Labor’s Strategy Must Lean Into Synergies
Some in the labor movement make the case for a labor-left economic populism within the Democratic Party that can defeat “MAGA neo-fascists,” as Leo Casey does in Charting Labor’s Path in Hard Times: A Call for Grounded Strategy (itself a response to Alex Caputo-Pearl’s How Labor Can Fight Trump’s Authoritarianism). While we agree on the desired outcome, we argue that the times require extraordinary initiative and vision. Trump and his billionaire allies are advancing a reign of terror on unions, immigrants, Black people, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the multiracial working class—which is likely to get worse now that Congress has passed the big ugly bill. The ferocity and scale of onrushing authoritarianism demand that we think beyond binaries. We can’t counterpose electoral and strike action: we need to do both and understand the synergies. We need to both work within the Democratic Party to push the Dems leftward, and build independent political organizations that work inside and outside the Democratic structure and help us build our base. Ultimately we know that we can’t decisively defeat MAGA without effectively challenging the neoliberal model, which comes out of a history of bipartisan support. Whether organized in unions or in communities, we need to fight back now with all our economic, social, and political power.
Strikes and electoral work reinforce each other
The United Auto Workers (UAW), the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) are among the primary unions that have revived the strike over the last 15 years. We all participate effectively in both class struggle organizing and electoral politics. In fact, by certain measures, we participate more effectively than unions that view electoral politics as their primary means to achieve gains. Though it’s not the only reason, it’s part of the reason that Chicago has a Brandon Johnson, who is playing a principled role opposing Trump, while New York has had Eric Adams. We are thrilled about Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory in New York and the painstaking grassroots work that went into it. We are very glad that the New York City Central Labor Council and the United Federation of Teachers have now endorsed Mamdani for the general election.
Johnson’s election in Chicago owes much to the remarkable organizing the CTU has done over the past 15 years, including large militant strikes in 2012 and 2019. Those strikes succeeded because they were based on deep engagement of rank-and-file members, but the union did not see workplace organizing as a substitute for electoral work. Instead, the strikes were essential to the union shifting the opinions of voters, who then demanded city leaders who were pro-public education and pro-labor. CTU has helped to re-shape politics beyond the Mayoralty, winning an elected local School Board, many races, and legislative battles. Similarly, over the last 11 years, UTLA combined super-majority organizing, community coalition-building, militant strikes in 2019 and 2023, and electoral work to shift voter attitudes and turn the tables on privatizers in what was the epicenter of the corporate charter industry: winning majority influence on the school board, the first state charter regulation in decades, and school funding increases.
UTLA used its momentum from the 2019 strike to engage a democratic member process resulting in the endorsement of Bernie Sanders for US President, and to garner local and national endorsements for the Schools and Communities First ballot measure challenging Proposition 13’s historic corporate tax loopholes. More broadly, the remarkable national Red for Ed and educator organizing upsurge since 2010 has involved dozens of strikes and increased militancy among many locals across the country. Many of these unions have built electoral wins at local and state levels and engaged national politics. This has contributed mightily to the significant change in the Democratic Party’s platform on public education.
On a related note, the May 1, 2028 general strike that the UAW has called for is not the 1905 anti-electoral version promoted by the Industrial Workers of the World. Instead, it’s a political and union-building strategy that can work in conjunction with an electoral strategy. UAW President Shawn Fain—in contrast to Teamsters president Sean O’Brien—supported the Harris-Walz ticket despite considerable MAGA support within the UAW’s membership, and shifted sentiment inside their membership away from the white nationalist dog whistles of the Republican Party.
Work inside and outside the Democratic Party
We don’t believe the Democratic Party will be the sole or primary vehicle for liberation, but that doesn’t mean we won’t work to transform it into an organization that more explicitly supports the needs of working families. Nor does it mean we won’t work to elect Democratic candidates, as many of us vigorously attempted to do with Harris-Walz, as we did with Sanders and other local and state candidates. We understand that candidates, elected officials, and electoral coalitions will be part of the broad united front needed to defeat Trump and right-wing authoritarianism. Labor leaders can celebrate or criticize Democratic Party politicians and practices while also working with the Working Families Party and other independent political organizations to plant seeds and build infrastructure for something different.
Devoting capacity to building these independent political organizations doesn’t mean sitting it out and waiting to let Trump consolidate. We’ve seen how it’s possible to deeply involve union members, build labor/community coalitions, and shift the electorate through vehicles like United Working Families in Chicago, Connecticut for All, New Lynn Coalition in Massachusetts, Carolina Federation, and California Calls. Digging into local political organizing campaigns can pressure the Democratic Party to respond to working people rather than corporate donors, building organizations that can be an anti-Trump force, a left anchor within the Democratic base, and the basis for new groupings or a potential new party.
Not only is it possible to do many things at once, but it also makes meeting our goals more likely. Independent political and community organizations are providing disenfranchised and cynical voters a bit of hope that an alternative is possible. Labor must push the Democratic Party through support of independent political organizations that are winning primaries with candidates that reflect our vision and values. We cannot defeat Trump by returning to the bipartisan neoliberal consensus of the past that closed schools, heightened inequality, destroyed manufacturing jobs through free trade policies, led to the lowest union density in nearly 100 years, supported imperialism, and made many Americans sicker and poorer. And it’s unlikely, if not impossible, to return to a New Deal accord given the vicious anti-labor politics of the Republican Party and the austerity politics of the mainstream Democratic Party.
Midterms are just one piece of the puzzle
Lots of people see the 2026 midterms as the solution to the MAGA problem. Some think Democrats should stay quiet in the background and let Trump take full credit for all the disaster he is unleashing. They believe that the midterms will open up another blue wave, returning the House to the Democrats and undermining MAGA support.
But even if Democrats take the House in 2026, that will not solve the MAGA problem. Even if the Democrats win an election or two and deal Trumpism a setback, we will still be in an unstable environment. Plenty of Democrats will still implement austerity, which will provide the basis for further right-wing populist gains.
The damage Trump is causing now is undermining our ability to fight back, and might even make it difficult to have a fair election in 2026. Just look at the deployment of the military in Los Angeles in June to put down defense of immigrant communities, and imagine waiting another set of months for the midterms while Trump further militarizes society, guts the social safety net, and attacks constitutional protections that we have assumed will still be in place. In LA, the direct confrontations between non-violent pro-immigrant protesters and the National Guard/Marines that Trump has mobilized might make mainstream Democratic officials uneasy, but we cannot run as pro-working class while simultaneously abandoning immigrant workers to bands of masked federal goons who are grabbing people in our community off the street.
These are confusing times, and people need help making meaning of what’s happening. If union leaders and Democratic politicians stay quiet, the only voices workers will hear will be those of the bosses and MAGA politicians. When Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries side with Elon Musk, they don’t undermine Trump—they support a corrupt billionaire who has attacked workers and unions, slashed vital government programs, and supported white nationalist organizations.
We must grow a progressive bloc within and outside the Democratic Party that is capable of improving the lives of most Americans. That involves serious electoral organizing that goes far deeper than simply messaging. For example, the UAW endorsed Mamdani in the primary in New York City, and members canvassed vigorously. They aren’t waiting for 2026 or 2028.
Using our power, building mass mobilizations
Labor must lead the way in keeping up an immediate and constant fight. We must more clearly target corporate titans like Musk and Thiel—and their corporations like Palantir, Tesla, and Skylink—and undermine their financial and political power through actions like the #TeslaTakedowns. It’s incumbent for the labor Left to back Black-led civil rights organizations, like the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in their boycott of Target—called for after the retailer eliminated its DEI policies.
We’ve learned—from other countries that have gone down the authoritarian path—that waiting authoritarians out is not a viable strategy. The more authoritarians are able to win, the worse our chances become to oust them. When they succeed in their attacks, they are emboldened and try for more. Their wins can make people cynical and afraid. Fighting MAGA requires building more movement mobilizations, civil disobedience, strike actions and whatever it takes in the midst of increasing government efforts to criminalize social protest.
Leveraging our strike power is a key part of this, as a careful look at the rich tradition of general strikes in the US can show. W.E.B. Du Bois, in Black Reconstruction in America, provides a compelling argument that the Emancipation Proclamation and the North’s victory in the Civil War would not have been possible without the “general strike of the slaves.” This wasn’t all industry and all workers, but it led to one of the great transformations in American history that defeated the slavocracy. Similarly, the sporadic but multi-sector and multi-state strikes of days and weeks in 1886 helped spur the eight-hour work day movement that eventually reduced work hours and won health and safety regulations at workplaces nation-wide. As a nation, those strikes helped us move away from a Robber Baron era dominated by a handful of industrialists and into the Progressive era with monopoly regulation, restrictions on child labor, and more.
The 1934 strike wave ushered in the first formal recognition of union rights at the federal level leading to a high-water mark of unionization, a massive redistribution of wealth to workers, and a turn away from the corporate dominance of the 1920s. We probably would not have moved away from the Great Depression and into a New Deal without these work stoppages forcing the government to support organized labor, expand relief programs and work projects, and implement Social Security. General strikes have been a fundamental part of bending the arc of American history towards justice. More recently, the 2006 immigrant strikes, 2011 Wisconsin teacher strikes in response to Scott Walker’s attacks, and Sara Nelson’s call for a general strike in 2019 in the midst of a government shutdown energized workers and demonstrated worker power.
We should not assume that a 2028 general strike will hurt Democratic candidates. While a poorly planned and executed strike can demoralize workers and alienate the public, there’s ample evidence that strikes can do the opposite. Researchers conducted a large survey in 2018 in six states that experienced teacher strikes and walk-outs and found that strikes can increase public support for educators and inspire other workers to engage in labor action. A successful strike could hurt Democrats—or any politicians—that choose to distance themselves from the strike or from worker rights. But for pro-worker candidates, strikes mobilize the base and expand the electorate.
Moreover, unions have played a critical role in resisting authoritarian governments. That’s because they can mobilize masses of people in support of democracy and anchor united front coalitions. It’s because they have a powerful weapon few other social forces have: the power to strike. In their studies of authoritarianism, scholars Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks highlight the crucial role that targeted and general strikes have and could play in defending democracy. Under authoritarian regimes, the standard tactics (voting, protests, legal action) are much less effective. Movements need to disrupt; general strikes provide one of the clearest examples of how this is done. Just last year, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions called for a general strike, and engaged in sustained rolling strikes to prevent South Korea’s president from instituting martial law.
Building Power Through Multiple Strategies
Good strategy often requires making hard choices between different courses of action. But there are no either/or choices among workplace organizing, direct action, and electoral work: they must go together. Organizing for a 2028 general strike does not require a retreat from political work. Criticizing the Democratic Party and recognizing the party’s limits is not anti-electoralism. Labor must push the party to uphold a worker-centered agenda of economic populism instead of catering to the big money donor class that has hollowed out the Democrats’ appeal to working families—many of whom are struggling with medical and university debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and facing rising grocery bills.
Past general strikes have taken on various forms and involved unionized and non-union workers. They can be a vehicle to bring labor together with other social movements. The need for unions to work with tenant unions, worker centers, community organizations, and racial justice groups, across sectors and geography, is more important now than ever. The maydaystrong.org call to action on Labor Day with AFL-CIO affiliates, immigrant justice, and civil rights organizations, is a key example of this effort.
It is critical we now revive this tradition of labor militancy in the face of growing authoritarianism, and make a clean break from the neoliberal model that has gutted so many worker protections and given room for growing class dealignment away from the Democratic Party and other organizations that could be key to our movement. We cannot double down on the status quo. Now is the time to take big risks, demand what we deserve, and fight with all we’ve got.