Strikes by 10,000 hotel workers and 17,000 AT&T workers are being fought over issues of vital interest to all working people. Members of UNITE HERE are fighting for needed hiring as hotel bosses’ press them to get more work done in fewer hours; for higher wages; for more control over working conditions and safety; and for improved health and retirement benefits. Communications Workers of America members are demanding better wages and combating AT&T’s push to raise the cost of their health insurance.
These struggles show a way forward to workers everywhere who face the crushing impact of higher and higher prices, especially on essentials like food, child care and housing; and the bosses’ drive for hours and schedules that destroy family life.
Workers’ determination to fight is on the rise. Contract deadlines are imminent for 32,000 International Association of Machinists members at Boeing, Sept. 12; for 45,000 International Longshoremen’s Association members across the East and Gulf coasts, Sept. 30; and for 200,000 members of the American Postal Workers Union, Sept. 20.
And many workers, like the ILA members, thousands of flight attendants and some 10,000 rail workers in Canada, also face strikebreaking action in support of the bosses by the capitalist government.
Every union victory won today advances the field for all workers and can reinforce our capacities as a class to stand up to the bosses and their relentless drive to take more in profits out of our labor.
Each of these union struggles can be won. But to score victories, solidarity from the labor movement and fellow workers is crucial. Every strike is a broader struggle — class against class. And every labor battle is a political fight as well.
Every act of support to the strikers makes a difference. Join efforts to get out the word about the just fight of the UNITE HERE and CWA members. Visit their picket lines and win contributions to their strike funds. Ensure that workers on the front lines of working-class struggle can stand strong, with the labor movement at their backs. Solidarity brings workers together and helps us see our class’s inherent power.
All too often, the priority for many top labor officials is to use union resources to promote getting Kamala Harris installed in the White House. This course is an obstacle, not a help to workers.
We need to rely on ourselves and the power of our unions, not on one of the two main political parties that serve the capitalist class. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans are working-class parties. We need our own party, a party of labor.
Join today’s union fights! Build solidarity with them and with the struggles of working people worldwide.