leanings and seduced by Khomeini’s anti-American rhetoric (primarily the Tudeh Party and the majority faction of the Fedayeen People’s Guerrilla Organization), continued to support the regime. Other smaller leftist groups (primarily the minority faction of the Fedayeens), along with Islamic-leaning progressives (Mujahedeen Khalgh) and moderate liberal-democrats (e.g., the National Front), formed an incongruent opposition. The U.S. Embassy hostage crisis, Iraq’s invasion (encouraged by Washington), and the ensuing eight-year war further complicated matters, fueling nationalism among Iranians.

The Anti-Imperialist facade

The revolution’s anti-imperialist veneer rested on two pillars:

• Socio-cultural: purging decades of Western influence and imposing strict Islamic traditions.
• Geopolitical: rejecting the West’s interference in the Middle East–The U.S. in particular–especially its unrestrained support of Zionism.

The Socio-cultural Pillar

A large faction of the Shia hierarchy had always been a force against progress.  For example, while a few notable senior clergy supported Iran’s 1905-1911 European-inspired Constitutional Revolution, others, most importantly Ayatollah Nouri, were steadfastly against it; instead, they demanded a religiously based (Shia sharia) alternative to the then absolutist monarchy. During the 1951–1953 National Movement, led by the democratically appointed Mossadegh government, the leading Ayatollah Kashani collaborated with the CIA to defeat it.  Then, in 1963, a younger Ayatollah Khomeini rose in opposition to the Shah’s reforms–encouraged by President Kennedy–and was consequently arrested and sent into exile.  Common to all this clerical resistance was its opposition to modernity, meaning all secular and democratic reforms–women’s right to vote and land reform, among others.  

The Geopolitical Façade: A Country under External Aggression

In the decades before the 1979 Revolution, the imbricated relationship between imperialism and modernity fueled anti-Westernism among conservative religious factions, first mobilized by the clerical hierarchy and later articulated by intellectuals such as Ali Shariati. The Shah’s autocratic rule helped legitimize the reactionary nature of Khomeini and his movement in two ways: a- it made it impossibly difficult to gain direct access to pertinent information and to conduct open debates, and b- the distrust of the monarchy made almost any opposition to it appealing. Thus, a lack of rigorous challenge to the clerical leadership by civil society played a vital role in the failure of the 1979 revolution in replacing authoritarianism with democracy.

Iran’s post-revolutionary foreign policy quickly became marked by a veneer of anti-imperialism through anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans. Its rejectionist posture toward the U.S. regional interests and Israeli apartheid, is simultaneously authentic and disingenuous.

The authenticity stems from widespread resentment among Iranians toward decades of Western interference in their affairs, most notably the CIA-staged 1953 coup that, in response to the successful nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, overthrew the popular Mossadegh government, as well as the U.S. support for Iraq’s war against Iran soon after the 1979 revolution; add to this a genuine distaste for Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Despite its many negative qualities, the IRI is not a U.S.-surrogate.  This is in contrast to the Persian Gulf emirates, for example, whose economic and foreign policies–resource management (especially petroleum and the reinvestment of petro-dollars), their relationship to Israel versus Palestine, and military strategy–are almost entirely aligned with U.S. interests. This fact, along with the IRI rejectionist rhetoric, and its overt support for regional para-state actors such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Hamas in Palestine, unsettles the U.S. policymakers and its regional client states. Yet since the inception of the IRI, this perceived threat has been paradoxically useful to the U.S. corporate economy: it has justified the purchase of advanced U.S.-made weapon systems by Iran’s oil-rich neighbors.

But the IRI’s combative foreign posture has also been self-serving. Domestically, it has fostered national pride among its loyal supporters; regionally, it has sought to extend its hegemony by positioning itself as the champion of Islamic aspirations and Palestinian rights. The inauthenticity of this posture is evident to many Iranians, including its politically conscious left, who see the regime’s external rhetoric at odds with its brutal suppression of domestic rights and minority aspirations. Also, at the popular level, the same inauthenticity, amplified by Israeli propaganda, has caused a sense of resentment against Palestine and Lebanon among some Iranians – those who are led to believe that their economic hardship is in part due to the IRI’s foreign projects.   The IRI’s support for Palestine is narrowly ideological, limited to its fundamentalist factions such as Hamas. Even before Yasser Arafat’s death, the IRI had adopted a hostile stance toward the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The “Resistance Front”

The regime’s revolutionary posture led to the creation and sponsorship of a so-called resistance front—encompassing Palestine to Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—intended to expand Iran’s regional influence and to serve as a line of defense against U.S. or Israeli aggression. This strategy was tested during Israel’s 2023–2024 genocide in Gaza, and in its attacks on Lebanon and on Iran itself. The resistance quickly lost much of its military capability, with a heavy toll on the ordinary people of those countries, leaving the strategy relatively ineffective.

In addition to the above, Iran’s material support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, its strategic alignment with Russia and China, and its increasing prominence in the BRICS economic block, at least until now, are serious irritants to U.S. hegemony and economic strategy.

The Rule of theocratic authoritarians

The clerical system of government in Iran is profoundly patriarchal. Its regressive vision of society stands in stark opposition to modernity and secularism. While the regime recognizes the necessity of modern technology and the physical sciences for its survival—particularly in military, defense, and manufacturing domains—it holds a deeply dismissive view of modern social sciences, prevailing concepts of human rights, feminism, ethnic or national autonomy, individual freedoms, and democracy.

Despite a procedural façade of representative democracy, Iran is governed by the constitutionally mandated Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist)—an unelected Supreme Leader appointed for life, without popular oversight, and supported by the all-powerful Revolutionary Guards–the primary military force in Iran, and a financial and industrial conglomerate in its own right. And now, the selection of the assassinated Ayatollah Khamenei’s son to succeed him as the country’s supreme leader, has explicitly violated a fundamental premise of the revolution: its rejection of hereditary transfer of power. Candidates for the comparatively weaker presidency or the parliament (Majlis) are vetted through constitutional requirements that discriminate against women and religious minorities, and through arbitrary decisions by the Council of Guardians—a body submissive to the Supreme Leader—also against ethnic minorities.

Human rights violations are systemic. Women, religious minorities (especially the Baha’is), and ethnic nationalities such as Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs face persistent discrimination and suppression. Genuine opposition media are nonexistent, reformist media are frequently attacked, and free speech is curtailed. Iran ranks among the world’s leading states in the number of executions, carried out for both political reasons and ordinary crimes such as drug trafficking or murder. The Special Rapporteur for the Situation of Human Rights in Iran reports 1,639 executions in 2025. Such violations intensify during existential crises, including the aftermath of the 2025 Israeli and American aggression against Iran. It is not unreasonable to assume that after this ongoing war on Iran, a weakened ruling establishment could resort to even more draconian measures of internal repression, including executions, which are multiplying even now, as hostilities continue. 

Economic Mismanagement

Although the crippling U.S.-imposed sanctions on the Iranian people have been a key contributor to economic decline, the regime’s own mismanagement bears significant responsibility. Monopoly control of key industries, illicit financial practices facilitated by so-called trustees who are tasked with circumventing US sanctions while personally benefiting from it, and corruption have caused entrenched social and economic disparities. Transparency International ranked Iran 150th out of 177 countries in 2024, with a corruption score of 23/100.

Development & Decline

While the assassinated Supreme Leader professed an austere lifestyle, politically-connected elites and their families enjoy luxury and excess, sometimes sparking public scandal. In stark contrast, the dwindling middle class and ordinary workers—including industrial laborers, teachers, nurses, government employees, and retirees—face severe economic hardship. According to IRANWIRE, the Iranian Parliament’s Research Center report suggests that 30% of the population lives below the poverty line, though this is likely an underestimation given inflation rates exceeding 42% in 2024. These conditions have fueled widespread protests, strikes, and civil actions, many of which have been brutally suppressed.

Iran’s vast natural and human resources have enabled progress in illiteracy reduction, infrastructure development, and domestic technological capacity. Yet chronic mismanagement has produced existential challenges: water scarcity exacerbated by climate change, water overuse due to poor agricultural policies and outdated irrigation techniques, energy shortages, pollution, and a massive flight of human capital abroad.

In the end, the IRI has failed to fulfill its revolutionary promise to serve the interests of the middle class, working people, and the poor. Inflation, corruption, sanctions, and political repression, and a misdirected foreign policy have brought a resource-rich nation to the brink of systemic failure.

Nuclear Policy

Another policy with profound foreign implications has been Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment. As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has a legitimate right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, and it has successfully built domestic expertise in enrichment. Whether this program serves dual purposes—energy generation and possible weaponization—is debatable, and is possibly a point of contention within Iran’s own political and military establishment. Tehran has consistently declared opposition to nuclear weapons on religious grounds. This assertion is also supported by reports from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency that the enriched uranium does not exceed 60% in U-235, i.e., below its 90% weapon grade requirement. Moreover, multiple statements, most recently from Director of National Intelligence (Tulsi Gabbard), indicate that Iran was not in the process of developing nuclear weapons.  However, after the second U.S.-Israeli aggression on Iran in less than a year, the IRI must and most likely will reexamine this decision.  This is especially important as the possibility of a nuclear attack against Iran is now openly discussed in the media.

Until the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran had abided by its commitments. The Iranian government even continued to allow inspections by the IAEA afterward, yet it also accelerated enrichment, possibly as leverage in negotiations. At the same time, the U.S. and Israel collaboratively reinstated severe sanctions, assassinated Iranian scientists, and engaged in military aggression—actions that disregarded international law and Iran’s sovereignty. Regardless of legal arguments, the IRI’s nuclear policy has inflicted economic damage and human suffering on its people. Economic sanctions have prevented foreign investment and technical upgrades in the oil industry and other manufacturing sectors, reduced the GDP as Iran is forced to sell its oil below market price, and misdirected precious resources toward the economically nonproductive nuclear enrichment and missile programs.

Foreign Aggression

Despite its support for allies in Palestine, Lebanon, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthis of Yemen, Iran has never initiated aggression against its regional neighbors or the United States.  As the 1953 coup against the independent-minded yet U.S.-friendly Dr. Mossadegh demonstrates, merely acting in the interest of one’s own nation can attract the hostile reaction of the empire. Thus, acts of sabotage, armed aggression, and economic warfare directed against Iran in the past 45 years have harmed not only its government but most importantly its people, deepening their suffering and often their resentment against the state.

The combination of Iran’s sovereign nuclear and foreign policies, legitimate alignments, and regional instigations, has motivated U.S.-Israeli past aggression and the current cowardly attack on Iran.  In both instances, the attacks began while negotiations between Iran and the U.S. were underway. In spite of Iran’s highly accommodating approach in these negotiations (as reported by the foreign minister of Oman and senior U.K. security advisor present at the talks), Trump and Netanyahu began a unilateral attack on Iran with no legal or legitimate justification. The waning fantasy that decapitation would lead to a change in government continues, despite its evident failure. Vast economic and human damage has been inflicted on Iran. This includes significant damage to its military and economic infrastructure, residential areas, hospitals, and schools, as well as environmental degradation, and according to Human Rights Activists News Agency, the loss of more than 1400 civilian lives at the time of this writing, including about 200 children and an unknown number of military personnel.  In spite of all this, Iran has resisted and has inflicted significant economic pain not only on the aggressors and their proxies, but the entire world. There is ample evidence of the adverse impact of the aggression on the world economy, including its increasing harm to the working and middle-class Americans who are already feeling the economic impact of the war.  At least 13 U.S. servicemen have died as a result of the aggression, and many injured. The war is increasingly unpopular in the U.S., but Washington–Trump in particular–refuses to heed the popular sentiment.

Resistance to Military Aggression

The decades-long anti-democratic policies of the regime, along with the crippling U.S.-imposed economic sanctions, have led to a fragmented society. There are diverging views (see below) among groups consisting of the ardent supporters of the regime, the independence-minded and democratic internal opposition, the opposition among the ethnic or national minorities, and those who wish the overthrow of the regime at any cost. Therefore, I must note that to speak of a single view among the Iranian people is imprecise, even now! However, Trump’s reversion to “gunboat diplomacy” does not go unopposed. The Guardian and the BBC, as well as other independent media, report that the Iranian people are increasingly coalescing against the U.S.-Israeli aggression. 

The regime’s roots are in Iran–it is not a client state. This, and the development of a large military force and deterrence arsenal, consisting of ballistic missiles and drones, has allowed Iran to put up a resistance to the most fearsome military assault on its soil and its people; this was unanticipated by Trump. Another well-known risk—dismissed by Washington’s hubris—was Iran’s strategic command of the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf’s gateway to the Indian Ocean through which roughly 20% of global oil exports flow. Iran’s effective closure of the Strait, only allowing selective passage, has constricted supply, driving up prices for every end user. The refusal of the European states—usually submissive to U.S. military adventures—to overtly take part in this aggression, is a clear indication that Iran’s military resistance has been substantially effective. None of this, however, reduces the immense suffering and danger that this aggression continues to impose on the country.

A continuing popular resistance

The IRI depends on a homegrown ideological system in which religion remains a central element of culture. Historically, many clerics are rooted in the lower strata of the society; they run neighborhood mosques across cities, towns, and rural areas; they are adept at speaking the language of their followers, and provide basic social support, thereby sustaining loyalty. The early populist beliefs and messages of the IRI’s founder are still repeated and resonate with many who hold conservative religious outlooks. Moreover, the very significant role of the government in providing jobs, attracts many believers as well as opportunists to the regime’s security apparatus.

Yet the regime’s authoritarian nature and repeated failures have generated a broad spectrum of opposition. Resistance to theocratic rule, and its violent backlash, began soon after the revolution and, despite pauses, it has never ceased. Forces of modernity, exposure to the outside world, economic collapse, and nostalgia for the past continue to fuel opposition both inside Iran and among the diaspora. For now, war has consolidated popular support for defending the country. However, this may not last, and certainly after any cessation of hostilities, existing grievances will resurface.

Internal Resistance

Domestically, acts of defiance have taken forms, both organized and spontaneous. Notable examples include:

• The 1979 International Women’s Day marches across Iran to protest the new laws discriminating against women’s rights.
• The June 1980 massive action against the internal coup aimed at Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadre, and the brutal backlash against the progressive opposition ranging from communists to Islamic Socialist to liberal nationalists. The exact number of prisoners executed without open trials, between 1980 to the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, consisting mainly of those from the ranks of previous revolutionaries, is unknown, but is certainly in the many thousands.
• The 1999 student uprising in response to the closure of a reformist newspaper.
• The 2009 “Green Movement.” Mir-Hussain Moussavi, a former prime minister, and Mehdi Karoubi, a cleric and former speaker of the parliament, both presidential candidates, led days of demonstrations, with as many as 2 million protesters early on, to protest the results of a rigged presidential election. These protests were eventually suppressed violently by the regime.
• The 2017–2018 protests against inflation and economic shortages.
• The 2019 nationwide demonstrations against sudden fuel price hikes.
• The 2022–2023 “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman detained for violating the mandatory dress code. This uprising, due to its broad national presence, and strong leadership by women, took on an international character inspiring major support not only within Iran, but also externally. In her Z Article Frieda Afary, points out: “The most important achievement [of progressives in Iran] has been the 2022 Woman, Life Freedom Movement which raised explicit emancipatory demands involving women, labor, education and the rights of oppressed minorities.”
• The December 2025 – January 2026 revolt started with a Bazar strike to protest against the out-of-control price inflation and the devaluation of the Iranian currency, the Rial. It rapidly gained momentum and spread to numerous small and large cities. The uprising began in response to legitimate economic hardships. However, it is likely that Israeli and American interference worked to influence the authentic demonstrations, which quickly turned violent; in fact, the former U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo gleefully suggested the presence of Mossad agents at the demonstrations. The call for taking part in the street demonstration by Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah, along with his promise of U.S. support, was heeded by many, adding to the regime’s nervousness and its brutal backlash. In part, by closing down the internet, the government managed to suppress the rebellion violently, killing protesters in their thousands, and injuring and imprisoning thousands more.

Even before these recent nationwide protests, smaller street actions and strikes had persisted—organized by retirees, teachers, nurses, and other workers. Sit-ins, hunger strikes, and demonstrations against political arrests and executions continued, often led by prominent activists, many from within prisons. The regime’s typical response is often violent, deploying paramilitary Basij forces, plainclothes agents, and the Revolutionary Guards. In some cases, however, concessions did follow: fuel prices were reduced after mass protests. And women’s particularly courageous resistance, culminating in the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising, when hundreds of young demonstrators lost their lives, forced the regime to significantly reduce policing of women’s dress codes—a revolutionary achievement in its own right.

Regime Change by Whom?

Under dictatorial rule, it is difficult to gauge whether all dissatisfied citizens hope for regime change; a question even more difficult to answer under the wartime conditions. Yet spontaneous uprisings before the current aggression were increasingly radicalized, demanding the overthrow of the regime. These movements had often lacked organized leadership, though underground cells emerged during the 2023–2024 protests, and there is reason to believe that external actors, including the Israeli-supported royalists might have had an agitating role in this year’s street actions–the rise in the popularity of Reza Pahlavi seems to have contributed to an appreciable increase in the numbers of protesters. Since the onset of the revolution, dissidents inside Iran have spoken out at great personal risk, with women activists particularly outspoken despite severe repression. In exile, the opposition is fragmented, while some factions are more organized.

Two broad currents of opposition can be identified:

• The Client Opposition: Two relatively unified but separate groups dominate: the Pahlavi-royalists and the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization (MKO)–a formerly left-leaning Islamic guerrilla group, with current cult-like behavior. Despite rhetorical commitments to democracy, both insist on their own predetermined leaders for a perceived post-IRI (purportedly transitory) stage. Both seek support from U.S. elites, particularly from Republicans, and from Israel. The royalists, in particular, openly celebrate the U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran, and the former Crown-Prince continues to encourage the continuation of the war to topple the regime.  Each faction has its own patrons within the most right-wing Western circles.  The MKO is supported by such figures as John Bolton and Rudy Juliani, for example, while Reza Pahlavi is Israel’s own–albeit often subpar–Manchurian Candidate. The increase in the Pahlavi popularity has been fueled by massive monetary injections (possibly by Saudi Arabia and Israel) into television, most prominently the satellite broadcaster Iran International, and a broad array of social media propaganda tools.
• The Independent Opposition: This consists of left-leaning or democratic individuals and groups who have failed to coalesce around unified programs. Many are active among the Iranian diaspora, with some having semi- or completely clandestine presence inside the country.  Also, many have their roots in the pre-Islamic revolution era in Iran–some quite prominent at that time, but not as much in the imagination of today’s Iranian masses. The left consists of disparate and relatively small groups of Marxist tendencies, while the liberal democratic groups belong to a range of secular tendencies from Mossadegh’s National Front (including both secular- and religious-nationalist), to the proponents of a federal republican system of government, e.g., as demanded by regional political parties–to address ethnic and national aspirations for autonomy–most prominently in Kurdistan, but also among the Baluchis, the Arabs of Khuzestan and in Azerbaijan, some with guerrilla fighters among their ranks.

Shared demands could form the basis of a platform: social democracy, opposition to foreign intervention, abolition of capital punishment, political freedoms, and regional autonomy. Yet lingering mistrust rooted in past conflicts, sectarian tendencies (especially among the left), and an aging leadership disconnected from younger generations–less ideological, at times nostalgic for the pre-1979 era, and inclined towards a somewhat sanitized normal western life–have hindered coalition-building.  Any rising or recognized leader who advocates for transition to a democratic Iran, e.g., figures such as the Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi or a former prime minister and presidential candidate Mir-Hussain Moussavi, are undermined by both the regime–arrests and imprisonment–and the royalists–disruption of their events and character attacks through the social media, including accusations of collaboration with the regime. However, the Pahlavi success in his call for demonstrations early in 2026, and the royalist initiative to offer a platform for transition, as anti-democratic as that platform is—for example, Reza Pahlavi’s absolute authority to choose the members of the transition government, his advisors, and the timing of various proposed referenda—has motivated more serious initiatives within the left, but especially among the democratic opposition currents to form alliances. This is promising. Particular examples include the coalition of six Kurdish groups, and a new congress consisting of various republican-minded opposition formations based outside Iran, which consist of regional parties, social democrats, as well as liberal entities, reportedly formed in support of a still-undisclosed list of an internal leadership council.

From outside the country—and even for observers within—it remains unclear how influential these groups are among Iranians. There is significant grassroots support for democratization, modernity, and economic justice.  Courageous activists inside Iran openly call for change at great risk to their own freedom.  The government has never allowed the formation of active opposition parties inside Iran, nor a free civil society, including independent trade unions.  In this vacuum, there is evidence that the right-wing factions, namely the royalists, have gained support. However, their past record, and now their outright support of foreign aggression, limits their popular appeal, or potentially will reverse it if the war ends without a regime collapse.

Where To go from here?

It is indeed possible for a government to be simultaneously anti-imperialist and repressive against its own people. Foremost, especially at this moment, there must be unequivocal and nonstop opposition, and as much as possible tangible resistance to U.S.-Israeli aggression whether military or economic. All anti-war and anti-imperialist activists, in spite of any ideological difference–importantly this includes the Iranian left in the diaspora–must come together to oppose this aggression.

Iran’s support for Palestine has been relatively unique on the global stage. As I have argued, the IRI’s posture toward Israel and Palestine has been both authentic and disingenuous. Combined with decades of opposition to U.S. hegemony, this duality complicates how left-leaning activists in the United States perceive the IRI.

In my conversations with many Palestinians and their allies, at first these distinctions appear as unimportant subtleties in the face of the Israeli genocide and the U.S.-Israeli imperial war on Iran. Yet for progressive internationalists committed to social justice and human rights, ambiguity is unacceptable. The Islamic regime is hostile to modernity, secularism, democracy, and social justice. While the left must continue to organize the opposition to aggression against the Iranian nation-state, its solidarity—irrespective of geopolitical considerations—must be directed only toward the Iranian people, including those individuals and organizations that champion human and democratic rights, and social justice.

This is a moment for the anti-war movement to reenergize itself. Three years of protesting the Israeli genocide–and the normalization of extreme violence televised to the world–has likely sapped the energy that surfaced in 2003 to organize the mass opposition to that American war on Iraq. Possibly as a result, to date, the opposition to the war on Iran has been an addendum to the continuing, albeit weakened rallies for Palestine. The U.S. has been the key enabler of the Israeli genocide; but now, it is the direct perpetrator of the aggression. Thus, an independent anti-war initiative can and must form. Moreover, this war, due to its geography and oil, has become an environmental and climate disaster, and if it continues, it is likely to become even more so.  Destroying water desalination plants will cause irreversible social dislocations, while the burning oil fields and storage depots, together with massive explosions and aerial transportation are causing a huge injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.² The combination of the direct U.S. role in inflicting atrocity and economic damage, and the environmental impact must be a call for alliance of the anti-war and environmental activists to unite in opposition to the U.S. war.

Therefore, especially in the U.S., the opposition to the war has to be first and foremost; this is indeed the time to reignite a broad expansive alliance to do so. However, our slogans in the condemnation of the imperialist war must not include support for the theocracy in Iran; sentiments heard regularly not only at pro-Palestine rallies—where fundamentalist Muslims and anti-imperialist communists converge—but also in smaller, more deliberative political milieus.

There is ample hypocrisy.  Western governments, with imperial ambitions, criticize governments such as Iran’s and Venezuela’s for human rights violations, Russia for her militarism, and China for its economic expansionist policies, yet they close their eyes to genocide in Palestine, abduct a President, and without provocation attack a sovereign nation both militarily and economically. The powerful, with their impatience for the niceties of human rights and social justice, can afford to be hypocrites, at least for now. But the left, whose only path to political influence lies in standing for what is right, cannot afford its own double standards.  Its credibility can only come through its consistent adherence to its principles.

Thus, our message to Trump and all war criminals must be clear: while we support the struggle of the people of Iran for freedom, we strongly condemn the aggression on its sovereignty and demand an immediate halt to all military and economic war on Iran–only Iranians can choose their own future path.  At the same time, our message to the government of Iran must also be as vivid: We stand with Iran against all aggression on the Iranian territory, but we are united with her people in their struggle for economic justice and political self-determination.

Notes:

1. PSL (Party for Socialism & Liberation) is a primary example of groups in the anti-imperialist camp.  They correctly point the finger at the U.S. administration and the mainstream media for falsifying the Iranian nuclear threat to justify the imperialist designs on Iran, while ignoring the Iranian regime’s internal brutality (see: 47 years of hybrid war against Iran, Liberation, March 24 2026, where a quote from Vijay Prashad essentially dismisses the responsibility of the Iranian government for the January killings of thousands of Iranian demonstrators).  In the rallies against the war on Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, the rhetoric often extends to praises for the IRI for its resistance to imperialism and support for the Palestinian cause.
2. Democracy Now, April 1 2026, Interview with Dr. Kaveh Madani