2025-7-8 Political Education Theory Session #7: Labor Unions

23 Jun, 2025

This session of our Theory Series will introduce attendees to the labor movement and labor unions in particular. We will discuss the central role unions play in securing better conditions, protections, and rights for workers; developing class consciousness; and leveraging collective power necessary to halt capitalism in its tracks. We will discuss the historically entwined relationship between socialists and the labor movement - and the rather successful efforts of the capitalist state to divorce much of organized labor from the Left since the late 1940s, leading to historically low levels of union density today. We will discuss socialists’ historical commitment to the “rank-and-file strategy,” meant to build bottom-up militant power in workplaces that can challenge the ineffective, management-friendly orientation of “business unionism.” We will discuss the involvement of socialists and other labor militants–the tactics they used and challenges they faced–in high-profile, successful unionization drives at Amazon, Starbucks, and most recently in Philly, Whole Foods. Finally, we will assess the American labor movement’s fortunes in 2025, off the heels of resurgence: with the highest public enthusiasm for unions in decades, but facing down a viciously anti-worker Trump administration.

Core Readings:

• Kim Kelly - "What a Labor Union Is and How It Works"
• Barry Eidlin - “What Is the Rank-and-File Strategy, and Why Does it Matter?”
• Eric Blanc - “Worker-to-Worker Unionism: A Model for Labor to Scale Up”

Further Reading:

• Edward Dupree (interview) - “How Philly Whole Foods Workers Beat Jeff Bezos”
• “Food Fight: The First Whole Foods Union” - produced by Philly DSA (12 min video)
• Jacqui Germain - “Is It Time for Unions to Rethink Everything?”
• Josh Eidelson - “The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins”

When

July 8th, 2025 at 7:00pm - 9pm

Where

Zoom

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