Unions are popular. Strikes, collective actions and worker organizing are on an upswing as workers are learning through their own experiences that organizing works. The pandemic, which hit women workers hard, also proved the value of the union, of collective workers’ organizations, as unionized workers retained more benefits, safer working conditions, stability and higher salaries than non-unionized workers in this period. Concentrated ruling class attacks have whittled down union representation to only a fraction of workers in the United States. But unions continue to be powerful organizations because of their position in the ongoing class struggle and their fundamental class character. At the moment, the possibilities for expanding worker power vis-a-vis the unions, and the labor movement, seem great. Moreover, the anticommunism used by the ruling class historically to undermine the labor movement is largely fading as socialism rises in popularity again. Women are playing a larger role than ever in the leadership of unions. The expanded organizing of women workers has the potential to bring class struggle front and center to the women's movement in ways that have been repressed and elided over the last several decades. What do these developments mean for women workers in the struggle for socialist liberation? How do we utilize our history, a vast history of women’s leadership and initiative in the labor movement, to inform our work in the current context?
This issue includes:
- Women's Triple Load
- Black women's leadership in labor movements
- A Marxist analysis of women in the workforce
- Art, cultural influences in Labor movements and more!
