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By Chris Brady

Austin, Texas – This past Thursday, AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler and SEIU President April Verret announced the merging of their respective unions at the annual AFL-CIO’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference. 

The merger represents an important development between America’s largest labor federation and one of the largest non-affiliated unions.

SEIU’s two million workers will join AFL-CIO’s almost thirteen million membership ranks, representing a labor re-alignment to emphasize unity. The move comes in the wake of the Trump re-election, which has caught a weakened American left and dwindling union movement on its back foot. 

SEIU is one of the more effective major unions at organizing new workplaces in the private sector, and has backed the budding Starbucks Workers Union through its national affiliate Workers United. SEIU was famously behind the fast food workers’ “Fight for $15” campaign. The AFL-CIO has historically been criticized for complacency, and some are hopeful SEIU can bring a needed militancy to the trade union going forward. But SEIU also has a reputation as one of the most top-down, staff-driven unions, with critics arguing that staff use workers as campaign props to give the appearance of worker-led campaigns, while actually pulling the strings behind the scenes. Regardless, the consolidation of working power before another Trump term is a refreshing development.

In AFL-CIO’s statement, President Schuler is quoted “CEOs and billionaires want nothing more than to see workers divided, but we’re standing here today with greater solidarity than ever to reach the 60 million Americans who say they’d join a union tomorrow if the laws allowed and to unrig our labor laws to guarantee every worker in America the basic right to organize on the job.”

Reunited After 20 Years Apart

The merger marks the reunification of SEIU with the AFL-CIO since the two parted ways in 2005. That year, four big unions – the Teamsters, UFCW, SEIU, and UFW – boycotted the annual convention. Then in September of 2005, these unions as well as the Laborers (LiUNA), the Carpenters, and UNITE HERE disaffiliated to launch Change To Win, a new, rival federation as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. 

With Teamsters President James P Hoffa heading the new federation, the seven departing unions represented some 40 percent of the federations membership. The split was based in part on a clash of personalities, but also on competing visions for renewed organizing between a large number of smaller craft unions and a handful of multi-industry mega-unions. Members pledged to invest some 75 percent of the federations funds into new organizing, instead of spending money on politics. But although the split had similarities with the 1930s formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizing, many consider the split to be more about reducing dues paid to the AFL-CIO and preserving the power of union presidents than an actual genuine effort to reignite the labor movement. 

Change To Win, now known as the Strategic Organizing Center, failed to develop into a true competitor with the AFL-CIO. The federation failed to achieve higher levels of organizing success, with UFCW, UNITE HERE, and the Laborers returning to the AFL-CIO. The Carpenters disaffiliated from Change To Win after conflicts with other coalition members. With SEIU’s return, Teamsters and the Carpenters are now the last major unions from the Change To Win effort to remain disaffiliated, although several other unions not involved in the Change To Win effort are also not part of the AFL-CIO, including the National Education Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

Former SEIU president Andy Stern, who was one of the orchestrators of the Change to Win coalition, posted on X in support of the merger, “An appropriate time to unite SEIU’s strength with other unions. Change to Win was a courageous attempt by seven unions to build something stronger for workers by confronting structural and organizing issues that divide workers. A worthy experiment at a moment in history.”

The Work Begins

The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Conference was peppered with AFL-CIO and SEIU leaders bashing the Republicans as enemies of the working class. A predictable occurrence, given the easy dunk opportunity the crypto-fascist GOP provides, and that both union presidents were “All In” for the Kamala Harris campaign. These comments remind class-conscious labor organizers that there is much work to be done – although unifying our organizations is a positive step – as long as we view working power through a faulty bourgeois partisan political lens, our potential for revolutionary change is negated. 

Although the spectacle of union leadership politics and affiliations is relevant to workers, our task remains regardless of our organizations’ standing. We must organize, in new workplaces, and within our current union bureaucracies. Much like how unions are reacting to anticipated new attacks on labor by consolidating, and we must react to pressure them to become more militant. This demand is essential and transforms any reductive political platitudes.

Nonetheless, today marks a shift for the American labor movement. Bold steps like this were and continue to be badly needed. There are reasons for revolutionary optimism, as airport service worker and SEIU member Payton Abrams said, “…we’re coming together to help build the biggest, baddest labor movement this country has ever seen. This is how we change the rules…With our AFL-CIO siblings beside us, we’ll be unstoppable.”

Chris Brady is a member of Boston DSA.

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SOMERVILLE, MA — Unit B of the Somerville Municipal Employees Union (SMEU) has at last obtained a contract from the City of Somerville after their prior contract expired more than 900 days ago. SMEU’s members voted to ratify the new contract this week. The union includes public workers from city departments like Public Works, Water and Sewer, the Library, the City Clerk, Parking, and Inspectional Services.

The Boston chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and our Somerville Neighborhood Group congratulate our SMEU friends and neighbors on their hard-fought victory. We further hope Mayor Ballantyne will quickly settle with and propose fair contracts to SMEU units A, C, and D. 

Willie Burnley Jr., a Boston DSA member and Somerville City Councilor (At-Large) who has long pushed for expansion of paid family and medical leave for municipal employees, offered his support for the union: “I’m so grateful that SMEU will receive increased wages and be some of the first municipal employees to benefit from expanded paid family and medical leave, after years of advocacy.” 

Boston DSA member and Ward 2 Councilor J.T. Scott added: “Nobody takes care of our city better than the people who live and work here. Strong, local, union jobs are essential to providing better city services, and also reduce costs to the taxpayers by preventing outsourcing to firms outside our community. The workers of SMEU have deserved better for a long time, and it’s my hope that this contract is just the first step in reversing decades of underinvestment in the people and infrastructure of our city.”

SMEU’s contract victory demonstrates that when workers organize, they win. Boston DSA members will continue fighting for working class wins in our own unions and in solidarity with unions in our communities, like SMEU.

Cambridge, MA – Boston DSA congratulates our friends and neighbors in the Cambridge Public Library Staff Association on their hard-fought contract victory. After over a year of struggling for their rights, the CPLSA won a contract that achieved all of their primary goals. 97% of CPLSA members have voted to approve the new contract, which includes a functional wage increase of nearly 5%, new health and safety protections with worker input, democratization of workplace standards, and fairer staffing practices.

Boston DSA was proud to stand with the CPLSA in their struggles for a fair and democratic workplace. DSA members joined CPLSA stand outs, bringing snacks, coffee, and energy to show our library staff their community was behind them. Working Mass, a DSA publication, chronicled CPLSA’s ongoing efforts last fall. We are glad to see city leadership finally show some recognition of what has been clear since this fight began—our library staff, and all workers, deserve fair wages and democratically-determined safe work conditions.

CPLSA’s victory is yet another reminder of the power of an organized and militant working class. By standing unified in their demands and holding regular demonstrations against their employer’s practices, they were able to achieve meaningful wins against an intransigent city government with an unelected City Manager controlling the purse strings. Boston DSA members will continue these struggles in our own unions and stand ready to support our neighbors who, like CPLSA, are ready to demand a better, more democratic workplace.

### To join Boston DSA, visit bdsa.us/join. To participate in our work in Cambridge, visit  bdsa.us/Cambridge.  ###

[[{“value”:”DSA members and other community supporters attend hearing at Worcester City Hall on Dec. 17.

By Ivy Elliot

The Department of Justice Report

WORCESTER – On December 9, 2024, the Department of Justice released a report describing horrific, systemic civil rights violations committed by the Worcester Police Department. The investigation, during which the DOJ reviewed evidence and conducted interviews from prosecutors and victims of police abuse, had been opened in November of 2022. Many in the Worcester area were outraged – but not surprised – to learn that the WPD routinely uses their state-granted power to assault Black and Hispanic communities, resort to excessive force on a regular basis, and sexually abuse sex workers in the city.

On December 17, members of the community attended a meeting at Worcester City Hall to demand reforms and assistance that would alleviate the hardships experienced by unhoused and sexually exploited women in Worcester. These demands include public apologies for the crimes committed by WPD officers, allocation of funds towards a women’s shelter and harm reduction programs, and, from some, calls for the criminalization of sex buyers and pimps “while decriminalizing and rehabilitating abused women.”

Sex work is fully criminalized in Massachusetts and many other states across the U.S. Police all over the country will often perform undercover operations in an attempt to find and arrest those participating in the buying or selling of sex. It’s no secret that the officers frequently and systematically abuse their positions of power to engage in sexual contact with sex workers, and often assault them in the process. Many officers routinely offer not to arrest them in exchange for sexual favors.1 The DOJ report found the same problems exist in the WPD, which has led to this new push for the criminalization of sex buyers.

While the DOJ report condemns the sex abuse, it also specifically notes that police officers are allowed to enforce the law in regards to the buying and selling of sex. The report does not admit that it is the act of officers “enforcing the law” on sex work which leads to the systemic abuse of sex workers. Many women involved in sex work are the most vulnerable people in the community: people who are unhoused, disabled, racialized, queer, undocumented, and who use drugs; those who may have no other option for work than to sell sex. Even if the officers involved in these undercover operations were not violating the law themselves, their job is, in itself, the targeting and arresting of anyone found to be engaged in sex work, which only serves to put sex workers under further hardship. It’s worth noting that the report includes the fact that “the Worcester County District Attorney’s Office has not prosecuted those arrested for selling sex since 2018, instead referring arrestees to a diversion program for survivors of sexual exploitation.” This treatment falls short of decriminalizing the sale of sex – which would mean the police are not technically allowed to arrest sex workers themselves – but these are the conditions under which the DOJ’s reported abuses have occurred. The County DA already operates under something akin to a model of partial decriminalization, and the results of this DOJ report suggest that it hasn’t curtailed the abuses of the WPD.
The suggested remediations at the end of the DOJ report offer little in regards to the safety of the Worcester community from the police. Their suggestions of increased supervision, training, and use of body cameras are little more than a band-aid which can easily be torn off when convenient, and do nothing to prevent the continued abuse of marginalized people at the hands of the WPD. As the community focuses on the abuse of sex workers in light of the DOJ report, we should examine what can be done to improve their conditions.

The Nordic Model

The Nordic model, which decriminalizes the seller but criminalizes the buyer of sex, has been proposed by some who see this as a way to eventually end sex work without further harming those who sell sex. In their view, this would only harm men who exploit women’s bodies, causing the market to eventually dry up. However, there is ample evidence from countries which follow this model that it is not an effective method to remove women from the sex industry or make the conditions of their work safer. Maine became the first U.S. state to adopt the model just last year, and we will likely see similar failures arise there. In reality, sex workers need to sell sex more than clients need to buy it, which puts workers at a disadvantage when their clients are criminalized. The dynamics of partial decriminalization does not increase the leverage sellers have over the exchange, especially when such “leverage” is inherently created by a systemically violent, sexually abusive, discriminatory police force continuing to track and harass the sellers themselves.

Many sex workers are in a position in which they cannot find another means of income. By criminalizing the buyer, the demand for sex work is lower, meaning sex workers are less likely to find clients, and are paid less by clients for their labor. Any law which makes workers poorer reduces their power as workers. When they make less money, they become more desperate, less likely to set boundaries with their clients, and more likely to take on riskier clients that they otherwise wouldn’t take.

Criminalization of the buyer forces sex workers to cater to their clients’ needs for safety. Clients will refuse to provide identifying information which workers could use to confirm if others have had violent experiences with them in the past. This opens more opportunities for clients to rob or assault sex workers without being traced. 

Sex workers can also still be followed by police who are looking to arrest their clients. When police are present, sex workers – especially those of marginalized backgrounds – are still at risk of discrimination, and subject to arrest for things unrelated to their work, such as immigration status or drug use. It was also found in the DOJ report that the WPD systemically targets Black and Hispanic people more frequently, and even performs arrests without probable cause. Since partial decriminalization does not reduce sex workers’ chances of police interaction, it continues to place sex workers – and especially racialized ones – in a position to be abused by the police.

The Nordic model also fails to address other ways that the police can use the law to unfairly punish sex workers. When buyers and managers are criminalized, sex workers themselves can be lumped into these categories. In Ireland, which implemented the Nordic model in 2017, sex workers sharing an apartment together can be penalized for brothel-keeping. In another damning report published by Amnesty International, Swedish police developed a strategy called “Operation Homeless”, in which they called the landlords of properties that housed known sex workers, informing them that they can either evict those tenants or face the legal consequences of “promoting prostitution.” The landlords, of course, overwhelmingly chose eviction.

Full Decriminalization

Another solution, full decriminalization, offers the ability for sex workers to continue to sell sex without the same level of fear from police nor from their clients and managers. While it does not completely erase the potential for police violence – or violence as a part of working conditions generally – it does prevent the police from involving themselves in sex workers’ lives as part of sting operations to arrest them (or their clients) for their work. When sex work is decriminalized, sex workers are given the same labor rights as other workers. The nature of work under capitalism remains exploitative, but increasing the rights of workers is better than decreasing them. They have a better ability to screen clients, set explicit boundaries, and openly organize. 

Other models generally fail to regard sex workers as workers. The discrimination and abuse faced by the most marginalized of sex workers under these systems reduces their power to defend their rights. When clients are scarce and demand is low, as perpetuated by the Nordic model, sex workers have less power to make demands of their clients. When the sex industry is regulated by laws which determine who is allowed to sell sex, business owners have greater power with which to control the industry and exploit hired sex workers. And when sex work is fully criminalized, sex workers are pushed into an underclass in which society barely sees them as human and paths out of poverty become more difficult.

The New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) began organizing in the late 1980s to address the discrimination faced by sex workers and advocate for their rights in the country. Over the next decade, the NZPC lobbied for a reform act to decriminalize prostitution. The Prostitution Reform Act eventually passed in 2003 because of the organization and hard work of these sex workers. The collective now works to defend this law from being overturned, and provides resources to sex workers to keep them safe from abusive clients and managers, negotiate for fair wages, provide sexual health services, and defend migrant sex workers who are still criminalized in New Zealand.

Socialists and labor activists need to stand in solidarity with sex workers, fight for  decriminalization, and support them in organizing for their needs in a system which continuously disregards their humanity.

Full decriminalization does not intrinsically solve the issues of capitalism which force people into sex work. This is true of any work under capitalism, in which workers are forced into jobs which exploit their labor. Decriminalization, however, raises sex workers up to the same level as other workers in society and allows them to participate in class struggle on better terms. We should also not neglect the fact that many sex workers are in the industry because they cannot find other work. Sex workers, collectively, are the ones who are most impacted by their conditions, and have a strong understanding of their own needs; they can better advocate and fight for themselves when sex work is fully decriminalized. Many advocates of carceral solutions will say that criminalization is only effective when paired with reforms and services which help people out of the sex industry, but this leaves out an analysis of exploitation inherent to all types of work – reforms cannot address the myriad of underlying, structural issues which may lead people into sex work. 

The existence of programs that offer free shelter, universal basic income, drug rehabilitation, and helping migrants gain legal citizenship are all helpful in leading people away from selling sex if that is the outcome they want or need, but many of these programs come with their own flaws which cannot address every person harmed by the system. We cannot reform our way out of capitalism, and therefore we cannot rely on these programs to entirely eliminate sex workers’ need to sell sex. When these programs are coupled with any form of criminalization, there will always be people inevitably excluded from benefiting from them. Therefore, full decriminalization is the only way to give power to the workers.

Socialists and labor activists need to stand in solidarity with sex workers, fight for  decriminalization, and support them in organizing for their needs in a system which continuously disregards their humanity. Only through the end of capitalism can we fully end the exploitation of all workers and enter into a world in which no one is forced to perform labor which degrades and abuses them. Economic freedom and the freedom to choose our work is the only true solution to all symptoms of capitalist exploitation.

Ivy Elliot is a member of the Worcester DSA Steering Committee.
Photo Credit: Rory Cronin, member of Worcester DSA.

Works Cited:

Smith, Molly, and Mac, Juno. Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights. Verso, 2020.

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