Listen on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Online

*

In the last few years, class struggle has been on the rise in the United States. In 2023, the United Auto Workers (UAW) went on strike against the Big Three automakers. Workers at companies like Amazon and Starbucks are organizing unions for the first time in the companies’ history, and just months ago, workers went on strike at Boeing.

In addition to showing an overall increase in militancy, these struggles are also showing that unions are increasingly willing to take on political issues. Last year, several unions released statements against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including the UAW, AFT, AFL-CIO, and PSC-CUNY. At the University of California, workers went on strike to protest the repression of campus protesters. Starbucks workers have repeatedly taken a strong stance against attacks on trans rights and reproductive rights.

These important developments in the labor movement put the working class front and center in U.S. politics. In fact, 2024 election was, in many ways, a battle for the working class.

During the election, Democrats and Republicans alike adopted some pro-worker rhetoric and at least paid lip service to supporting labor and unions. Most emblematically, Joe Biden became the first sitting president to walk a picket line. And Teamsters president Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention. 

However, although the rising labor movement forced Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump to make some overtures to workers, we must be clear: Neither Democrats nor Republicans are pro-worker. Neither party offers anything to the labor movement — and certainly not to the working class as a whole.

For example, Biden crushed the railroad workers’ strike with the help of his fellow Democrats, and made basically zero moves to, for example, pass the Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) act, or increase the minimum wage. Trump, meanwhile, is viciously anti-worker, and is working with some of the biggest strike breakers and enemies of the labor movement, like Elon Musk. The new administration has wasted no time in waging a war on workers.

On today’s episode, we interview Left Voice editor and PSC-CUNY rank-and-file member James Dennis Hoff and Jason Koslowski, college professor and union organizer in Philadelphia about the terrain of class struggle under the new Trump presidency.

We discuss the need for unions to break from their failing approach of “business-as-usual,” and from being constrained by laws that are meant to limit our power as the working class. And we can’t just wait for better laws or for the next election in four years — we need to be ready to break laws and disobey our union leaders when we need to. We have to build power from the bottom up, organizing in our workplaces, in rank-and-file committees, and in assemblies. This is how we fight for the labor movement and build working-class power right now.

Listen to the episode on Spotify on Apple Podcasts.

Support this podcast on Patreon