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Labor Rising
January 31, 2025 • The Socialist
How a Project by the Labor Working Group Can Help Revitalize SPUSA
One of the enduring legacies Eugene V. Debs left for those committed to building a revolutionary socialist party in the U.S. remains the development of a radical political and social view that went hand-in-hand with a mass movement of organized working people. In a sense, Debs helped define socialism in America as a simple one: a society built of, for, and by workers. No vanguard was needed, nor a cadre to seed itself among the lower workers. Working people had only to rely on what they felt and experienced for the raw material of revolution.
As Debs famously stated: “I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves."
The landscape of labor today, organized or not, is clearly wildly different from what Debs and others confronted at the turn of the 20th Century. In particular, the unleashing of capitalism across the globe and the (deeply connected) rise of advanced technology has created an American workforce that relies far less on industrial wage labor to survive than it does on engaging in some form of service of or to the capitalist class’s interests.
Yet this doesn’t obviate the fundamental lessons Debs and other early socialists sought to instill going forward. Without a mass movement of radicalized working people the prospects of a socialist future are dim.
These and other connected issues served as motivations for the creation of SPUSA’s Labor Rising project a year and a half ago. Born out of conversations among the Labor Working Group ahead of a potential summer of labor agitation in 2023, Labor Rising sought to create a nexus of labor organizing and activity around which SPUSA members could engage, while providing a forum for thinking about how we as Debs’ heirs do our part in building that workers’ movement today. An understanding of the fundamental purpose for a project as Labor Rising requires considering similarly core questions about what it is that the Socialist Party USA is seeking to do–an articulation of a question that seems to be, if not pressing, certainly pressed upon SPUSA membership over the past year or so.
In the spring of 2023, the prospect of major labor actions taking place across the United States seemed as plausible as they had in a generation. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Auto Workers were both looking at contracts with their major national employers ending that summer. The Teamsters, with new leadership backed by the long-time reform caucus Teamsters for a Democratic Union, seemed eager to take on UPS when their contract expired on August 1. With some 325,000 represented employees, a strike of UPS workers would have been one of the largest private sector union actions in U.S. history.
UAW was likewise facing a new contract in mid-August with the Big Three automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler’s legacy owner, Stellantis. The auto workers union was also gearing up for the fight with new leadership, with threats to grind American auto making to a halt if demands were not met.
From within the Labor Working Group, these and other labor fights appeared to present an opportunity–one already being taken advantage of by politically adjacent organizations. If mass labor actions were taking place it seemed imperative that SPUSA find a way to connect with them and provide support. The chance to engage with workers in class struggle wasn’t an opportunity to be missed. At the most basic level finding a way to express solidarity and provide Party membership with information and ways to support felt, at least among the Labor Working Group, like a responsibility.
There was also an awareness that, given the nature of business unionism and the hostility that the Biden administration had already shown towards workers in key industries like the railroads, there was as good a chance that the energy unleashed by major labor actions would quickly see itself forced into chokepoints and kill boxes by the Democrats, their political proxies in groups, such as Democratic Socialists of America, and their allies in the nonprofit-industrial complex, not to mention the open, even violent, hostility that could be expected from the Republican Party and the capitalist class itself. Providing some kind of space to be guardedly supportive of what the union leadership was telling members and the public, while being on the lookout for both signs of the kind of death-knell compromise we’ve come to expect from business union leadership, as well as the formation of resistance to those leaders and that compromise, seemed critical.
How this was going to be operationalized remained an open question. At that point there were few, if any, past models of ways SPUSA had played the kind of role being discussed among the Labor Working Group. The best models to be found were among the very groups that gave pause over worries about their motivations in giving support to the labor actions given the goals that were initially identified.
First, whatever was undertaken needed to be expansive to address and, ideally, connect the Labor Working Group, and, therefore, SPUSA more broadly, to labor issues, organizations, and individuals key to the moment, but also who may not have had a major amount of contact with the Party previously. This also meant the efforts needed to be outward facing; this was to be a show of external solidarity with workers and labor issues.
Second, this effort would work as a bridge between the Parties, whether through proper organized locals or the many at-large members, and the actions or groups the effort would look to support. From the onset, a top priority was ensuring what was developed could generate activity within the Party itself, in a way that allowed the Party to show it was matching word and deed in its active support of labor and broader working-class issues. To do so, it would need actual Party members present, whether on a picket line or for a webinar.
Lastly, what was done had to ensure there was always a focus on growing the Party. This meant specifically looking to bring more individuals in, but also to expand the internal expertise so as to ensure the reproducibility of similar activities and actions in the future, as well as magnifying the Party’s presence in and around labor, one of its core principles. In the end any and all efforts needed to have a sum-positive outcome, measured along a few vectors.
It was also clear from the beginning that the scarcity of Party resources would mean not only that everything would be built from scratch, but it would have to be done in ways that maximized potential impact and visibility despite these realities. This led the working group to create a hybrid of two kinds of organizing models. The first was the labor solidarity efforts that were, at that point, already underway by groups, such as DSA’s “Strike Ready” campaign, which specifically looked to get activists out in support of Teamsters ahead of and potentially during a UPS strike, as well as the Socialist Alternatives offshoot Workers Strike Back project. The other was to build a hub which could operate as both a primary organizing nexus for in-person actions, as well as an information dissemination and promotion campaign to help broadcast as widely as possible what was being prioritized.
At this time, Labor Rising was born. Quickly two things became apparent. The first was the summer of labor rage was looking to be a whimper. All signs from the Teamsters leadership were the stomping and yelling were going to amount to so much bluster. A deal was cut behind closed doors between union leadership and UPS management. Members were told this was the best deal they were going to get, even as the UPS CEO hailed it as a “win-win” situation. As the union’s leadership circled the wagons and called upon their enablers, such as Teamsters, for a democratic union to help stifle dissent and push for adoption, Labor Rising sought to play one of the roles it still could under the circumstances.
Labor Working Group members were deeply suspicious of the UPS deal from the start. When a small group appeared to challenge the union leadership’s propaganda campaign and encouraged a “no” vote, Labor Rising–through the website and social media presence–shined a light on questions being raised and issues seemingly going unaddressed by Teamsters bosses. That group, Teamsters Mobilize, has continued to develop as a radical labor force within the Teamsters. The Labor Working Group continues to organize with them as an example of the kinds of radical rank-and-file organizing needed, particularly within large business unions.
The other issue confronted by Labor Rising was the condition of the Socialist Party USA itself. As a practical matter, Labor Rising found itself operating with only a small portion of the overall Labor Working Group membership. This placed much responsibility on a handful of people and ensured limits to what could conceivably be done. Outreach to locals and at-large members failed to motivate any large or meaningful engagement as Labor Rising sought to ramp up localized visibility efforts ahead of possible strikes, outside of the few pockets of local activity that generate the overwhelming volume of the Party’s public doings. Ultimately, Labor Rising operated as a passion project for a few Labor Working Group members who saw the need and the benefits of continuing to highlight ongoing labor issues to keep up some public appearance of support from the Party.
These issues continue to persist–not just with Labor Rising but across the Party as a whole. Yet the experience and efforts of the Labor Rising project has managed to chalk up some modest success. As noted, the continued work with Teamsters Mobilize has provided opportunities to not only work with them on concrete labor issues, but having a real-world case study has been a boon of inspiration and output for Labor Working Group members committed to articulating the kinds of radical changes to be sought within labor unionism. This articulation has come largely in the form of online writings that appear on the Labor Rising website, which provides a platform for Party members to put out ideas and critiques critical in the arena of ideas–an area too often neglected by the Party, in general.
Efforts by the Labor Working Group through Labor Rising also saw a number of new individual contacts identified for future collaboration as well as Party membership. Connections with labor organizations such as Rail Workers United also helped spur internal activity that will hopefully lead to another opportunity to grow the Party through a principled campaign around public ownership of the nation’s railways. And the Party has built a solid following online, particularly through the Labor Rising Instagram account, which has over 650 followers and continues to add to that total weekly, in no small part related to consistent content posting and engagement.
It remains to be seen if one of the other key goals of Labor Rising–to create a model for organizing and member activation that could be reproduced in other areas–will happen. Within this lies a broader, deeper set of concerns that have been expressed by more than a few Party members, though, perhaps, not shared by enough. Party enrollment, and, along with it, available resources, continue to remain low.
Despite an oft-mentioned rise in the public’s interest in socialism, the Socialist Party USA has not seen an influx of new, interested members.
The issue has been presented to us: what is to be done? The Labor Rising experiment has provided insights and an opportunity to answer that question, but only if those who currently make up the Party are willing to take on the responsibility and commitment of realizing it. This solution won’t be found by re-litigating the Party’s stance on oppressive authoritarian regimes that happen to include the word “socialist” in their description. It isn’t built on a philosophical realignment away from a definition of socialism that values the things we share rather than the differences that divide, and toward dangerously resurgent interest in so-called socialist ideologies that should remain dead and buried, as they were in 1953.
This set of solutions is built on the foundations laid by Debs and others over a hundred years ago. They place an unwavering primacy in helping to build a revolutionary mass movement of radicalized working people. They build real democratic processes and ethics into everything. They stand firm in the knowledge that capitulation to the capitalist-controlled two-party system is how change gets killed off, but remain flexible enough to find and work towards the goals we share with others. Most critically, they offer something–they are not inert, but mobile; not passive, but active; not stale, but fresh.
Labor Rising was far from perfect in all of these areas, but what it did show was potential. Allied groups were supported and new allies were found. Some members did become engaged and new members were recruited. Important intellectual issues were raised and they did get shared with the broader world. In this sense, Labor Rising was a success, however limited. Future success, inspired by Labor Rising or developing through a new and exciting dynamic, depends entirely on whether Party members are ready and willing to develop these kinds of programs, to bring a public agenda and purpose for the Socialist Party USA that displays our unique, principled positions. The choice is before us. Whether we, collectively, choose to take it remains to be seen.