Last year witnessed a resurgence in the power of the strike for the US labor movement. In 2023, there were a total 393 strikes in the U.S. involving more than 500,000 workers—an increase of 141% from 2022, according to Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. These statistics are being reported and echoed across all corporate media. Even the capitalist rag, the Wall Street Journal, stated in an article dated December 4th, 2023 that, ” …2023 was a remarkable year for the U.S. labor movement.” In other words, the US labor movement captured the ruling class’s attention, and how could it not?
The biggest strike of the year was the shut down of Hollywood over the summer with 160,000 actors in SAG-AFTRA who walked out in July, followed by the 11,000 Screenwriters (WGA) who joined the strike.
In October, a coalition of labor unions involving 75,000 workers, including SEIU, struck the healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente across four states, mostly in California.
Following the massive West Coast healthcare care strike was the work stoppage of education support staff in Service Employees Local 99 located in Los Angeles, CA with teachers soon joining in solidarity—totaling 65,000 workers between the two unions striking together. Soon after, educators would also strike in Portland, OR for 3 weeks. And in addition to the schools, the actors and writers, and healthcare workers, 15,000 workers of UNITE-HERE also went out on rolling short strikes (inspired by the UAW) at 62 hotels across Los Angeles.
Indeed, arguably the most inspirational strike story of the year was the “Big 3” Automakers
(General Motors, Ford, & Stellantis) “Stand Up Strike” led by the United Auto Workers union (UAW). 50,000 auto workers struck using strategically expanding and escalating work stoppages at different locations (“rolling strikes”) that caught the companies off guard. The owners never knew which of the plants would walk out next. The strikes began in September with one big plant of each of the Big 3: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). Then, a week later, the UAW called out the GM and Stellantis profitable parts distribution centers. That grabbed the companies’ attention. Eventually, the auto workers would win significant gains in their labor union contracts and inspiring hundreds of workers at non-union auto plants immediately contacting the UAW to organize. At one Volkswagen plant located in Chattanooga, TN, workers signed 1,000 union cards within a week.
And while the 340,000 UPS workers represented by the Teamsters did not strike, they were able to secure their largest contract gains ever by the mere threat of a strike that sent nervous shockwaves throughout UPS management across the country while at the same time capturing much of the media and public’s attention. Similar to the strike threat by the Railroad workers, which was immediately stopped through government intervention under the Biden administration (the selfdescribed “most pro-union president”), a work stoppage of UPS workers would’ve had a significant devastating impact on the US economy, with some estimates claiming a 10-day UPS strike would’ve resulted in over $7 billion in losses, according to “Business Insider.”
The common denominator in all of these militant strategies is they were built and led by internal rank ‘n file reform caucuses with a much more class struggle, not class snuggle, approach—many of which were decades in the making under the influence of radical union workers harboring anticapitalist, socialist, and anarchist mindsets. For example, the Teamsters rank ‘n file reform caucus, Teamsters For A Democratic Union (T DU), has its roots dating back to the 1970’s only to truly see the fruits of their organizing efforts blossom recently with their major UPS strike campaign and contract victory.
Witnessing such significant work stoppages and shop floor actions was a breath of fresh air that reinvigorated life into a labor movement that has been surviving on life support for decades.
Indeed, new reform caucuses are already emerging within the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE). With new radical rank ‘n file reform organizing efforts underway, it’ll be interesting to see how the labor movement responds to the call of a general strike scheduled for May Day 2028.
At the end of October 2023, while announcing strike settlements at the Big 3 auto companies, UAW reform-elected president, Shawn Fain, stated the UAW contracts all expire the day before May Day 2028. He urged other unions to align their contracts with the UAW. “If we’re truly going to take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the many and not the few, then it’s important that we not only strike, but that we strike together,” he said. While such rhetoric is common in many unions and labor movements across the world, it has virtually been nonexistent in the US labor movement for probably over a century. Not only is the president of a major labor union in the United States recognizing the importance of May Day, he also made the call for a national general strike—an action that has, at least to my knowledge, not been called for by any major AFL-CIO union since probably the first May Day in 1886 when the Federation of Trade and Labor Unions (the predecessor of today’s AFL-CIO) called for a national general strike for an 8-hour work day. It’s very possible these words are merely empty rhetoric designed to just scare the ruling class without actual substance. I am doubtful the national AFL-CIO will be telling union members to violate their existing labor agreements and strike on May Day 2028. But as anarchists, or those who are anarchist-curious, we know we don’t need to rely on labor “leaders” or politicians or any other authority to tell us what to do—we can do it ourselves.
Indeed, anarchists and radical leftists have taken to the streets and celebrated May Day in America with or without any major union endorsement or acknowledgment. However, since the call has been made, how should we as anarchists/syndicalists respond? It’s easy to sit back and criticize the union reform efforts as not being “anarcho-syndicalist” enough, that organizing for a general strike is too herculean of a task to accomplish, that the “left” is too divided to achieve anything that significant, that the reactionary forces would overwhelm us, etc. Those all may be true or may not be true at all. What I do know is this—we are living through a major shift in the global socio-economic sphere with serious threats against all organized life on the planet with the escalating climate change disasters, the growing threats of nuclear war between powerful states, the increasing genocide occurring in Palestine, the rise of fascist and authoritarian movements across the world—the odds certainly are stacked against us. But there is one thing concentrated power can never take away from us—and that’s hope. It’s the hope of a new world we carry here, in our hearts. It grows each time workers and the oppressed resist and fight back.
Building reform movements within our existing unions is certainly not the end goal, but it’s a step forward towards building revolutionary movements and organizations. It’s not enough to just fight and dismantle capitalism and the state—we must build the alternative institutions and the necessary social relationships to replace our existing destructive ones, including within our own unions. The fact that a call for a general strike on May Day has been made by a major union reform-elected president proves our ideas are alive and growing, so let’s answer the call—let’s agitate, educate, organize, fight, and keep moving for we have nothing to lose but our chains. I am often reminded of the wise words of the famous Italian anarchist, Errico Malatesta: “Anarchism cannot come but little by little — slowly, but surely, growing in intensity and extension. Therefore, the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow, and always.”