Submission from a member of Cleveland DSA

Note: This post has been updated on Feb 10 to reflect the amended language of the Building an Independent Party chapter resolution, which removed and added passages to the language based on our discussion with DSA compliance.

This post is inspired by Chad’s new segment of the same name in our General Meetings.

With the second Trump presidency here and already disrupting so many lives, we are going to be in crisis mode for the foreseeable future. This will encourage a tendency towards reacting to crises, as opposed to responding to them. During this time, we must ground ourselves in our shared principles and perspectives to avoid the tendency towards liberalism.

As happened last time the Cheeto was sworn in, we have seen a bump in new members joining our chapter – which is a massive source of hope for me personally! At the same time, turnover within the movement and specifically within our chapter is predictably unpredictable. Leaders step away for a variety of capitalism-related or burnout reasons. When this happens, we often lose important institutional knowledge and continuity from previous internal chapter debates.

In our flurry of activity since I joined in 2021, I’ve seen some of the same political debates play out again and again in our chapter. It hasn’t been because circumstances are vastly different and we needed to re-evaluate past decisions, though. The debates often center around our theory of power, how we relate to liberals, coalitions, or NGOs, or the money in our bank account. From what I understand, this pattern even predates my time at DSA.

In the time I’ve been involved, I’ve certainly seen a coalescence in our perspectives towards DSA as a mass party, our endorsement criteria and process, our expectations for future electeds, and our desire to have independent messaging which directly ties our work to socialism. That’s not to say every member agrees, but there seems to be broad strategic alignment in these areas which were previously fractured in the chapter.

But the unfortunate truth of Cleveland DSA is that we haven’t been great at documenting our reflections on our past work/decisions, codifying our shared strategic vision, or educating new members on these perspectives as they’ve developed and merged over the years.

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In this piece, I’m hoping to shed light on our chapter’s formally established perspectives. I think it’s especially important for newer members to know and understand our chapter’s history so that we can avoid repeating the events of the past and keep the chapter growing as a political force.

This is not to say that we should never repeat a particular debate. Instead, I’m calling for our chapter to operate in a way that once the majority does agree on a particular perspective/vision, we make sure our record-keeping reflects that and, ideally, develop educational materials for new members that reinforce that shared perspective. 

Our chapter would benefit greatly from the development of education materials anytime we take a decisive stance on a political question. A great candidate for this treatment in my opinion is the passage of the Building an Independent Party resolution at the 2024 convention. (More on this later.)

In this way, we will learn and retain information as a chapter, rather than as a group of individuals.

Additionally I’d love to call for others to write their own reflection on the chapter.

Our Chapter’s Strategic Vision

The Democratic Socialists of America is a big tent organization which does not require agreement with its national platform or “purity tests.” As our chapter grows and develops politically, we pass resolutions to formally establish our perspectives based on what we have learned through practice. These perspectives guide our tactical decision-making as we undertake the historic task of bringing democratic socialism to the masses.

As established in our Member Handbook, our theory of change is as follows:

“…collective power can be wielded for tremendous good when done so with wisdom, care, and effort; that our capitalist society is tremendously weighted against regular, working people, and critically: that we can win, especially if we engage in deep organizing. We believe that through shared struggle and political education, we can build a democratic, multiracial, working-class, explicitly socialist movement, in Cleveland, Ohio.”

From the National DSA Constitution:

“We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships. We are socialists because we are developing a concrete strategy for achieving that vision, for building a majority movement that will make democratic socialism a reality in America. We believe that such a strategy must acknowledge the class structure of American society and that this class structure means that there is a basic conflict of interest between those sectors with enormous economic power and the vast majority of the population.”

How We Codify Our Strategic Vision

In addition to our foundational documents, a number of resolutions passed at our 2024 convention* formally established some of our chapter’s perspectives around questions like our messaging strategy, our anti-drug war stance, our perspective on DSA as a political party, and our desire to form a formal relationship with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.

The “Whereas” clauses of a resolution, although not binding, reflect the author’s perspective towards the work in the “Be it resolved” sections. In this way, we put forward perspectives which inform our tactical-level decisions.

Thus, although the Democratic Socialists of America and our chapter are “big tent” organizations, individual political views do not supersede our democratic mandates. Acceptance of a democratic mandate does not require the individual to agree with the direction or political undertones of that mandate because the “big tent” allows for factions/caucuses and internal organizing towards differing political perspectives.

Putting on my Cleveland DSA Historian hat, I’d like to highlight some perspectives and priorities we established at the 2024 Chapter Convention. (As an aside, Damion also provided us with some excellent opening remarks.)

Passed at 2024 Chapter Convention*

These are the resolutions that passed that I think were important for establishing the politics of our chapter. I’ll provide a brief rationale for their importance for each. Any emphasis (bold or italics) is mine.

Campaigns (Projects) Communications Strategy

This resolution establishes the need to craft messaging that ties our work to the movement for socialism:

“[Be it resolved,] …at minimum, a blog post announcing the campaign and talking points that will be shared with membership to help them articulate how the campaign relates to the struggle for socialism.”

It also reflects the chapter’s broad support of building a mass political party to advance socialism:

“[Whereas,] in order to build the kind of mass political party we need to advance socialism, we need to illustrate how our campaign (project) work ties into socialism more broadly.”

Provide harm reduction materials & anti-drug war propaganda at DSA events

This resolution is a great example where we can do low-lift work with a high return. I’m proud that our chapter has been engaged in the community doing NARCAN distribution. I’m not sure if we produced the literature described here but if we haven’t yet, reminder that we are mandated.

“Whereas, there is a pressing need for a politically minded response to engage the public and to dismantle the narrative around the drug war;”

This resolution also establishes a direct political education element and membership growth opportunity:

“Resolved, that the DSA shall allocate $300 for the development and distribution of class-conscious, anti-drug war literature to be presented alongside harm reduction materials at events, with the aim of attracting individuals engaged in this issue into DSA.”

Building an Independent Party

This resolution establishes locally our agreement with the decision at the 2023 National Convention to “Act Like an Independent Party.”

For those unfamiliar with the original resolution, the goal is to establish political independence (in both practice and perception) through rejection of Democratic Party discipline in favor of internally democratic organization.

“[Whereas,] …It means political independence and a rejection of Democratic Party discipline. And political independence requires organizational independence in the form of a membership-based internally democratic political organization. 

All electoral work must therefore be oriented toward building DSA’s organizational skills and capacity as well as towards building popular perception of DSA as politically independent of both major capitalist parties.”

The specifics of this resolution in the “Be it resolved” section are going to become extremely important if/when we move towards having Cleveland DSA cadre run campaigns. I’d encourage a full read/re-read! (And in my opinion it’s .) Highlights:

“[Be it resolved…] Cleveland DSA must put forward a politically independent socialist point of view in all messaging and any campaign materials used by the chapter must be DSA branded…”

“It is the official position of Cleveland DSA that the purpose of DSA running candidates for elected office is to build a democratic socialist movement outside of the state that is in opposition to the existing state…”

“Chapter electoral work should be oriented toward building the skills and capacity of the chapter to run campaigns.”

“If a DSA member gets elected, the Chapter shall form a Socialists in Office (SiO) committee with the elected comrade(s) as ex officio members. Cleveland DSA will only endorse candidates who agree to meet with the SiO to maintain an open dialogue regarding policy positions. The SiO will provide reportbacks to membership.”

Towards an EWOC branch

This resolution is important because it has the potential to strengthen our chapter’s relationship with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee and National DSA. It would more directly/explicitly tie our work towards socialism with the organic workers’ movement. It’s also very ambitious and I hope we don’t lose sight of its aims in 2025:

“… [Be it resolved,] The EWOC-trained organizers, a local coordinator, and the advanced organizer will launch the branch and start accepting leads from EWOC. Preference should be given to leads in DSA Cleveland’s zip codes. There is an expectation from EWOC to take leads outside of our immediate area. 

EWOC organizers are responsible for meeting with their assigned leads and developing leads into campaigns. Organizers are expected to support at least one sustainable campaign or several soft leads. 

EWOC organizers are expected to train and onboard new EWOC volunteers. EWOC expects volunteering to be open to non-DSA members. 

EWOC training, meetings, socials, fundraisers, and worker support events will be considered DSA Cleveland events unless specified otherwise. EWOC organizers should avoid scheduling in conflict with priority campaigns, general meetings, and committee meetings…”

Winning the Battle for Democracy

This resolution was primarily to affirm the National DSA Political Platform stance on the American political system and to call for National DSA and our electeds to more explicitly indict the undemocratic state form. It’s honestly an exciting read and clearly establishes the political environment we find ourselves in in this moment.

“[Whereas,] the historical tendencies towards the concentration of capital in few hands and the concentration of people in few states has rendered any constitutional paths that may once have been open to the socialist movement forever closed, obstructing progressive reform and leaving those reforms already won through historical mass struggle defenseless as the political servants of the capitalist class conspire to strip them away.

The DSA has pledged to fight for a “a world organized and governed by and for the vast majority, the working class,” which is clearly impossible under the current Constitutional regime and cannot be won through the antidemocratic channels of reform laid down by the Constitution.”

The following is such a powerful statement of what we must do to reform the state into one worth contesting in the electoral arena:

“[Be it resolved,] Cleveland DSA affirms, from the DSA Political Platform, that “the American political system was not made to serve the working class” and that “the nation that holds itself out as the world’s premier democracy is no democracy at all” by officially raising the demand for a new and radically democratic constitution, drafted by an assembly of the people elected by direct, universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents with proportional representation of political parties, and rooted not in the legitimacy of dead generations of slaveowners and capitalists, but that of a majority consensus of the working masses. 

Additionally Cleveland DSA urges DSA as a whole to take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as antidemocratic and oppressive, encouraging all DSA members in elected office to do the same, taking concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic such as agitating against undemocratic judicial review, fighting for proportional representation, delegitimizing the anti-democratic U.S. Senate, and advancing the long-term demand for a new democratic Constitution. We declare that to be a socialist is to fight for an expansive working-class democracy in which the state and society are democratically managed by the majority. In the U.S. this means demanding a new Constitution…”

*All links are currently members-only access. Please contact membership@dsacleveland.org if you cannot access these documents. I’ll be motioning at a future SC or General to make these publicly available.

Other Outstanding Democratic Mandates

In addition to some of the work above which is ongoing, we have other outstanding chapter-level mandates to keep sight of:

• Our Home In Cleveland (office space)
• Merch Madness (ordering up to $400 worth of shirts)
• Winter Collection (more merch)
• Standing Authorization for Steering Committee to Authorize Fundraising Concerts

Some progress has been made on each of these, but I suspect not all members are aware of this ongoing work. Even in the steering committee, we’ve had difficulty remembering various authorizations or the details of them, like the concert planning one.

We do have the motion tracker now though, which is up-to-date with all motions made in 2025!

Dissent to Current Mandates

As mentioned above, acceptance with a chapter decision doesn’t mean you must agree with the decision. When votes are close or the sides are polarized, internal organizing is the solution. Factions and caucuses may be formed, vote whipping is permitted (provided you aren’t using chapter resources for these purposes).

But an important distinction is that posting dissent across Slack is not the same as internal organizing. It can certainly be the starting point, but we are all here because we believe in collective power and democratic decision-making. Our chapter business is run by Robert’s Rules so that we can openly debate, amend, and vote on decisions. This form of active, engaged, participatory democracy is vastly different than sending messages online and allows for much greater access and involvement across our chapter.

Our Unresolved Political Questions

There are still some outstanding topics we’ve yet to officially form positions on which we can expect to see some polarization on. These include resolutions that did not get debated on the convention floor, plus a meaty topic we only ended up discussing in a small group at a chapter convention plenary – our electoral strategy.

• “Points of Unity for Coalition Work”
• “Chapter Labor Strategy” (however we did vote to create the Labor Chair position)
• Our Electoral Strategy – Discussion Session coming up Feb 22nd!

If you’re interested in working on resolutions around these topics but need some help, my DMs are open! I can either help you or find someone who can.

Luckily, on these topics we aren’t starting at zero. There’s already great writing on these topics and examples we can point to as we develop our positions. I’m hoping especially with the electoral strategy discussion that we will sharpen our perspectives and vision.

I’m taking my Cleveland DSA Historian hat off so that I can directly state my political vision for our chapter.

My Political Vision for Our Chapter

My hope for our chapter is that we work to routinize this cycle of debate/deliberation, codification, and education that will be vital to our political progression as our chapter grows. My long term vision for our chapter is to advance towards some form of programmatic unity.

Programmatic unity is how we can institutionalize our learning so that our organization doesn’t depend too heavily on its long-time members. Acceptance of (not necessarily agreement with)  a program or platform would allow our chapter to move forward as a political body, clearly articulate “where we’re going” to our newer members, and prevent the awkwardness and polarization that comes from repeating the same fundamental debates every few years. To be clear, none of the below is something I’m trying to actively organize for right now but what I see on the horizon that would unify and strengthen our chapter for the long-run.

• Establish a tasks and perspectives doc to guide our decisions on priority projects and non-campaign activities
• Establish topic-specific reading groups within our education committee and an official curriculum
• Get members to publish more reflection pieces on our blog following big chapter decisions or highly contested decisions
• Advocate for programmatic unity at the national level
• Establish a chapter program to unify our local work

Would love to see some response posts if this sparked ideas for any of y’all!

In Solidarity,
Megan R

Feb 5, 2025

The post Where We’ve Been & Where We’re Going appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

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Remembering the 8-week Strike on its 113th Anniversary

By Ben Cabral

LAWRENCE – On January 11, 1912, women textile workers walked off their jobs in protest of a cut to their pay. The industrial action would quickly grow to include more than 20,000 textile workers, and last for 8 weeks, becoming one of the most important labor struggles in Massachusetts and US labor history, and earning the name “The Bread and Roses Strike.” But what made this strike so important?  

In part, the importance of the strike was because it was waged by workers – ‘unskilled’ or semi-skilled, women, immigrants – who had largely been written off as ‘unorganizable’ by the conservative union establishment of the American Federation of Labor. But in spite of being written off by the establishment labor movement, primarily immigrant women from at least 51 different nations were able to band together, overcoming significant language and cultural barriers, to challenge the power of capital and win their primary demands addressing low wages, and unsafe working conditions. 

The Bread and Roses Strike also was marked for the role played by some of the titans of the labor movement in the early 20th century, including Industrial Workers of the World leaders Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurly Flynn.

The strike saw the implementation of many new tactics and substantial victories that created a blueprint for subsequent strikes which helped to expand the labor movement beyond the relatively privileged layers of native-born, high skilled workers organized by craft, and into the far larger layers of semi-skilled industrial workforce of the mass-production industries. Although it would not be for another two decades that the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) split from the AFL in order to fully embrace this industrial model of mass-organizing, this later split would not have been possible without the earlier efforts at industrial organizing which were, in part, kicked off by the Bread and Roses Strike. The historical impact of this strike means it is important for the modern labor movement to study its development and be able to implement the lessons of this strike, to win the rights that the working class deserves.

Slaves To The Loom

The city of Lawrence, Massachusetts was founded in the 1840s explicitly as a one-industry town to expand the textile industry out of Lowell, another nearby textile hub. By 1912, Lawrence was the textile capital of the United States, with a workforce made up primarily of Southern and Eastern Europeans, specifically Poles, Italians, and Lithuanians, as well as some Russians, Portuguese, and Armenians. There were also some smaller immigrant communities in Lawrence, most notably Syrians. The majority of the city’s black population also worked in the textile mills, although they made up a small percentage of the overall workforce. Many of these immigrant workers were women and children, who were intentionally hired after the mechanization and deskilling of textile mill labor, who could be paid significantly less. 

The working conditions in the mills were appalling. Poet William Blake summed it up perfectly as “these dark satanic mills.” Workers were regularly forced to work 6 days a week for 60 or more hours.1 Workers were frequently killed, maimed, or seriously disabled due to workplace accidents, while others died slowly from inhaling toxic fibers and dust. The life expectancy of a textile worker at this time was about 20 years lower than the rest of the population. In fact, over a third of workers in the Lawrence mills died before the age of 25, and 50% of children born to workers died before the age of 6.2

Early Organizing

Even before the strike broke out, and in response to the terrible conditions outlined above, there was a high degree of organization among the textile workers. There was an AFL union, the United Textile Worker, which claimed to represent several thousand of the more skilled textile worker, but in reality this union only counted a few hundred dues-paying members, evidence of its weakness even among the “organizable” minority of skilled worker, more likely to be native born men. Far more energetic was the organizing of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which had been active in Lawrence for 5 years prior to the strike. The IWW in Lawrence had 20 different foreign language chapters operating in the city to accommodate the various immigrant communities in Lawrence at the time. The Italian Socialist Federation (ISF), part of the Socialist Party of America, was also active in Lawrence at the time, and had some overlap with the IWW. In addition, many of the immigrant workers had experiences in cooperatives and unions in Europe and were able to use those experiences once they got to the United States. 

In fact, the workers had already been organizing, forming “shop committees” in the various textile mills to democratically relay their demands to the textile bosses, with organizing assistance from the IWW. In the fall of 1911, mill owners had refused to meet with the shop committees to discuss the upcoming cuts to working hours. The workers wanted assurances that their pay wouldn’t be reduced, since wages were already incredibly low. The mill owners’ refusal to meet with the shop committees agitated workers, who had also been struggling against long hours, horrible working and living conditions, and high infant mortality rates, along with the poor pay. 

Although the Bread and Roses Strike is often painted as a spontaneous action, it was actually these years of organizing, at least half a decade prior to the strike, which enabled workers to take the flashpoint of reduced wages and turn that into a massive 8 week strike.

The Strike Breaks Out

On January 11, 1912, a number of Polish women working at the Everett Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts opened their checks and discovered that their pay had indeed been cut by 32 cents due to the slightly reduced work hours.

32 cents may not sound like a significant reduction in pay, however, wages had already been so low, about $8.76 a week, that this reduction was substantial. This group of Polish women proceeded to shut off their machines and started marching around Lawrence, taking to the other mills to notify the other workers of their strike over the cuts in pay, and later that night, word of what happened at Everett Mill spread around the workers’ tenements. The women of the Everett Mills’ brave actions clearly struck a nerve, as the next day, on January 12, some 10,000 workers shut off their machines and went on strike across the city. On the first day of the strike, workers slashed the belts on their machines and threw bricks through factory windows to protest their low pay and horrible working conditions and their bosses’ refusal to listen to them. And as news of the strike spread, farmers wanting to support the workers drove to Lawrence in order to donate whatever they could for food.3

Joseph Ettor of the IWW and Arturo Giovannitti of the ISF took the lead and formed a 56 person strike committee with 4 representatives from 14 different nationalities. This created a strong worker-led democratic leadership team with strong roots among the various sections of the workforce. This model was uncommon if not unique at the time, and stood in direct contrast to the typical AFL craft union model where the union bureaucracy had final say on everything. This robust democracy, which ensured representation for all the ethnic groups in the city, created a deep sense of belonging and unity for the workers which proved crucial when the United Textile Workers (UTW) tried to break the strike, claiming that they were the union that spoke for the workers. Because the workers felt such a strong sense of ownership in their movement, seeing the IWW as their vehicle for collective power, they stood behind the IWW leadership and ignored the UTW.

Another important aspect in building community among the workers was the effort made to cultivate deep connections between workers outside of working hours. The women in the city deliberately formed networks in the different ethnic neighborhoods of Lawrence. The language and cultural barriers were overcome through community spaces like soup kitchens, ethnic organizations, and community centers. These spaces brought the various immigrant communities in the city together, creating a sense of connection and commitment to each other. 

During the strike, the workers did more than hurting company profits by keeping factories closed and destroying mill property. In addition, they also actively worked to build mass support. They organized massive marches through the city with singing, chanting, and banners. The call for higher wages (Bread) and workplace dignity (Roses) was a consistent theme, and led to the chant from which this strike gets its name “We want bread and roses too.” Workers also entered stores in large numbers around the city to halt operations and create further disruptions. A key aspect to this strategy was to keep the pressure on the mill owners through these large public displays and keeping the mills closed, while also avoiding any unnecessary provocation or property destruction. The strike leaders were very aware of the need for public support and were deliberate in maintaining a positive image in the public as much as they reasonably could. 

These tactics would prove to be crucial in making sure material support was available to the strikers to help them maintain the strike and withstand the retaliation from the capitalist class.

Mill Owner Retaliation

The mill owners, the City of Lawrence, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reacted to the strike with mass violence, revealing to the workers of Lawrence that the government was not a neutral party, but rather clearly in the pocket of the capitalist class. Police and state militiamen were called in to beat back the striking workers and protect the mills. Police used clubs to beat workers as they marched through the streets and picketed at their mills, while state militiamen stood around the mills with their bayonets pointed at the picketing workers. The police even killed two strikers, Anna LoPizzo and John Ramey, during a struggle between striking workers and scab workers that were being brought into the mills. The authorities later charged Ettor and Giovannitti as accomplices to the murder of Anna LoPizzo, even though they were nowhere near the scene when her murder actually took place. This was clearly an attempt by the state to disrupt the strike by targeting two of its leaders. 

Later when striking workers began to send their children to other cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, etc, police were present at the train stations and proceeded to beat and arrest the mothers there who were trying to send their kids to safety. Those same kids were forced to watch this ordeal, no doubt traumatizing them. 

But the mill owners did not stop with leaning on state repression, they also resorted to framing and discrediting the strikers. Mill owners hired a group of agitators to foment trouble among the strikers and even had a group plant dynamite near one of the mills in order to discredit the strikers. The man who was found to have planted the dynamite was not imprisoned, and was given a small $500 fine. It was later revealed that William M. Wood, president of the American Woolen Company which owned a number of the mills in Lawrence, had made a large payment to the man just before he had planted the dynamite.

The history of repression brought in by the state on behalf of the mill owners is a great reminder of who the state serves and the lengths they will go in order to protect capital. But the workers’ resistance, including their continuation of militant tactics paired with their savy appeals to public support, shows that even the unity of the capitalists and the state is no match for the unity of the militant working class.

The Strike Comes To An End

The stories of police brutally beating the mothers of Larence created outrage around the country. So much so that President Taft ordered the attorney general to investigate the strike and Congress began a hearing on March 2nd, 1912. Testimony from workers about the horrible working conditions and abject poverty dramatically shifted public opinion of the strike in favor of the workers. They highlighted diseases contracted by workers from inhaling dust and debris, deaths to workers due to workplace accidents, and others appalling stories. Specifically, a 14 year old girl named Carmela Toreli told the story of how her scalp was ripped off by one of the mill machines, which left her hospitalized for seven months. 

The massive shift in public support for the strikers, and the public pressure placed on the mill owners as a result, forced the mill owners to come to the table and discuss the demands of the workers. And by March 14th, workers and mill owners had reached an agreement that included a 15% wage increase for workers, an increase in overtime compensation, and a guarantee not to retaliate against the striking workers. This victory led to similar wage increases for 275,000 New England textile workers and workers in other industries as well. This result revealed the power of the industrial union model promoted by the IWW, and later by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), as opposed to the craft union model promoted by the AFL. Rather than trying to organize unions based on a specific job, the IWW focused on organizing unions based on industry as a means to unite all the workers in a given industry and allow them to have significantly more bargaining power and for the benefits of their wins to apply to more workers.

Meanwhile, Giovannitti and Ettor remained in jail for months after the end of the strike. Bill Haywood and the IWW threatened a general strike if they were not released. On March 10th, 1921, a 10,000 Lawrence workers protested for the release of Ettor and Giovannitti, and then later, on September 30th, 15,000 Lawrence workers went on strike to demand their release.4 There was even an international campaign for their release, with Swedish and French workers proposing a boycott of woolen goods from the US and protests in front of the US consulate in Rome. Fortunately, Ettor and Giovannitti, and a third defendant, who had never even heard of either of them and was at home eating dinner at the time of the killing, were all acquitted on November 26th 1912.

As many of the textile mills began to move south, efforts were made specifically by the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) to organize southern textile mills. CPUSA had begun organizing their own unions separate from the AFL, based foremost on their experience trying to bore within the AFL, but also in part being influenced by the Communist International’s (Comintern) position that world revolution was approaching due to the crisis of Capitalism and that communists should organize their own organizations, including unions. Southern mill towns were much more tightly monitored due to the mill owners’ tiger connections with local police, which made organizing much more difficult there. However, the CPUSA did have some early success organizing workers in the National Textile Workers Union (NTWU) which they organized through the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL), including the famous strike at the Gastonia Mill in North Carolina. Ultimately, some of the high profile strikes by AFL unions and the rise of the CIO made many organizers within TUUL decide to rejoin the mainstream labor movement, which ultimately led to a dramatic reduction in the organizing efforts of these southern textile mills.5 

Lessons of the Strike

The Bread & Roses Strike is a reminder of the power of workers when they are organized and militant. Immigrant women are one of the most vulnerable groups in the United States, and yet this group of immigrant women were able to use their collective power as workers to deliver one of the most substantial wins in American labor history. One of the most important factors of the strike was the community built by the women in Lawrence through workplace organizing. This was crucial to overcoming the vast cultural differences among the workers and cultivating the sense of obligation to each other and the solidarity necessary to withstand the state repression, and build the networks of support for the strikers that allowed them to maintain the strike for 2 months. The strike committee was also crucial in maintaining unity among the workers, specifically the move to ensure representation for each of the ethnicities present among the workers was in place. This is similar to the practice of “mapping the workplace” in order to find natural leaders among the workers, which is so important in any successful unionization campaign. 

Many leaders of the IWW ended up leaving the IWW in favor of boring from within the reactionary AFL union. This came as a result of the failures of the IWW mentioned above in the previous section. This was more in line with the general marxist-leninist position of how to interact with trade unions, which Lenin had described in “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”. The basis for this position is that communists need to be doing their work within the unions that the mass of workers most commonly reside in, even if those unions are led by more conciliatory labor partners of the capitalist class. 

Remembering our power as workers and making sure that we are talking with and making connections with our co-workers and with our communities will be crucial for the labor movement. Winning more substantial victories will require the courage of rank and file workers, and also the solidarity of other workers to build support systems for striking workers and isolate the employers by refusing to cross the picket line. And this can only be built through deliberate community building and organizing like what was done in the lead up to the Bread & Roses Strike.

Ben Cabral is a member of Boston DSA and contributor to Working Mass.

Photo Credits:

“Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History” Digital Public Library of America online exhibition
https://dp.la/item/3420c6a58eb17c992594e2e0f110980e

Remembering the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike – AFRICANIST PRESS ︎The Lawrence Textile Strike https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/8239 ︎The Strike That Shook America ︎Crossing Borders on the Picket Line: Italian-American Workers and the 1912 Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts on JSTOR ︎Trust the Bridge That Carried Us Over: The Failure of Operation Dixie 1946-53 – Cosmonaut ︎“}]] 

Workers' rights vary from state to state. Here’s what you need to know about right-to-work and at-will employment in Virginia.

The post What are my rights as a worker in Virginia? appeared first on EWOC.

Welcome to your quick glimpse into the work of the chapter over the last month, prepared for Little Red Letter #134.

On January 25, workers from Delta Air Lines organized an inspiring rally at the St. Paul Labor Center.  The ramp, cargo, and tower workers are fighting to join the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and flight attendants are fighting to join the Association of Flight Attendants at Delta, the most profitable airline in the industry.  […]

The post Bodily Autonomy Working Group appeared first on Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America.

Decommodification of Housing in Berlin and how we can learn from it in the Twin Cities(Originally Published in Streets.MN) BERLIN, GERMANY — Berlin residents have shown a path out of our global housing crisis via the Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE) movement — a mass civil society campaign to socialize tens of thousands of […]

A Line in the Sand On September 28, 2024, the Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America (TCDSA) etched its name into the annals of socialist anti-imperialist struggle. By passing the resolution “Make Twin Cities DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis,” the chapter didn’t just condemn Zionism—it declared war on the settler-colonial project itself. […]

I started the Street Corps Working Group shortly after I joined Twin Cities DSA back in 2021 in response to the collapse of the previous Mutual Aid and Solidarity Economy (MASE) Working Group. Besides filling in the important organizing around mutual aid and dual power that I believed this chapter should be doing, I wanted […]

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This contribution was originally published by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), and has been republished with permission. It does not represent the official position of Working Mass.

Statement of the UE General Executive Board

Since Donald Trump assumed the Presidency on January 20, he has issued a flurry of executive orders which will both directly cut living standards for working people and make it harder for us to organize and fight to improve our working and living conditions.

Trump was inaugurated surrounded by the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world. They had reason to celebrate — the world’s billionaires saw their wealth grow by $2 trillion last year, three times faster than in 2023. And with a cabinet full of billionaires, the new administration is poised to carry out a program of continuing to enrich themselves while dividing, repressing and bankrupting the working class. Our country is fast moving towards a more blatant and transparent form of oligarchy — rule by the super-rich.

On his first day in office, Trump appointed Republican Marvin Kaplan as chair of the National Labor Relations Board. The following week, he fired NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who had moved NLRB case law in a more pro-worker direction since she was confirmed in July 2021, and then, in a move of questionable constitutionality, fired Democratic NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox.

A Trump-appointed board and general counsel will continue the track record of the first Trump presidency, consistently supporting profits for bosses over rights for workers. We can also expect attacks on our union security clauses, whether through legislation or the courts — such as happened during Trump’s first term, when his first appointment to the Supreme Court proved the deciding vote in the Janus decision, stripping public-sector unions of their right to negotiate union security clauses.

Trump has given a prominent role in his administration to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, a multi-billionaire with a history of vicious anti-unionism and support for far-right and neo-Nazi parties. Musk has been given co-leadership of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), which has tried to sell Congress on $2 trillion in spending cuts. Cuts of this depth are impossible without reductions to the spending required to maintain Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security at current benefit levels.

Regardless of whether Musk is successful in cutting a full $2 trillion, his new department will almost certainly pursue massive cuts to many social safety net programs, including health care, food security, housing, retirement, job-creating climate transition initiatives, and public education. President Trump has already begun ordering freezes on crucial federal aid to state and local governments, and funding for science research and nonprofit agencies that provide services to the American people, leaving thousands of UE members unsure if they will receive their next paycheck — or any paychecks — as of this week.

All of these steps will result in workers being laid off and cuts to the living standards of large numbers of working-class families in the U.S.

Trump’s imperialist foreign policy, with his threats of tariffs and annexations, are also making the world a more dangerous place for all working people, as he raises tensions with not only China but also the European Union, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, and many others.

Most threatening to the ability of workers to stand together and fight for what we need, though, are the efforts of Trump and his billionaire backers to divide the working class through attacks on immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, Black/African Americans, other people of color, and all who disagree with them.

Attacking immigrant workers hurts the entire working class, as employers take advantage of the fear caused by threats of deportation to undermine wages and working conditions, and weaken unions. And removing immigrants’ rights to due process — as the recently-passed “Laken Riley” bill does — threatens the very premise of “innocent until proven guilty.”

Despite the fact that Trump is entering his second term with an even smaller Congressional majority than he had in 2017, there are worrying signs that Democrats — nominally the “opposition party” in our two-party system — will not stand up to his corporate agenda. In January, 46 Democrats in the House joined the Republican majority in passing the Laken Riley bill, and 10 Democrats supported it in the Senate. Some Democrats also seem to be cozying up to the budget-slashing “DOGE” effort.

The fact is that the Republican agenda will not improve the economic situation for working people, and is, in fact, likely to make it worse. It is up to the labor movement, along with other working-class and popular organizations, and any elected political leaders that still stand with working people, to instead unite the working class to oppose the oligarchic agenda of the billionaires and corporations.

The labor movement will need to stick firmly to the basic labor movement principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. We will need to aggressively defend all of our members against attacks on their collective bargaining rights, their wages and working conditions, and their right to participate as full-fledged members of society regardless of their race, religion, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. We will need to clearly lay the blame for the ongoing cost-of-living crisis on corporations and the oligarchs, and both political parties which enable their greed. Labor needs to demand a positive economic program on behalf of the whole working class. And in addition to fighting for justice in our own country, we will need to continue to challenge our government when it pursues unjust foreign policies.

The actions of Trump and his billionaire supporters have already begun to generate popular resistance, and we can expect to see more. The labor movement needs to play a key role in channeling that anger into an effective fightback. And in order to best fight for a better future for working people, we will need to develop a political organization, such as a labor party, that is independent of the Democratic Party.

“UE” is the abbreviation for United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, a democratic national union representing tens of thousands of workers in a wide variety of manufacturing, public sector and private service-sector jobs. UE is an independent union (not affiliated with the AFL-CIO) proud of its democratic structure and progressive policies.

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