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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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.

The post THE PALESTINE PAPERS (2026 Edition) appeared first on 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

By Chris GH

Who gets to vote in DSA?

Do you think every member should be able to vote on key decisions like leadership and campaigns?

Or should you have to meet an attendance policy to vote for the campaigns we take on and the leaders of our organization?

If we want a real chapter democracy, then we need to take questions of access and participation incredibly seriously.

NFL fans love to say “any given Sunday” to emphasize the idea that any team can beat any other team in an individual game. No matter how unpopular or disappointing, what matters is who shows up on that game day and how hard they play, regardless of how the rest of the season went.

Anyone can win the Super Bowl, even the Cleveland Browns (okay, maybe not the Browns, but the point stands).

“Any given Sunday” might be a great basis for a fun and dramatic football league, but “any given Tuesday” — the current time you have to be available to vote on political education matters — is a terrible basis for chapter democracy.

Winning socialism isn’t a game, and we should remember that even at our most divided we’re all on the same team. Our goal shouldn’t be trying to “defeat our enemies” by holding votes they can’t attend. Instead, we need a real commitment to democratic consensus and member-led political decisions in every corner of our organization. Democratic decisions need to be made by our whole membership, not just a self-selecting group of people who are able to participate regularly enough to qualify for voting rights on Tuesday evenings.

Other members of the Groundwork caucus and I wrote amendments to resolutions 4, 13 and 16 to expand our inclusive democratic voting process, which is built on the principle of One Member One Vote, to include leadership of labor and political education.

These amendments are part of our commitment to allowing every single member to have a say in how our name is used to further external organizing and our political vision.

But a significant portion of our members — including both the Bread & Roses and Marxist Unity Group caucuses, as well as the Detroit Democracy Coalition — strongly oppose the accessible and democratic process provided by One Member, One Vote.

These groups are pushing to restrict voting on political education and labor decisions to only the members who are able to attend specific meetings, some of which are exclusively in person on work days.

It’s a fact that only 10–20 members routinely find time in their busy lives and other organizing work to attend and vote at these meetings. That’s less than 2% of our chapter’s 1,300+ members.

And yet these groups want to bar anyone else from having a say in who leads our political education and labor efforts or the topics presented to you at our general meetings.

I find that alarming, and if you care about keeping our democracy accessible rather than insular, you should too.

What is One Member One Vote Anyway?

At present, all key votes in Metro Detroit DSA outside of convention happen via a system we refer to as One Member One Vote (also known as OMOV or 1M1V).

As standard practice, 1M1V allows any member to vote online usually over a 72 hour period on steering committee elections, campaign endorsements, resolutions, and other items brought by members. 1M1V makes voting accessible to every single dues-paying member of Metro Detroit DSA.

Our amendments to R4, R16 and R13 allow every member in good-standing to vote via 1M1V on:

• Which topics to debate at general meetings
• Which political education topics to cover at general meetings
• And who will serve as our next political education and labor chairs; adding onto the already existing chapter-wide elections for Electoral Chair, Member Engagement Chair and the co-chairs of the Socialists in Office Committee.

These amendments affirm our commitment to open, inclusive and accessible voting on key chapter decisions like leadership within Metro Detroit DSA.

Though we democratically voted to adopt the 1M1V system over two votes in 2024 by nearly 70%, the groups I mentioned earlier are eager to restrict voting on all topics — not just political education and labor — to those in attendance of specific meetings.

We believe that’s just plain wrong.

As Socialists, We Roundly Condemn Restricted Voting in Every Other Context

The argument against 1M1V is that if you can’t make labor or political education meetings, you’re not committed or educated enough on these topics to have a say.

But why should we completely reverse our attitudes on voting access whenever we talk about democracy within DSA?

We love mail-in and early voting because they’re huge steps forward for voting access. Conversely, imagine if voters in the United States were required to prove they had watched a presidential debate in order to vote in elections. Or if you had to prove attendance at a town hall to have a say in local politics.

We would rightly condemn it as a right-wing power grab to benefit special interests and the capitalist elite at the expense of the working class. Besides, to say that people must meet some arbitrary standard of education in order to vote is incredibly infantilizing.

Who are we to decide whether or not someone is educated or committed “enough” to vote?

We believe you don’t have to be an expert labor historian or a theoretical genius to know if you are in favor of the plan and ideas someone has for engaging the chapter and community in our politics.

Restricting Voting Access to Meetings Excludes Many of Our Most Dedicated Comrades

My own caucus, Groundwork, is one of the only caucuses in Metro Detroit DSA that has proudly supported 1M1V.

Not just for labor and political education, but for all key chapter decisions.

Many working class members are excluded from our democracy without 1M1V because they’re simply not available for a specific, narrow and rigid time slot each month or week. This includes members with incompatible work schedules, chronically ill members, those who lack reliable access to transportation or internet…the list goes on.

It’s not just a fringe group of members who would be excluded. Several chapter leaders that I know personally would be disenfranchised, including a member of our National Political Committee, which is essentially the national board of directors for DSA.

Consider parents. We don’t even offer childcare at our meetings. We should, but right now, we do not. How can we honestly call ourselves an organization by and for the working class if we intentionally and needlessly make the organization inaccessible to single parents?

Evidently, when the Detroit Democracy Coalition, Bread & Roses or the Marxist Unity Group share their strong democratic vision for the chapter, they’re not talking about a democracy for parents who can’t find childcare, baristas, grocery store and other retail workers, bartenders, and many others.

Are We Building an Organization for the Many, or the Few?

Our organization puts “Democratic” in our name because we’re committed to the idea that important decisions should be made by and for our entire membership. If we’re going to include ‘democracy’ in our name, then I think it’s time to put our money where our mouth is and extend that democracy to our chapter’s political education and labor decisions.

Political education and labor shouldn’t be democracy-free zones. I believe that decisions about our chapter’s political education and labor programs are important — and that means they’re important enough to make them democratically, and to ensure that every member gets a say.

Here in Groundwork, we believe that winning socialism requires building an organization of millions of everyday people. And the only way to do that is to meet people where they are. That means making the work as accessible, understandable, and tangible to as many people as possible.

It means not requiring a reading list, a poll test, or any other sort of “filter” to determine whether someone is the right type of member to vote on decisions as basic as who leads our collective project.

I urge all members to vote YES on the amendments to R4, R13 and R16.

Vote to expand our democracy, not restrict it.

The Shadower is an artistically stunning and darkly humorous graphic novel, grappling with themes of state repression, resistance and surveillance.

The post The Spy Game in Comics appeared first on Democratic Left.

Since the first stunning victories in Buffalo, New York, the union drive to organize Starbucks stores in the United States has been an inspiration for the labor movement. Over the last few years, young workers have expanded the campaign nationally with strikes, actions, and shop-to-shop organizing. The drive has shown exceptional rank-and-file energy and leadership, while also pioneering organization in a sector with almost no history of a union presence. From this past November to February, Starbucks workers organized their largest sustained national strike yet.

Nick Wozniak, a union activist with SEIU 73, interviews Connor Brennan,a rank-and-file strike captain, store organizer, and campaign activist with Starbucks Workers United(SBWU). Both reside in Chicago and are active in the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America. The interview has been edited for clarity.

NICK WOZNIAK: Can you describe how this most recent strike fits into the longer union organizing drive at Starbucks?

CONNOR BRENNAN: Starbucks stores across the U.S. have been organizing with Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), a campaign of the union Workers United, which is itself an affiliate of the much larger Service Employees International Union (SEIU), at a relatively steady rate for over four years, since December 2021. There are now over 650 unionized Starbucks locations, which make up around 5% to 7% of all corporate-operated Starbucks retail locations in the United States.

For over two years, Starbucks effectively refused to recognize the union and bargain in good faith despite the steady increase in election victories. Starbucks also accumulated an enormous number of unfair labor practice (ULP) charges during this time, including for firing hundreds of workers and closing dozens of stores illegally, as well as making unilateral changes to union shops without bargaining. SBWU organized many smaller actions including one- and two-day ULP strikes with as many as 300 stores participating. These actions protested Starbucks’ aggressive union-busting and demanded the company come to the table and negotiate in good faith.

In February 2024, Starbucks and SBWU finally agreed to a framework for collective bargaining across all union stores. Starbucks appeared to have caved to the consistent increase in election victories and escalating actions, even in the face of their union-busting and the overwhelming number of ULP charges they were facing. They were also likely responding to additional pressure from a spontaneous boycott that arose in response to Starbucks’ statements on October 7th and the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Several bargaining sessions then took place, where Starbucks and SBWU reached tentative agreements on over 30 articles of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), including on key issues such as grievance and arbitration, shop stewards, and improvements to the non-discrimination, health and safety, and dress code policies. However, bargaining stalled in December 2024, when Starbucks refused to make any meaningful economic concessions beyond guaranteeing annual 2% raises that they already typically offer non-union workers, meaning if SBWU settled a contract now, there would be virtually no economic difference for union stores.

Since December 2024, there has been little communication between Starbucks and SBWU, and Starbucks has reverted to its earlier policy of stalling and aggressive union-busting. This strike was the union’s first major attempt to break that impasse by building the biggest strike they could to inflict as much damage to Starbucks as possible to bring them back to the table with a reasonable offer.

NW: How did you originally get involved in the campaign and what has your experience been like?

CB: I started working at Starbucks as a barista in March 2022. I was looking for a stable job out of the COVID pandemic, and had some previous food service experience, so it was a pretty natural fit; but I did specifically apply to Starbucks because I was aware of the unionization effort there. Being a young socialist looking for work, I wanted to find a place to put down roots in the labor movement, and it seemed like this could be a chance to contribute to organizing a key workplace in the service industry.

Having little prior organizing experience, I did not expect to be able to organize my store immediately, but conversations arose naturally with co-workers considering the economic and political environment at the time, especially with the union effort making national news. Within six months, a group of us began meeting regularly, and within a year we had successfully voted 12-0 to unionize.

After that, I became active on the campaign, regularly attending Regional Organizing Committee (ROC) and Contract Action Team (CAT) meetings, and helping lead a number of workplace actions including several short ULP strikes. I was elected as a delegate to the national bargaining committee in 2024. I also played a leading role on the ROC, particularly with fundraising and organizing community support, and I was elected as one of three strike captains at my store this past August.

Unfortunately, my store was abruptly closed in September, just weeks before the strike began. This was part of a massive corporate restructuring where Starbucks closed over 400 stores with only two days’ notice and laid off the majority of the workers, including myself and nearly all of my co-workers. While most of the stores that closed were non-union, a disproportionate number were union (14%, even though unionized stores only represent 5-7% of all stores), suggesting that union-busting was part of the calculus of this decision.

Having my store close and being laid off right on the cusp of this monumental action was devastating for me personally. However, while now unemployed, I have still devoted the past few months to supporting the strike full-time, including by attending pickets and other actions almost every day as well as remaining in my role as treasurer of the local strike fund and liaison to the support organizing committee.

NW: So how would you evaluate this strike? Where does the campaign go from here? 

CB: This strike, while still modest overall, was far more impactful to Starbucks’ profits than any previous action. The strike was organized in waves, with 65 stores walking out on November 13th (a major promotional day for Starbucks known as Red Cup Day), and 30 to 40 more joining each week until Christmas. The initial plan was to end on Christmas, but a strategic decision was made for 40 to 50 stores to remain on strike through late January, with one final wave joining in mid-January.

Around 300 stores participated altogether, which fell slightly short of the union’s target. But compared to previous actions, the stores that did participate struck for far longer (ranging from one week to three months), with a higher degree of worker participation, while also experimenting with new tactics such as disrupting deliveries and asking customers not to cross picket lines at non-union stores, effectively calling for a boycott.

In the past, SBWU’s strategy relied more on influencing the media and public opinion to exert pressure on Starbucks as opposed to disrupting business to directly impact sales. Many have pointed to this as a weakness of the campaign, arguing that a corporate campaign like this can produce only limited results. I generally agree with this analysis, and saw it as a positive that this time the union seemed more interested in targeting profits directly.

Unfortunately, Starbucks is an incredibly rich and powerful company, and Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol seems committed to keeping his head down and ignoring the union at virtually any cost. While this strike was an impressive effort, it will take more than this to move Starbucks significantly in negotiations.

I think this strike needs to be seen as a capacity-building action that fits into an ongoing escalation strategy to bring Starbucks back to the table. As long as Workers United remains committed to this campaign, there is every reason to believe they can continue organizing more stores and build a larger strike threat as they have done every year up to this point. The hard reality, in my opinion, is that it might take another year or two to achieve a fair contract, but viewed through that lens, I think this was an encouraging step in the right direction.

NW: What was learned during this strike that can be useful in the future? 

CB: In a situation where the bargaining unit represents a minority of the workforce, it seems logical that a strong boycott would be one of the most promising ways for the union to exert pressure on the company. As I mentioned, the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement temporarily targeting Starbucks was a key factor in bringing them to the table initially, even though it was not directly initiated by the union.

During the strike, SBWU used the language “Don’t Buy Starbucks while workers are on strike”, and workers and supporters flyered outside of non-union Starbucks asking customers not to cross their picket line. Most customers had not heard about the strike, but many agreed to go elsewhere in these instances. But in order to really be effective, the message to not buy Starbucks must be heard on a national scale and last until a settlement is reached. 

One glaring issue is the union’s reticence to explicitly call for a ‘boycott’ in so many words, presumably for fear of legal repercussions. This seems very cautious, considering that primary boycotts are legal and only secondary boycotts prohibited under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which infamously restricted many effective labor tactics in the U.S. Even if there are legitimate legal concerns, the unwillingness to use the word ‘boycott’ certainly limits how loudly and clearly the message is heard.

Logistics disruption is another promising tactic used extensively for the first time during this strike. Starbucks stores receive daily deliveries of many essential products from a transport company called QCD, where drivers are organized under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). Teamsters are authorized not to cross active primary picket lines, which includes pickets at non-union Starbucks stores, since all corporate Starbucks are under the same employer. 

Many striking workers blocked deliveries to their own stores, and Chicago was one of several areas that had modest success organizing “flying pickets” that moved from store to store and  blocked sometimes as many as 15 to 20 deliveries in a single night. There were also blockades organized at high-traffic locations in downtown areas, and even at major distribution centers on a couple of occasions.

By intercepting deliveries and getting customers to support a boycott, it’s possible to impact sales at a far larger number of stores than those on strike. Expanding and refining these tactics seems like the key to impacting revenue and profits on the scale needed to get Starbucks to make real concessions. This will require careful planning to navigate legal obstacles, coordination with other unions, and training a large number of workers and supporters, but the experience gained during this strike is a good start. 

NW: What was community support like during the strike in Chicago? 

CB: Most communities around Chicago are liberal or left-leaning, and/or have a relatively working-class composition, meaning customers are generally more supportive than not – although there are notable exceptions, particularly in wealthy suburbs and downtown areas. But even where customers are sympathetic, mobilizing people to support in meaningful ways requires more work.

A few other workers and I reached out to some of our closest allies in Chicago prior to the strike to establish the SBWU Support Organizing Committee. This committee met regularly to organize a strong support network, including by reaching out to a wide variety of organizations and unions asking them to sign a public letter of solidarity and commit to supporting the strike in various ways.

Overall, this proactive effort made the community support in Chicago significantly more widespread and reliable than in years past. Some organizations prioritized picket support, others adopted non-union stores where they flyered regularly to promote the boycott, and others joined flying pickets or helped raise money for the local strike fund. CDSA organized a strike kitchen along with dozens of flyering actions, and many other socialist and left-leaning organizations contributed in various ways. The support committee collectively organized a concert fundraiser which raised thousands of dollars for strikers and helped solidify this community of workers and supporters that I hope can last into the future.

Notably, while many union members supported in a personal capacity, the leadership of major unions was largely absent when it came to mobilizing members to support. This failure to prioritize solidarity between unions is a major shortcoming of the labor movement in the U.S. in general and in Chicago specifically, and this is something that socialists and labor activists urgently need to correct.

NW: Briefly, what’s your view on what this struggle shows about prospects for rebuilding a fighting labor movement?

CB: The continued determination of Starbucks workers, the support of the left and of society broadly, and the shift toward a class-struggle mindset, including experimentation with bold new tactics during this recent strike, should all be reasons to remain hopeful. But the fact that Starbucks workers remain without a contract after four years is a testament to just how steep of an uphill battle this is for all workers.

As of today, around 90% of the U.S. workforce remains without a union. Massive investments of time and resources are needed to change that, and so far major unions have not risen to the challenge. Additionally, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was unable to keep up with the overwhelming number of ULP charges against Starbucks even under the Biden administration, let alone the current dire situation under Trump. This shows why relying on the law for fair redress is not a viable strategy for unions.

The SBWU campaign stands as evidence that not only are time and resources required to rebuild the labor movement, but also a willingness to take risks and get creative in our opposition to illegal attempts at union suppression. The corporate campaign can only get us so far, and in order to win, it must be combined with powerful strikes and other tactics that directly target profits. If established unions are afraid to venture into this territory, workers have no choice but to take matters into their own hands, and the socialist movement has a responsibility to help make this possible.

The post Learning from the Picket: An interview with a Starbucks Workers United strike captain appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Members brought aid to Cuba — and returned with a new commitment to fighting U.S. imperialism.

The post DSA joins the Nuestra América convoy appeared first on Democratic Left.