Veteran labor organizer Fernando Gapasin is interviewed by Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Bill Gallegos. "I dedicated myself to ending racism and building worker power by building democratic working-class organizations from the bottom up."
Worker centers in general serve as a clearinghouse for workers’ needs when forming a union is all but impossible. Even in anti-union terrains, the centers have found ways to change public and corporate policies.
Lots of attention has been on the Amazon unionization campaign in Alabama. But other workers are organizing in the South too: to form unions, win contracts, defend gains and enforce labor laws. Here is a small sample.
Drives to organize steelworkers and autoworkers took decades but ultimately succeeded.
A victory at Bessemer would be great. But even without that workers at Amazon, Walmart, and Microsoft will continue to organize. Why? Because management can never represent the interests of the workforce.
South of Birmingham, warehouse employees are voting on whether to form a union. Their decision could have ripple effects around the country. A seven-week balloting period began last month and will end on March 29th.
The South is more than its shading on an Electoral College map; the entire region is home to a rich history of resistance against the twin forces of race hierarchy and class exploitation. The Amazon workers union campaign is part of that history.
For today’s feminists, labor militants, and socialists, the vision of feminist labor organizing that guided the women’s white-collar organizing project 9to5 should still be our north star.
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Enthusiasm for strikes, walkouts, sick-outs, and pickets has surged. A new, progressive wing of the Democratic Party, represented by young women of color like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar—has won the enthusiasm of millions of young people.
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