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Union Summer 2023: Solidarity Now!

Jul 19, 2023 | PDA News

Stand in Solidarity with Workers as a Tidal Wave of Labor Action, Unprecedented in the 21st Century, Sweeps Across the Country

 

Join PDA’s Labor and Economics Issue Organizing Team!

The prevailing economic order of the past 45 years, neoliberalism, was predicated on breaking unions and weakening the labor movement. The results were predictable: the working class majority of society struggled immensely, while a wealthy minority took all the gains.

The labor movement, however, held on—often adopting the strategy of “surviving to fight another day.” Now, in the summer of 2023, we may have finally reached “another day.”

Tired of ever-longer work days with stagnant wages in undignified workplaces, workers are saying to each other, “Enough is enough, let’s stand together and make demands collectively.”

The Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild are on strike together for the first time in 60 years. Next week, unless an unexpected last-

minute deal is reached, the Teamsters look likely to lead the largest strike in U.S. history against one company, UPS. The United Auto Workers are poised to strike against all of the Big Three (GM, Ford, and Atlantis (formerly  Chrysler) at the end of August.

Meanwhile, Starbucks workers continue to unionize across the land, Amazon workers are organizing, hotel workers are on strike in Los Angeles, and even Waffle House workers in South Carolina have voted to form a union.

This massive labor upsurge is exciting and unprecedented, but it’s also uncertain. The general public currently has an overwhelmingly favorable view of unionized workers; but the bosses of industry remain unfazed. All evidence suggests their intent is to crush organized labor in every one of these efforts.

Here’s where PDA can, and must, play a significant role. PDA is an independent civil society organization. Our activists are predominantly poor, working- and middle-class Americans—who, like the majority of Americans today, are not union members. But we unwaveringly support the labor movement and all of the current wave of labor actions. As such, PDA must become a vanguard solidarity organization, loudly proclaiming our support for organized labor, and calling for all U.S. residents to stand with unionized workers. Our goal must be to elevate the practice of supporting the union movement to the same level as the other defining positions of the progressive movement.

Want to join PDA’s campaign to support and elevate the re-energized U.S. Labor Movement? Join PDA’s Labor and Economics Issue Organizing Team today.

In solidarity,

Alan Minsky for the PDA National Team

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