Category Archives: Wage Slavery

To me, these recent union wins recall another pivotal period in the U.S. labor movement several decades ago. But that one was led by migrants from Central America.

Ive been researching human rights and immigration from Central America since the 1980s. In todays polarized debates over immigration, the substantial contributions that Central American immigrants have made to U.S. society over the past 30 years rarely come up. One contribution in particular is how Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants helped expand the U.S. labor movement in the 1980s, organizing far-reaching workers rights campaigns in immigrant-dominated industries that mainstream unions had thought to be untouchable.

More than 1 million Salvadorans and Guatemalans came to the United States from 1981 to 1990, fleeing army massacres, political persecution, and civil war.

Since the 1980s, I have researched, taught, and written about this wave of migrants. Back then, President Ronald Reagan warned apocryphally that Central America was a threat to the United States, telling Congress in 1983 that El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts.

Just 2% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans who applied received asylum in the 1980sso few that a 1990 class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination compelled the U.S. government to reopen tens of thousands of cases. In recent years, about 10% to 25% of their asylum petitions were granted.

Then, as now, many undocumented immigrants in the U.S. worked in agriculture or service industries, often under exploitative conditions. Unionization barely touched these sectors in the 1980s.

More broadly, the bargaining power of labor unions was suffering under Reagan, whose presidency started with his firing of 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. Downsizing and outsourcing at American companies in the 1980s also eroded union membership and pushed wages down.

Many Guatemalans and Salvadorans were veteran community organizers. They had faced down government terror to participate in unions, peasant leagues, Catholic social justice campaigns, or Indigenous rights initiativesall currents in 1980s revolutionary Central America.

Drawing on these experiences, many Central American immigrants began to organize in their U.S. workplaces, demanding higher wages and safer conditions.

Salvadoran immigrants in California were pivotal in Justice for Janitors, a pioneering low-paid workers movement that inspired todays $15 minimum wage campaign.

Justice for Janitors began in Los Angeles in 1990. It aimed to reverse the wage drops that janitors suffered over the previous decade.

Rather than do battle with the small subcontractors that hired cleaning crews for big office buildings, Justice for Janitors targeted the corporations that owned those buildings. Led by experienced Salvadoran unionistssome of whom had fled death squad violence back homethe movement used nonviolent civil disobedience and strikes to expose exploitative labor practices.

Speaking out could be dangerous. Police once clubbed participants at a peaceful march through Los Angeless Century City neighborhood on June 15, 1990. Undocumented workers feared deportation.

But it worked. Janitors in Los Angeles won a 22% raise after their 1990 citywide strike, showing mainstream labor unions that even the citys most marginalized workersundocumented Central Americans, many of them womenhad real organizing power.

Over the next decade, some 100,000 janitors nationwide joined the campaign under the banner of the Service Employees Industrial Union. The movement negotiated contracts that increased wages and health benefits for janitors across the U.S.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled Guatemala during the early 1980s, escaping a genocidal army campaign against Indigenous communities that left entire regions of its highlands charred and empty.

Roughly 20,000 of these Guatemalan refugees, many of whom spoke Mayan languages, landed in Florida in 1982, finding work in sweltering tomato farms and citrus groves.

Up to 90% of the fresh tomatoes in U.S. supermarkets come from Florida.

Working conditions in the states tomato fields were dismal in the 1980s. Migrants earned just 40 cents per 32-pound bucket of tomatoes picked. Some were forced by armed guards to work against their will, as a 1997 court case about the use of slave labor in Floridas tomato fields exposed.

In 1993, Guatemalan immigrants joined with Floridas Haitian and Mexican farmworkers to form the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a community worker alliance that began in the basement of a local church in Immokalee, Florida. It used strategies common to Latin American protest movements, including street theater and socially conscious radio broadcasts, to unite Floridas agricultural workers.

After five years of work stoppages, hunger strikes, and marches, Floridas tomato pickers won wage increases of up to 25%. A multiyear nationwide boycott of Taco Bell convinced the fast-food chain in 2005 to increase the earnings of the farmworkers who supply its ingredients. Other fast-food giants followed suit.

In 2015, the Immokalee coalition launched the Fair Food Program, an industrywide agreement with Florida tomato growers to promote strict health and safety standards and allow outside monitors to oversee working conditions. That same year, President Barack Obama gave the Coalition of Immokalee Workers the Presidential Award for Extraordinary Efforts in Combating Modern Day Slavery.

As Guatemalan migrants spread across the South during the late 1980s, recruited by labor contractors in other states, they soon became a powerful organizing force in North Carolina, too.

Case Farms, a poultry company that supplies KFC, Taco Bell, Boars Head, and the federal school lunch program, was a notoriously dangerous place to work. Safety regulations were routinely ignored to increase output, and workers suffered serious injuriesincluding losing limbs to cutting machines.

In 1990, the Guatemalan immigrants at Case Farmss plant in Morganton, North Carolina, organized a union drive.

As labor historian Leon Fink describes in his book The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South, Guatemalan poultry workers drew on prior organizing experiences back homeincluding coffee plantation strikes and Mayan pride movementsto organize workers.

After five years of walkouts, marches, and hunger strikes, the Case Farm workers voted in 1995 to join the Laborers International Union of North America. The company refused to negotiate, however, and the union pulled out of contract talks after six years.

In 2017, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio challenged Case Farms to explain its alleged violations of U.S. law, after a New York Times and ProPublica investigation exposed ongoing abusive labor practices there.

These unionization stories show Central American migrants in a new lightnot as criminals or victims, but as people who have helped make the U.S. a safer place for workers.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on January 18, 2019.

See the article here:

How Central American immigrants played a vital role in the U.S. labor - Fast Company

Members of the Communist Party USA and Young Communist League proceed along Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington during the Poor People's Campaign's Moral March, June 18, 2022. | Jose Luis Magana / AP

The call for unity resonates across a wide swath of todays democratic and social movements. Attend any demonstration and youre likely to hear marchers rhythmically shouting in Spanish and English, El pueblo unido jams ser vencido (The people united will never be defeated), a chant born and made famous around the world by Salvador Allendes fight for popular unity in Chile.

In the U.S. today, the country faces a growing fascist menace not unlike what the Chilean people faced during the Pinochet dictatorship. The challenge is to go beyond slogans and find a strategy that will build the unity needed: That strategy is creating, from the ground up, a broad anti-fascist alliance. Fortunately, theres a lot to build on.

Indeed, unity concepts and slogans abound in U.S. history and culture. One of its first expressions came from Abraham Lincoln, who, in an 1858 convention speech on the eve of the Civil War, warned that slavery threatened to tear the nation asunder. A house divided against itself cannot stand, the then GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate famously declared, arguing that the country could not survive, half slave and half free.

An injury to one is an injury to all is another popular slogan that came straight out of the labor movement at the dawn of the last century. The IWWs Big Bill Haywood attributed the saying to David C. Coates, a socialist labor leader and former lieutenant governor of Colorado.

A few decades later, Black and white, unite and fight was the clarion call of communist organizers in the CIO as they led the fight to organize workers in the steel, auto, and electric industries in the 1930s. Today, Black, brown, Asian, and white, unite and fight more accurately reflects the increasingly diverse composition of the U.S. working class.

Fighting for unity, while not always successful, is a veritable way of life for U.S. communists, and many of the Communist Partys strategic concepts revolve around it. Left-center unity, that is, the imperative of developing strong ties between left and moderate forces in the trade union movement, has long been a mainstay of CPUSAs labor policy and remains so today.

An all-peoples unity strategy (which basically means unity of the entire people) was advanced by the leadership team of Gus Hall and Henry Winston in the 1980s, after the Republican National Committee (RNC), at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce and the big banks, shifted far to the right.

In light of the countrys deepening political crisis, this strategy retains all of its potential force. In fact, Trumps threat to run for a second term makes it even more relevant. All-peoples unity is the current application of what the communist movement once called the popular front strategy, that is, the creation of a broad coalition of the American people to oppose the MAGA movement and the threat of a fascist dictatorship.

In its day-to-day work, particularly at the local level, the CPUSA strives to put a working-class stamp on this front by centering its election activity where possible with trade unions, community groups, and other movements who operate independent of official Democratic Party campaigns. Taking initiative on the key issues is vital, including fighting for the passage of abortion rights, the PRO Act, voting rights, climate change, and other legislation.

Of course, its one thing to call for unity and quite another to achieve it. Alliance-building can be halting and, at times, even tortuous. Differing agendas, egos, and experiences can impact the ability to forge viable coalitions. The multi-racial, multi-gendered, and cross-generational diversity of the U.S. working class often requires taking special measures to respond to the challenges faced by different sections of the class.

Building unity between the trade union movement and the young generation (what the CP terms labor/youth unity) illustrates this need. For example, during the auto workers strike in 2019, the industrys two-tier wage systemwhere new young hires are paid substantially less than older workerswas a major sticking point. And while progress was made to reduce the wage differential during negotiations,it was not done away with.

The recentUAW conventionpledged to take up the issue in a major way in future contract talks. One resolution, according to Peoples World, instructed the unions executive board to reject management proposals which seek to divide the membership through tiered wages, benefits, or post-employment income and benefits. Thus, unity between older and younger workers required confronting the companys tactic of dividing by pay scale. In other words, a united front on the picket line meant the union had to address younger workers special demands for equal paya refusal to do so could have meant the defeat of the strike.

Another key issue is fully appreciating the nature and strength of ones class opponents. Speaking to this challenge, Henry Winston, the partys late national chairman, once placed the issue this way when addressing building labor-community coalitions in response to the collapse of the steel industry: Why is such unity necessary? he asked. Because victory in the battle against monopoly is impossible without itthe ruling class in this country is too strong. The working class, the CP chairman argued, cannot win this fight alone.

In a similar vein, African American, Latino, womens, and LGBTQ movements can ill afford go-it-alone approaches. And while Winston stressed that confronting the most powerful ruling class in history required focusing on common demands, he also hastened to place in the foreground special compensatory measures like affirmative action as necessary for binding alliances with those experiencing historic discrimination, a point that some continue to dismiss as concessions to identity politics.

The working class learned the lesson of building unity of action the hard way. Strikes were lost, campaigns for elected office defeated, attempts at social revolution vanquished at almost incalculable costs. Recall that the Paris Commune was drowned in the blood of 35,000 communards after 30 days of wielding power.

Set back after these terrible events, but undaunted, burgeoning movements had to consider things afresh, discard strategies that proved infeasible, tinker with others that showed greater promise, and adopt whole new methods as conditions changed. As the bourgeois democratic revolutions against monarchies gained momentum in the 19th century in countries like Germany, France, and England, narrow approaches had to be rejected. New avenues for struggle had to be sought based on the institutions that emerged as people began to organize themselves according to faith, occupation, and interest.

The notion, for example, that small, highly committed groups could successfully contend for political power was frontally challenged by Frederick Engels: The time is past forrevolutions carried through by small minoritiesat the head of unconscious masses, he wrote in his 1895 introduction to Marxs Civil War in France. Engels continued, When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.

Reformto what end?

The struggle for democracy in combination with the class struggle began to take center stage. Socialist parties now had to take into account building alliances as the franchise became a major factor in the exercise of political power. In several countries, Marxist parties were able to build mass electoral coalitions and win office.

Had new, peaceful paths to power been discovered? At first blush it appeared so, and even Engels, the veteran of many a class battle, seemed quite taken with the social democratic movements late 19th-century electoral successes. Still, the old revolutionary took pains to point out that these victories in no way meant renouncing the goal of revolution. Engels warned: Of course, our comrades abroad have not abandoned the right to revolution. The right to revolution is, in the last analysis, the only real historic right upon which all modern states rest without exception.

Some, however, appeared not to have listened to Marxs old friends advice. Even Marxs sage instruction whencritiquingthe Germany Social Democratic Partys Gotha Program was ignored. Marx had urged comrades to enter into compromises necessary to achieve practical aims but to never make theoretical concessions.

Instead, theoretical concessions were made by those adopting Eduard Bernsteins the movement is everything, the goal, nothing update of Marx. Under Bernsteins advocacy, reforms became the be-all and end-all of everything: Reforms would gradually evolve themselves into socialism. The goal of working-class power was lost.

What went wrong? Varying explanations have been offered: the buying-off a section of the trade union leadership and the emergence of a labor aristocracy, an undue domination of the labor movement by middle-class elements; the offering of a psychological wage to white workers to promote a feeling of racial superiority (an explanation posited by W. E. B. Du Bois inBlack Reconstruction).

Or could the problem lie in another direction, perhaps in the coalition strategy itself? Its a matter of historical record that radical reforms advocated by the socialist parties got watered down as their electoral successes increased. The closer some came to power, the greater was the temptation to concede this or that plank of their program in order to win sections of the vote.

At the turn of the 20th century, echoes of these debates entered the Russian Social Democratic movement, albeit in quite different circumstances. Russia remained largely trapped in feudal-like conditions and was still ruled by a hereditary monarchy. The socialist movement had to find a path to defeat the czar and also design tactics that would address the growing capitalist class in a huge country with an extremely diverse population and a political culture steeped in backwardness. Who could the workers unite with? Whither lay the promised land, and with whom could the oppressed masses get there?

In these circumstances, a fierce argument broke out. All the Marxists agreed the country needed to pass through capitalismat least in some formbut there were sharp differences about what that entailed. A revolution was required to get rid of czarismon this there was consensus. What kind of alliances were needed and which class forces would lead them was another matter entirely. A section of the party favored confining the coalition to the working class and peasants alone. Others supported including capitalists in the mix. The former group were called Mensheviks. They opposed allying with Russias nascent merchants and industrialists for fear of being dissolved in a growing sea of bourgeois democracy.

The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, conversely, favored including the capitalists. The issue in the Bolshevik leaders view wasnt whether to support a cross-class alliancethe challenge was how to do it. In Lenins view, the point was to fight for working-class leadership of this alliance, to place a proletarian stamp on the democratic revolution. Doing so would preserve the working classs independent role and reduce the risk of its objectives being subsumed. How? By fighting for consistent democracy, in other words, by carrying to completion the democratic fight for voting, representative government (a constituent assembly), land reform, the eight-hour day, and a government capable of inflicting a decisive defeat of reaction. In this manner, Lenin argued, the working class would stand the best chance of positioning itself within the emerging capitalist order.

The united front

These arguments are pointedly made in LeninsTwo Tactics, where, in embryonic form, and yet unnamed, what became known as the united front concept is first introduced. They guided Bolshevik domestic policy through 1917.

The united front tactic was formally adopted by the world movement at the 4th Congress of the Communist International in 1922. What is the united front? Simply put, it is a politically diverse coalition of working people who come together to address a specific set of issues. Ideological differences, for the moment, are set aside in pursuit of common goals.

What goals? In the first place, to resolve the bread-and-butter issues confronting the working class at any given point in time. In a 1922 speech, Grigory Zinoviev, one of the leaders of the Comintern, put it this way: We are in such a phase of the struggle of the world proletariat that we should unite in the struggle for the eight-hour day, aid for the unemployed, and in the fight against the offensive of capital.

The adoption of the united front was a major part of Lenins polemic against left-wing communism, the knee-jerk responses of the newly-formed parties that had split from the Second International, many of whom rejected electoral work, shunned compromises, and, heady with the success of the October Revolution, believed themselves to be on the verge of world revolution. Under the influence of strategies like Bla Kuns theory of offensive and Leon Trotskys permanent revolution, failed attempts at state power occurred in Hungary, Germany, and other countries with disastrous results.

Lenin, on the other hand, well understood that, after the initial success of October 1917, the revolutionary moment had passed and with it the chance for a European continent-wide social revolution. A protracted era of class and democratic battles instead were at hand, requiring long and patient preparatory work. In these circumstances, he offered the parties of the Third International a three-fold plan: Adopt the united front strategy and tailor it to fit each country; win over the majority of the working class in the process; and build mass communist parties, all necessary if the socialist revolution would have any real chance for success.

After the Soviet leaders untimely death, however, and in the face of stiff resistance from potential social democratic allies (the main objects of the united front efforts), the Comintern moved sharply in the opposite direction as the movements stubborn affair with leftism returned with a vengeance. Confronted with attacks on communist insurgents by social democratic governments, the parties of the Second International were labeled social fascists, and, with this branding, hopes for a united working-class front ended as fascist regimes won power first in Italy, then Germany and other countries.

The popular front

It was in these circumstances that the 7th World Congress of the Communist International took place in 1935. The meetings main report was delivered by Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian communist who, a few years earlier, had been accused of setting fire to the German Parliament, a Nazi provocation designed as an excuse for seizing power. In his famous United Front against Fascism speech, Dimitrov reversed course and re-embraced Lenins united front strategy.

Describing fascism as the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary sections of finance capital, Dimitrov offered an olive branch to the Third Internationals erstwhile Social Democratic allies: Communists, he said, place no conditions for unity of action except one . . . that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class enemy. This is our condition.

Precisely what would this unity consist of? The defense of the immediate economic and political interests of the working class, argued the general-secretary of the Comintern. Dimitrov suggested a threefold approach: fighting to shift the burden of the crisis onto the rich, resisting all attempts to restrict democratic rights, and combating the war danger.

It is important to point out here that the offer for united action was largely, but not exclusively, aimed at the social democratic parties and trade unions in Europe, as they represented working-class majorities in several countries. The absence of a large social democratic movement in the United States, however, required an adaptation of the tactic to fit American conditions. The U.S. working class was and remains ideologically diverse, harbored in unions, churches, synagogues, and campuses along with various associations and groups, to say nothing of the two main capitalist political parties. What was required on U.S. soil was not a united front of the left but a coalition of the class as a whole. This remains true today.

A brilliant application of this strategy to U.S. conditions in the 1930s was theAmerican Youth Congress (AYC).Initiated by the Young Communist League and its principal organizers, Henry Winston and Gil Green, the AYC included the YWCA, the YMCA, the National Students Union, along with scores of other union, religious, community, civil rights, and youth groups. It met yearly and at its height boasted over 500 organizations. The AYC promoted a youth bill of rights and succeeded in presenting legislation calling for its enactment in Congress. Eleanor Roosevelt lent it important support.

With the creation of the AYC, the Communist Party recognized the need for an even broader response as the fascist threat grew in the U.S. The working class needed allies, a militant multi-class coalition of youth, a popular front of the young generation as a whole that could be mobilized in the righteous battles of the times.

And righteous battles they were. Coming out of the Great Depression, the Communist Party and YCL plunged headfirst into organizing the mass production industries, the fight to save the lives of the Scottsboro defendants, and the effort to break the back of segregation. These were the circumstances out of which Lenins idea of a working class-led, cross-class coalition, though born of different conditions, in a faraway land, took root and blossomed. Indeed, the popular front proved more than a notion: It had been given life and organizational form, and it became a material force helping set the course of the entire nation.

Dimitrovs report described the popular front this way:

The formation of awide anti-fascist Peoples Front . . . is closely bound up with the establishment of a fighting alliance between the proletariat, on the one hand, and the laboring peasantry and basic mass of the urban petty bourgeoisie who together form the majority of the population even in industrially developed countries.

With World War II engulfing much of the planet and the USSR bearing the brunt of the battle, this grand coalition grew to include not only sections of the capitalist class but also entire countriesin fact, whole groups of countries, as the Allies engaged the Axis powers in this gigantic civilizational battle.

Were there grave dangers of getting dissolved in the sea of bourgeois democracy associated with this enterprise? Of course there were: The dissolution of the Communist Party and YCL as World War II drew to a close is a case in point. What began as novel approaches to united front mass work initiated under Earl Browder grew one-sided and detached, drifting far to the right.

Under Browders influence, the anti-fascist wartime emphasis on national interests tended to replace class interests. Class cooperation, in order to defeat fascism, always a slippery slope, morphed into class collaboration. Illusions began to set in, one of the consequences of which was that the domestic expression of Browders dream of a new era of post-war cooperation saw no need for a party of militant class struggle. The CPUSA was dissolved, and an association working within the Democratic Party was created in its stead. The YCL was replaced by an advocacy group and renamed the American Youth for Democracy. Tragically, Browders daydream of class peace fell victim to the American nightmare of McCarthyism after Winston Churchills Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Censorship, jail, mass firings, and war bothhot and coldwere the high price paid.

With the end of the war, the emergence of a socialist community of nations, and the defeat of colonial rule in Africa and Asia, the need for a peoples front internationally began to fade. Events back home, however, were another story. McCarthyism was unleashed in full force. Smith Act and McCarran Actdriven prosecutions intensified, aided by the Truman administration and GOP majorities in Congress. Backed against a wall and incorrectly seeing fascism on the immediate horizon, the CP leadership fled underground, increasing its isolation from domestic currents and limiting its ability to fight back.

In time, the Cold War began to thaw, at least domestically after the growth of the Civil Rights and free speech movements in the late 1950s. Upon the release of its leadership from prison, party activity resumed. By then, an updated strategic and tactical framework was required as Communist activists undertook the long and difficult task of rebuilding relations in workplaces, communities, and campuses. The policy of left-center unity by means of building of rank-and-file caucuses helped free the labor movement from the grip of pro-employer, business union leaders who embraced anti-working-class policies that were pro-war, anti-affirmative action, anti-immigrant, and anti-international solidarity.

Importantly, the Party also resumed fielding candidates for local, state, and national office, in an effort to increase visibility and influence the national debate. United front work began in earnest as the Civil Rights revolution unfolded, along with the movement to end the Vietnam War. Solidarity with African liberation, particularly South Africa, became a major site of struggle.

The all-peoples front

In the mid-1980s, a major rightward swing by big business took place. The decades-long impact of Richard Nixons Southern Strategy, the Iran/Contra scandal during Ronald Reagans tenure, and the RNCs Moral Majority venture combined to produce a new and dangerous quality, a whiff of fascism, as Gus Hall termed it. At stake was how to tactically adjust, and the question sparked a major debate in the CPUSA leadership.

Vic Perlo, then the partys leading economist, had been warning of these trends in National Board discussions. Over time, Hall not only became convinced but alarmed and argued that the right danger had become so grave it was necessary to elect all Democrats and defeat all Republicans.

A shift in gears was proposed: The party would temporarily suspend fielding candidates for office. Thus began the conversation that would later lead to the CPs call for the creation of an all-peoples front.

Hall was nearly alone in the ensuing debate that ranged from mild questioning, to hemming and hawing, to outright opposition. After a long discussion, the proposal was tabled. In his summary of the first NB debate, the longtime chairman complained, You comrades dont realize what youre up against because youve never been hit. His proposal, however, won the day at a subsequent meeting.

Hall, of course, was himself no stranger to the need for unity. In the days followingNixons resignation, he had called for peoples unity to turn the country around. Nixons leaving office could result in a new beginning if it results in a new unitya unity of all democratic forces, a unity of all working-class forces, a unity of the racially oppressed, a unity of peace forces, and a unity of the younger generation.

That united new beginning, however, has been long in coming. Soon after the aforementioned debate, the CP National Committee adopted an all-peoples front strategy, a policy that, notwithstanding problems of implementation, has stood it in good stead. The election of an extreme right GOP majority in the 1994 midterm elections, led by Newt Gingrich, followed by the two Bush presidencies, the emergence of the Tea Party, and now the growth of a fascist mass movement led by Donald Trump, underscored the partys farsightedness.

During these years, the CP declined to field presidential candidates, but continued to run for office in much reduced numbers at the local and state level. More recently, the party, while retaining its all-peoples front policy, has pledged to encourage communist candidacies and run for office where possible.

Present in all the developments is an ongoing tension between maintaining Marxisms basic principles and applying them in ever changing conditions. How do you decide between whats a primary question around which there can be no compromise and whats secondary one open to negotiation?

Admittedly, its no easy question, as time and again theoretical foundation stones get traded away for seeming advantage. To gain votes, 19th-century socialists gave up key planks in their program. A few decades later, again currying favor, many of the same parties voted to support their governments war efforts. World War II found the CPUSAs leadership so taken with the task of building anti-fascist national unity that they traded away class independence for it.

This problem arises again and again: in Eurocommunism, in Gorbachevs perestroika reforms, and post-Cold War, in the CPs efforts to break out of narrow strictures and find relevance amidst calls to rethink its communist outlook, change its name, and even dissolve the organization.

But these pressures are unavoidable. Indeed, they are part of the living fabric of Marxism itself, a doctrine whose views are continually tested, changed, and retested. Clearly, care has to be taken in the course of these social tests that the very door that opens to new insights does not lead to the window through which basic principles are lost.

Concepts like the united front and the all-peoples front remain a living, breathing force in American politics. They have repeatedly come together in real life in the wake of Trumps election: in the womens marches, in the anti-police murder uprisings, in the sojourns from the uprisings to ballot boxes. The concept is not static: The all-peoples front is not an event, a meeting, a conference, but rather a series of meetings, events, conferences, demonstrations, marches, and occupations, over an entire period. It is the living, breathing mass movement of the people.

Drawing the lessons of its history and creatively applying them with flexibility while avoiding conceding working-class principles is key.

United and popular front forms will vary according to time, place, and circumstance: a housing coalition in one city, an alliance to prevent plant closings in another, a movement for reproductive rights in a third, an anti-war coalition to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a fourth. The Communist Party should never be afraid to participate in, enter, or initiate coalitions. Indeed, it should be afraid not to. What it should really fear, however, is failing to stress the necessity of working-class leadership of these coalitions.

As Gus Hall used to say: Keep your eyes on the working class. Youll make mistakes, sure, but you wont make the big ones.

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The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - People's World

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Its a sunny Wednesday afternoon at FrontLine Farmings Majestic View Farm in Arvada, and the weekly team lunch is winding down. Staff members, farmers, and apprentices sit quietly in the shade, listening to a presentation on chokecherries, a native Colorado fruit that grows wild nearby. The presenter, Gabriela Galindo, passes around a branch of dark purple berries and describes how Indigenous communities processed the tannic fruits into nutritious, long-lasting foods like pemmican, a mix of dried berries, meat, and fat.

Galindo, who identifies as Indigenous, is a member of this years FrontLine Farmings BIPOC Apprenticeship Program, a six-month, hands-on course for Black, Indigenous, and POC students to learn about farming, sustainable growing practices, food systems, and food sovereignty. The Wednesday presentations are a chance for team membersapprentices, farmers, and staffto take turns diving deeply into topics that interest them and share what they learn with the rest of the team. Galindo, who has a degree in human nutrition from MSU Denver, had seen chokecherries used in Indigenous ceremonies, so the fruits nutritional and spiritual importance interested her.

For Galindo, 33, the program has been an important step in deepening her understanding of nutrition and health, reconnecting with her familys agricultural roots in Mexico, and sharing what shes learned with her neighbors and the Native communities she is a part of, which include people who identify as Lakota, Din, Mexica, Apache and more. Ive been sharing a lot about what weve been learning about water rights and equity and soil health, she says. But this knowledge isnt mine. This is ancestral knowledge; this is all of our knowledge.

Sharing knowledge and skills through this apprenticeship program is one way FrontLine Farminga nonprofit farm led by women and people of coloris implementing its strategy for building a more equitable Front Range food system. At the center of its strategy is the acknowledgement of our food systems troubled treatment of people of color, both past and present, but also an understanding that building a relationship with plants, soil, and farming can be a source of healing for the generational trauma experienced by BIPOC community members.

FrontLine Farmings approach has three focus areas: food security, food justice, and food sovereignty. Food security, or ensuring all people have access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food, has been a highly visible need throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but addressing this important priority through efforts like donating produce and rescuing food is only the beginning, says JaSon Auguste, one of FrontLine Farmings three co-founders and director of marketing, media, and technology. We know serving that immediate need isnt going to fix all the problems within the food system, he says.

To address those bigger needs, the organizations food justice work includes public mobilization, advocacy, and testimony in support of policy that corrects historical injustices in the food system, such as Colorados SB21-087, the Agricultural Workers Rights bill. Signed by Governor Polis last year, the bill secures labor rights for farm workers, such as the right to the state minimum wage and overtime pay, protections from overwork, injury, heat stress, and more.

But it is the call for food sovereignty that thrums like a heartbeat beneath FrontLine Farmings work. It is one of the reasons why the organization was founded in the first place. Alongside the desire to provide food for people who need it and better the working conditions for farmworkers, Auguste and the organizations other co-founders, Fatuma Emmad and Damien Thompson, had a straightforward goal: We wanted to be able to grow food and do it under our own autonomy, Auguste says.

In the four years since it began, Frontline Farming has been able to do so on five acres of leased land in three locations in and around Denver: Majestic View Farm in Arvada, Sister Gardens in North Denver, and Celebration Garden in South Denver. Now the organization is ready to set down more permanent roots through its Liberation by Land campaign, a fundraiser with the goal of purchasing a 10- to 30-acre plot of land within 20 miles of Denver, which will be used by FrontLine Farming, but also open to collective use by local BIPOC community members.

This goal acknowledges the often painful history of land ownership and loss for communities of color in the United States, particularly Black and Indigenous communities. After decades of discriminatory treatment by creditors and the USDA, legal exploitation of heir-inherited property ownership, and even outright violence and theft, in 2017 Black farmers owned just 0.5 percent of the countrys farmland, or 4.7 million acres, down from a peak of 16 million acres in 1910.

That history, as well as the legacy of slavery, the forced migration and dispossession of Indigenous tribes from their ancestral lands, and the grueling and undervalued farm work currently done by mostly people of color, can create a feeling of disconnection from the land and farming for some BIPOC individuals. Theres so much trauma and pain around the land for a lot of people, Auguste says. But when the land calls you back to heal, it lifts you up. It kind of centers you, and it provides that healing. So many people come back to the land.

For current farm apprentice Moses Smith, coming back to the land was a choice that has changed his life. Despite a successful career as a software quality assurance engineer, he was in a period of transition when he applied for the BIPOC Farm Apprenticeship Program on a whim. While he had no personal history with agriculture, his maternal grandfather had a farm in Los Angeles, and his mother had memories of the vegetables they grew. But like many Black-owned farms, the land was lost, parceled into shrinking pieces, and eventually sold to sustain the familys survival. And then basically the family just disintegrated, and everyone went in their own direction, Smith says. Everything just turned to dust.

Smith says his life felt like a similarly barren landscape after decades spent dedicated to a career that was financially stable but personally unfulfillinga realization he came to after beginning the apprenticeship. Spending so much time caring for plants, weeding them, and watching them flourish, he thought about how his own life had been taken over by the weeds of other peoples priorities and a feeling of disconnection from himself and others. Working the land has reconnected him to life. Its like someone has just pulled all of the weeds off of me, and Im standing here exposed to sunlight for the first time, Smith says. And I credit this program with giving me the opportunity to spend enough time baking in the sun, caring about these plants, to realize what a plant I am.

FrontLine Farming hosts weekly volunteer hours and monthly community World Heritage Potluck Dinners during their growing season, as well as a variety of educational workshops throughout the year. All are welcome. Check out their Events page for details and to register.

See the rest here:

How FrontLine Farming Is Using Land to Grow Food and Heal Generational Trauma - 5280 | The Denver Magazine

Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday after a 70 year reign as the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She was 96. She succeeded her father, George VI at the age of 25. Her son, Charles is now King Charles III. Unlike his mother, who became queen at a very young age, Charles is 73.

It is unlikely that Charles III will make the top-ten list, or that any king or queen will ever reign as long as Elizabeth II at least any time soon. Prince William is already 40 years old (born 1 year and 1 day after me, in fact).

Here is a list of the United Kingdoms longest-reigning monarchs, beginning with Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II wearing the Vladimir Tiara, the Queen Victoria Jubilee Necklace, the blue Garter ... [+] Riband, Badge and Garter Star and the Royal Family Orders of King George V and King George VI

Age Of Ascension: 25 years, 291 days.

Seventy years on the throne is a long time, and Elizabeth II oversaw a time of great social and technological change. The rapid expansion of globalization, the personal computer and internet. The world of 2022 barely resembles the world of 1952.

15 separate Prime Ministers served under Elizabeth II, starting with Winston Churchill in his last term (who said of the young lady All the film people in the world, if they had scoured the globe, could not have found anyone so suited to the part) and ending with newly-elected Liz Truss, who Elizabeth formally appointed just two days before her death.

In Cape Town, on her 21st birthday, Elizabeth pledged: My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service. Suffice to say, it was a long life of service.

What To Watch: The Crown (Netflix NFLX TV series) The Queen (2006)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter's painting of Queen Victoria

Age Of Ascension: 18 years, 27 days.

Victoria was even younger than Elizabeth II when she donned the crown, though old enough to deftly rule her subjects. The history of the English monarchy is littered with child kings who, unfortunately, always came with a power vacuum in toe.

Victoria reigned for over 63 years, long enough to have an entire era named after her. The Victorian Era calls to mind all sorts of things, including classic romance novels, buttoned up dress codes, and a pre-modernity just on the cusp of the world we know.

Victoria oversaw a time of change on par with Elizabeth IIs reigna time of industrialization and social change that ended just before the two bloody Great Wars that defined the first half of the 20th century.

Queen Victoria was 81 when she died in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

What To Watch: Mrs. Brown (1997)

Allan Ramsay's painting of King George III

Age Of Ascension: 22 years, 143 days.

King George III reigned almost as long as Victoria, ruling over Great Britain and Ireland for 59 years. He was king in 1801 when Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom.

Like Victoria, George III ruled across centuries, spanning the second half of the 18th century and the opening decades of the 19th. At the time of his death in 1820, he was the longest-reigning monarch in English history.

Georges reign was marked by numerous wars across the globe. Under George III the American colonies won their independence in the Revolutionary War, though unlike the revolutionaries, George was an abolitionist who abhorred slavery in any form. His armies later defeated the would-be emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, after decades of war.

George III and his wife Charlotte had fifteen childrennine sons and six daughtersand the king never took a mistress. The devoted father and husband suffered from mental illness and acute mania beginning in the 1780s that would recur throughout the rest of his life.

What To Watch: The Madness Of King George (1994)

James I

Age Of Ascension: 1 year, 35 days.

James Charles Stuart was King of Scotland while still a baby, and remained King of Scotland until March 24th, 1603 when the crowns of Scotland and Englandwhile still sovereign nationswere joined.

The son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James was also the grandson of King Henry VII who ruled over England and Ireland, making him a potential heir to all three kingdoms.

He succeeded Elizabeth I and the Golden Age of the Elizabethan Era continued under his reign, though James was met with political strife in England, including an assassination attempt in 1605 known as the Gunpowder Plot, led by radical Catholics who sought to restore Catholicism to the English monarchy. The conspirators, led by Robert Catesby, intended to install Jamess nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, on the throne and end persecution of Catholics.

The authorities were tipped off ahead of time and found the now-infamous Guy Fawkes guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder intended to blow up the House of Lords. Some of the conspirators fled England; others were shot and killed or arrested and sentenced to death. They were hanged, drawn and quartered.

What To Watch: Gunpowder (HBO mini-series)

The coffin of Henry III, photographed by Valerie McGlinchey

Age Of Ascension: 9 years, 27 days

King Henry IIIs reign was one of the more conflicted in English history. A Plantagenet monarch who inherited the throne as a child from the widely disliked King John (memorialized as the evil Prince John in Robin Hood fables), Henry began his rule without the experience necessary to handle the radical changes taking place in English society, including the rise of a parliamentary system.

Henry III was the longest-reigning monarch of Medieval England, a record that would not be broken by an English king until the reign of King George III (discounting James VI who was Scottish).

The Magna Carta, which introduced a form of democracy to the land for the first time in European history, was signed in 1215 and fundamentally altered the relationship of the nobles and the king. Henry faced plenty of struggles during his long reign, including a second Barons rebellion and conflict with the Catholic church and Rome, confused policies over the status of the Jews in England and various other controversies. He was a deeply pious man who practically worshipped Edward the Confessor. In fact, he was so obsessed with religion that his journeys were often delayed because of his desire to partake in mass several times a day. On a journey to the French court, King Louis IX banned priests from Henrys route in order to speed his arrival. Despite his religious fervor, Henrys reign is often described as the Plantagenet's bloodiest.

He married Louis IXs sister, Eleanor of Provence (not to be confused with Henry IIs wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine) who bore him five children.

What To Watch: Henry III - Englands Most Pious King (YouTube Documentary)

An illuminated manuscript miniature by William Bruges of King Edward III.

Age Of Ascension: 14 years, 73 days

The son of the royal failure Edward II, Edward III is credited as restoring royal authority to the English crown and a series of military victories that expanded English lands on the continent.

Edward was crowned at 14 after his father was deposed by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Mortimer became the de facto ruler of England until, at age 17, Edward led a successful coup d'tat and gained control of the government. This was just the first of many military victories for the young king.

In 1337, Edward III declared himself the rightful heir to the French throne as well, sparking what would come to be known as The Hundred Years War.

Edward ingratiated himself with the nobles, creating the new title of Duke and fostering a greater sense of camaraderie between lords and the crown. He revivedand appropriatedthe Welsh myths of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, though ultimately he founded the Order of the Garter rather than an actual Round Table.

Much of Edwards reign can be seen as a time of renewed national identity, with some moves away from French as the official language of state, including an order that English be used in courts of law. In 1363, Parliament was opened in English for the first time.

What To Watch: Henry V (1989) its not about Edward but it is about the war he started, and a damn fine Shakespeare film.

Portrait of William I

Age Of Ascension: circa 24 years

William I was not a king of England, but ruled over Scotland for 48 years, and a thorn in the side of Englands King Henry II.

In the Battle of Alnwick, following a treaty between Scotland and France, William charged the English troops himself, hollering "Now we shall see which of us are good knights!" before being unhorsed and captured, dragged away in chains to Newcastle before being shipped off to Normandy, leading to the occupation of Scotland by English troops.

Eventually he was returned to Scotland and swore fealty to Henry II in 1175. The Treaty of Falaise also gave Henry II the right to choose Williams bride. He married Emengarde de Beaumont, great-granddaughter to Henry I. It was not a happy or fruitful marriage, and William sired many bastards, mostly with Isabel dAvenel.

What To Watch: Braveheart (1995) Not a movie about William I but I dont think there are any, so watch one about William Wallace instead!

Llywelyn the Great

Age Of Ascension: circa 22 years

Similar to William I, Llywelyn the Great (as he was known) was not a king of England, but rather Wales.

It was not an easy path to power for the young king, who had to wrest the crown from his unclesillegitimate children of his grandfather, Owain Gwynedd, who died in 1170. Since his father was the only legitimate son of Owain, and had died when Llywelyn was an infant, he was the rightful heir. But by 1175, when Llywelyn was but a wee lad still, his uncles had divided the land between them.

He defeated his uncle Dafydd at the Battle of Aberconwy in 1194. His uncle Rhodri died the following year. Gwynedd was ruled by both Llywelyn and his cousin Gruffudd ap Cynan, who paid homage to King John. He was given the title the Great by English chronicler, Matthew Paris. Historian J.E. Lloyd explains: Among the chieftains who battled against the Anglo-Norman power his place will always be high, if not indeed the highest of all, for no man ever made better or more judicious use of the native force of the Welsh people for adequate national ends; his patriotic statesmanship will always entitle him to wear the proud style of Llywelyn the Great.

Suffice to say, Welsh politics were complicated, with many rival chieftains vying for power over largely autonomous regions. Its a bloody tale also. While Llywelyn died from old age and succeeded by his son, Dafydd, his granson Llywelyn the Last was not so lucky. After a long campaign against the Welsh by Edward I (known as The Longshanks) the prince was killed in battle, though by all accounts he was tricked and deceived by his enemies who then cleaved his head from his body and sent it to London. Wales was conquered by the English and its people refused to recognize any new Prince of Wales, referring to Llywelyn as The Last.

What To Watch: The Last Prince Of Wales (YouTube documentary) even though its about Llywelyn the Last rather than the Great.

Queen Elizabeth I

Age of Ascension: 25 years, 71 days

The first Elizabeth remains one of the greatest English monarchs of all time, ruling over England during the Golden Age where writers like Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe. Like Victoria, she gets an entire Era named after her: The Elizabethan Era.

She was the last of the five Tudor monarchs, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleynthough she succeeded her Catholic sister Mary I when she died childless.

Elizabeth ruled for 44 years and never married, leading to comparisons with the Virgin Mary. Indeed, Elizabeth played up her status as a virgin (though its not clear she was one, she was never pregnant).

Elizabeths reign was long and covered an enormous amount of societal change. She signed the charter for the East India Company and oversaw the first English settlement in Americathe Roanoke Colony that mysteriously vanished.

With no heirs, Elizabeth I left the question of succession up to her advisors rather than name a successor. As we know, the throne passed to James VI of Scotland who would rule even longer than Elizabeth, though never gain her fame or cult of personality.

What To Watch: Elizabeth (1998)

David II

Age Of Ascension: 5 years, 94 days

David II was King of Scots until his death in 1371. He fought against King Edward III in the Second War of Scottish Independence. After losing the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, he fled to France for nearly a decade before returning to Scotland in 1341.

That was not the end of his warring with England, however, as he supported France in the Hundred Years War and continued to wage a war for Scottish independence until 1357 and the Treaty of Berwick. At this point, David II had been in English prison for eleven years, but was freed for a 100,000 merk ransom.

Despite a tumultuous reign, David II left the Scottish monarchy in a stronger position than when he took the throne. He died childless, the last male of the House of Bruce, and was succeeded by his nephew Robert II.

What To Play: Crusader Kings II, a strategy game in which David II is the monarch of Scotland.

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Queen Elizabeth II Reigned For 70 Years: Here Are The 10 Longest-Reigning Kings And Queens Of The UK - Forbes

Heres how midterm elections work and why they're so important

Midterm elections have the ability to shift the power of the presidency. Here's how the midterms work and why they're so important.

Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

Forget waiting for Congress or state legislaturesto act.This years midterm elections are offering voters an opportunity to shape public policy directly in the form of various state ballot initiatives that deal with major national issues.

The country witnessed the power of those referendums when voters in Kansas, which is typically considered a safe red state, rejected an anti-abortion measure on the ballot bya decisive59%-41% margin.

As the fall elections approach, voters in 2022 arebeing asked to weigh-in on how their states should handle ending a pregnancy, the right to contraceptives, legalizing certain narcotics and extending health care coverage. Even slavery is on the ballot.

Stay in the know: Get updates on these top ballot measures in your inbox

News: Classified documents mingled with magazines and clothes at Mar-a-Lago club

In at least five states, voters will have to grapple with whether to officiallyabolishslavery, a questionthat could lead to a national rethinking on U.S. prison policy.

Many of those topics have stalled in Washington, where gridlock has devoured many reform efforts.

But whether through direct ballot initiative grown by grassroots organizations viapetition orindirect referendums first raised by a state legislature, these measures could have major ramifications going forward.

Here are the issues on the ballot to watch:

Kansas voters overwhelmingly chose to uphold the right to an abortion in August, which has emboldened progressives hoping the momentumcan mobilize their base through similar ballot initiatives elsewhere.

At least three other states California, Kentucky and Vermont will have similar questions for voters to consider. While one other, Montana, is asking voters to decide rules around a "born-alive" infant from a failed abortion.

A similar question could appear before voters inMichigan,wherea coalition of reproductive rights groupshave asked thestate Supreme Court this month to allow theirproposed measure that would guarantee the right to an abortion on the ballot this fall.

Poll:Most Americans want chance to support abortion rights on state ballot

Roe v. Wade: Abortion to remain divisive issue in states, courts

The proposed amendments in California and Vermont, which already have liberal state laws ensuring abortion right, encompass reproductive freedom as a wholeincludingother protections such as guaranteeingaccess to contraceptives.

Voters in Kentucky, a more conservative-leaning state,are being asked this November to restrict abortion rights by declaring that the state Constitution doesntrecognize such access or require taxpayerfunding of abortion.

Montana's referendum deals withwhetherinfants born alive atany stage of development will be considered "legal persons." If so, the proposal says, they must be provided medical care. Violatorsfacea$50,000 fine andup to 20 years in prison.

Voters inAlabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide whether to abolish slavery as a part of a larger criminal justice reform movementaimed at prison labor.

The 13thAmendment to the Constitution ended slavery and involuntary servitude when it was ratified in 1865. But a loophole allows it as punishment for someone convicted of a crime and roughly 20 states have a similarexception.

Most referendums are asking voters to declareno form of slavery or involuntary servitudebe permitted.

Others go further, such as Alabama's questionwhichseeks to remove "all racist language" from the state constitution.InOregon,the amendmentwould add provisions allowing the state courts orparole agency to order alternatives to incarceration for a convicted individual.

More:As George Floyd Act's chances dim, Biden stays mum on police reform

Criminal justice reform advocates say the referendums are more than symbolic, and could spark larger changes forpeople who are incarcerated, such as paying them higher wages for prison work orendingforced labor altogether.

In 2018, voters in Colorado, Nebraska and Utahoverwhelminglystruck down slavery and involuntary servitude through ballot initiatives.

Legislation has been introduced in California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas to put similar ballot questions before voters infuture elections.

Multiple states will give voters a direct say over drug policies with ballot questions on decriminalizing marijuana andcertain psychedelics.

At least five states Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota are looking to legalize marijuana for residents age 21 or older.

But the provisions in some places go further.

In Missourithe proposed amendment would decriminalize marijuana use and alsoallowpeople convicted of non-violent cannabisoffensesa chance to seek an early release from prison and have their criminal records expunged.

News: Marijuana is being legalized in parts of the U.S.That's not helping everyone with convictions

Poll:Marijuana use is outpacing cigarette use for first time ever in U.S.

A legal battle is still ongoing in Oklahoma to determine if voters there will have a chance to tackle the issue with similar reforms this fall.

Colorado has a ballot initiative asking voters whether the state should definecertain psychedelic plants and fungi as natural medicine, including mescaline.

Under the amendment, personal use, possession, transportation and growthwould be legal for those age 21 or older. The changes would also createa regulatory agency that would overseelicensed healing centers to administer natural medicine services.

Nevada voters will be given a chance to give workers a pay raise this fall when they're asked toincreasethe minimum wage to $12 an hour for all employees.

Right now the state'sfloor for how much a person is paid sits between $9.50 to $10.50 per hour, depending on whether they have health insurance.

In 2019, the Nevadalegislature passed a measure raising the minimum wage by increments without address the health insurance discrepancy.The ballot question will establish a flat rate for all regardless of theirinsurance status.

More: Nevada's minimum wage increases but is less of a living wage than a year ago

On Tuesday, Nebraska secretary of state certified aballot measure that if approved wouldincrease the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.

Illinois voters are being asked to establish aconstitutional right to collective bargaining,which would guarantee workers the right to organize a union.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Tennessee voters will weighapproving a right-to-work amendment to the state constitution, whichwould prohibitworkplaces from requiringlabor union membership as a condition for employment.

One of the major debates about the Affordable Care Act from a decade ago was whetherstates would accept or reject federal incentives to expand Medicaid eligibility.

As of this year,38states and the District of Columbia have done just thatwith many doing so through ballot initiatives. Voters in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah, for example,did it in 2018.

Report: 5 million to 14 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage when COVID-19 pandemic ends

More: Uninsured rate hit record low of 8%, HHS analysis shows

South Dakota, one of 12 states that has not expanded Medicaid,will have an opportunity thanks to a coalition of health care groups who joined forces this year to push the idea to the ballot box.

Under the amendment,adults 18 to 65 earningincomes below 133% of the federal poverty level would receive Medicaid.That is roughly $18,000 per person or $37,000 for a family of four.

Other health care related questions are sprinkled around the country.

In Oregon, a ballot initiative would ensureevery resident "has access to cost-effective, clinically appropriate and affordable health care as a fundamental right."

California voters will considerbanning the sale of flavored tobacco products.

Stay in the know: Get updates on these top ballot measures in your inbox

Excerpt from:

Ballot initiatives to watch in 2022 midterms, from abortion to slavery - USA TODAY

Labor Day in America is a sad and strange thing. While most people in the country use this day off to mark the unofficial end of summer, hang out with friends and family at a barbecue, and take advantage of various online and in-store deals for shit they dont need, the holiday has a more serious meaning.

Formally recognized by Congress in 1894 as a federal holiday, Labor Day was a way for people to remember the workers struggles over the years following the spread of mass industrialization. Back then, workers of all ages even children were forced to work six days a week and for extremely long hours while only earning pennies a day.

Strikes happened. People died. And as a result of even more struggles over the years, unions fought so you can now have a 40-hour work week, kids are able to get an education instead of work, and you get to enjoy a whole list of freedoms.

But the bosses won out in the end it seems, because Labor Day is now more about sales and consumption than workers rights.

To remember the men and women who stood their ground against powerful moneyed interests for better pay and wages (and to remind ourselves of the better conditions we should have today), heres a list of 10 metal songs that hit at the heart of labor and the workers plight.

Meet them in the streetsMeet them in the hollersMeet them in the hills and dont back down, dont back downFight for what is right, for every working man to earn his keepFight for what is right till they meet your demandsin Bloody Harlan

Growing up, Americans are barely taught about the labor movement outside of there were strikes and good things came as a result. The reality, however, is often bloodier than we learn.

In Panopticons fifth album Kentucky, the American black metal band mixes bluegrass, Americana, and US black metal to tell the tale of Bloody Harlan, or the Harlan County War of 1931. In that incident, striking coal miners fought for almost a decade to be able to unionize, let alone get better working conditions and wages.

As a result, employers fired union members and evicted them from company homes before eventually hiring thugs and using local police to meet them with violence. Bombings, executions, and gunfights took place. Ultimately, the miners were able to form a union and fight for better conditions.

Black Soot and Red Blood deals with these skirmishes and the union members willingness to lay down their lives for their cause. It even includes samples of coal workers describing what they remembered from those times.

Sound offTake a look at your life, tell me to what do you aspire?I want to know how far youre willing to goCant stop the force of ruin, this world will run through youIf not now, then when?If not us, then who?

Now, we know this song is based on a quote made by the late civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Robert Lewis about the struggle for equal rights, but this song by Power Trip off of Nightmare Logic easily fits within most social struggles. The line If not us, then who would fit just as well in an early 1900s coal miners picket line as it would in a civil rights march in the 60s.

Many times, picketers, strikers, and union members would push their fellow workers into action by explaining that inaction only helped the bosses exploit them further. If Not Us Then Who can serve as a rallying cry for many social fights.

Like a workhorse stands for milesWork for you, never get tiredRoll em up, its time to goWell be back before its too long

It doesnt matter how much you love your job, work sucks. This song by Mastodon, off the 2002 album Remission, equates modern wage work to slavery. It acknowledges that without work, you couldnt live in a capitalist society, but it ultimately breeds a living condition where you wake up, go to work, go to sleep, and go back to work hence the well be back before its too long line.

When the band used to play this song live, Brent Hinds has been filmed introducing it by saying this song is about work. Work fucking sucks.

Indeed it does, Brent. Indeed it does.

ColdShackled to The bottom Of the bottle Of the socio-economic slaveryThat rules And runs my life

Colorado doom band Primitive Man effectively nail the damn near nihilistic existence of wage work with their track Commerce. Slow and brooding, this track hits on the desolation that many people face staring down the barrel of a senseless routine that many labor organizers fought to avoid.

The song talks about being overworked, underpaid from a system thats meant to fail us which is something most people can relate to. When youre living paycheck to paycheck, or working two jobs just to stay afloat and keep a roof over your head, youre living a life that the folks behind Labor Day wanted to make sure never happened.

I work my fingers to the bone just to surviveI gotta get money, so I can have a homeSo I can breathe, eat, and live in this societyI dont even like money

Stress builds character is about as close to a talking point as youll hear from some politicians in DC when it comes to things like student debt reform or the minimum wage. Stress Builds Character by Dystopia is all about how were forced to be miserable in a society that traps us with low or stagnant wages and rising costs.

Lines like I cant survive on this pay anymore and I need a raise, man are immediately relatable to anyone thats worked for minimum wage. All so they can just breathe, eat, and live in this society.

Now in the matrix take your place.Theyll tap your labor and your light.Gain euphoria, from your paranoia.

Back in the days before Pepper Keenan or Karl Agell served as Corrosion of Conformitys frontman, the band was known as a punky crossover outfit fronted by bassist Mike Dean. During that time, they talked a lot about social and political problems. Yet when Pepper was off playing in Down, the band reunited under that original lineup and released a self-titled album in 2012.

In a return to their punk/stoner/crossover ways, the band put out The Moneychangers, a fast and to the point song that uses some religious imagery to decry how employers set the bait (aka a job) and when you think youre blessed and say yes to the new gig, thats when you know the trap is set. Youre theirs to exploit because unionization support in the U.S. has been gutted for so long.

When theyve tortured and scared you for 20 odd yearsThen they expect you to pick a careerWhen you cant really function, youre so full of fearA working class hero is something to be

Originally a John Lennon song, Ozzys cover of Working Class Hero is a somber reminder that in its current form, youre born into a society that puts you in your place and forces you to find your own path if you want to break the cycle.

Still, you can always get to the top if youre willing to learn to smile as you kill, meaning step on everyone on your way up. Ruthless career advancement at all costs is not uncommon in todays workplace.

Barren land that once filled a needAre worthless now, dead without a deedSlipping away from an iron gripNatures scales are forced to tip

The heartland cries, loss of all prideTo leave aint believing, so try and be triedInsufficient funds, insanity, and suicide

Megadeth has never been a band to shy away from current events and socio-political topics and in Countdown to Extinction, the whole album was one big middle finger to the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.

This song in particular, deals with a situation where the U.S. sanctioned Russia and refused to sell them our grain, creating a surplus that caved the price of farmers goods. Farmland decreased in value and ultimately family farms were foreclosed upon, with banks evicting families and selling those properties to the highest bidder usually massive corporations. Dave Mustaine said as much in 1992.

The government dictates everything to us. What it cant get over on the black and Hispanic man, it gets over on the white. Its about Reaganomics and how it took advantage of the real nucleus of America the farmers.

You got me forced to crack my lids in twoIm still stuck inside the rubber roomI gotta punch the clock that leads the blindIm just another gear in the assembly line-oh no

The noose gets tighter around my throatBut I aint at the end of my rope

A rager of a song from New Jerseys own Skid Row, Slave to the Grind is an anthem standing up against the doldrums and unfairness that comes out of working a wage slave job. Its about how people like your Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks of the world dont actually give a shit about you or your fellow employees.

Yet youre never truly at the end of your rope in this track. Be your own person, find your own way in life, and you can get out of that rat race is the name of the game in this classic song.

Well, I get up at seven, yeahAnd Ill go to work at nineI got no time for livinYes, Im workin all the time

It seems to meI could live my lifeA lot better than I think I amI guess thats why they call meThey call me the workin man

Technically this isnt metal, but if you have a problem with Rush then youve got a problem with me, eh.

Rushs Working Man is the perfect workers anthem, talking about how our lives of constantly working to make someone else richer while you trade away your days can be soul sucking. Youre a laborer and because you dont have a way to earn the profits made for the things you make, you can always feel that I could live my life a lot better than I think I am.

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10 Songs That Deal with Labor Rights and Hating Your Job - MetalSucks

The Ukraine war reminds us of the devasting consequences of war beyond the direct death toll, displacing populations and upending livelihoods. Since the Russian invasion began on 24 February, Ukraine has witnessed one of the fastest exoduses of people in recent history. To date, nearly 6.7 million refugees have been recorded in Europe (source: UNHCR).

Although there is now evidence of Ukrainians returning to their home country, the extreme relocation triggered by the conflict requires the integration of substantial numbers of refugees into receiving European populations.

Sadly, the headlines from Ukraine are the tip of an iceberg; the UN estimates that some 100 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, in most cases as a result of violence (source: UNHCR).

Modern slavery and human trafficking have been a consequence of 90% of modern wars (source: Contemporary Slavery in Armed Conflict). This is due to a mixture of factors, including refugees being picked up by traffickers when crossing borders, or accepting offers of accommodation or work without validation of legitimacy and safety.

The vulnerability of refugees is often compounded by demographic factors, with women and children being over-represented among displaced populations.

As a result, businesses operating in regions that are receiving refugees must be aware of the risks of labour exploitation in their operations and supply chains.

Following the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey experienced an influx of refugees. Today the country holds the largest population of refugees globally 3.6 million of which are Syrians. A significant proportion of these refugees were integrated into the garment manufacturing sector an important part of the Turkish economy.

Even before the Syrian refugee crisis, the garment industry relied heavily on a cheap and flexible workforce made up of migrant labour. Now there are reports of widespread labour exploitation of refugees, with evidence of 60+ hour weeks and the majority of Syrian workers earning below minimum wage (source: World Bank).

Specifically within Istanbul, it is thought that 85% of Syrians are informally employed. As a result, global apparel brands came under scrutiny for their lack of adequate action, with only a few brands gaining praise for good practice (source: BHRRC).

As a wave of mandatory due diligence laws come into effect across Europe, the focus and scrutiny on human rights abuses such as modern slavery is rising. With tangible civil liability and monetary fines on the horizon, as well as basic business responsibility, the importance of examining and managing potential human rights risks has never been higher, both for management teams, and as investors in those companies.

In Schroders Engagement Blueprint we set out our request for companies to establish and implement a human rights policy in line with the UNGPs, International Labor Organisation and other international frameworks, and commit to respect human rights. We also ask companies to introduce robust due diligence processes and effective remedy.

However, due to the heightened risk associated with human rights in and around conflict-affected areas, we expect companies to go beyond this. That entails adapting existing policies to the specific needs of conflict-affected areas, and performing enhanced due diligence in these contexts. Such action comprises:

As a starting point, there are two simple questions investors seeking to engage on this issue should ask companies:

Case study Turkish garment manufacturer:

Recognising the heightened human rights risks in the country, particularly associated with an influx of migrants from Syria, in 2020 we began engaging with a Turkish garment manufacturer on its human rights policies and practices.

The company was at a relatively early stage on this topic so we started by encouraging it to increase disclosure and demonstrate adherence with responsible sourcing practices, as well as participating in industry initiatives to improve standards and collaborate with relevant NGOs and stakeholder groups.

We are pleased that since our engagement, the company has set compliance and monitoring targets for its supply chain, and has begun reporting basic audit data.

Case study Taiwanese company:

In 2022 we engaged with a Taiwanese company with exposure to Myanmar. The company had begun to make progress to include human rights, among other ESG factors, in its supplier management practices. We sought to understand what actions the company will be taking to increase suppliers signing onto the code of conduct. We also encouraged the company to work to increase the scope of its audit practices.

We will continue to engage with the company on these topics in the coming years, and may consider escalating our concerns if it is deemed necessary.

Case study European recruitment companies:

We have recently, in mid-2022, initiated engagements with two companies operating within Europe that fall within the human resources and employment services industry.

We identified this industry as higher risk because employment and temporary agencies are likely to interact with individuals who are rapidly looking to find work, having been displaced from their homes and original employment.

The engagement seeks to understand how the companies are acting to anticipate and address these risks ensuring that due diligence is being undertaken on employee applicants and end employers.

Over the coming months we will continue to monitor the responses by these companies in line with our engagement process.

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Conflict and modern slavery: the investment perspective - Schroders

Labor Day honors the unsung workers who built this nation, manufactured its goods, and sometimes risked their lives for low wages.

The 1848 Gold Rush put California on the fast track for statehood. But some wanted a Northern California free state, and a Southern California slave state. Abolitionists hated slavery for its injustice, while some labor groups felt slave labor unfairly devalued wage labor throughout the South. Leaders decided to bypassed being a territory, and simply declare California an undivided free state in 1850.

Yet the Gold Rush was bringing slave holders to the state, who used slave labor in gold mining. As a Free State, the enslaved population either freed themselves (like Watsonvilles Jim Brodis), negotiated liberties from their enslavers, or bought their freedom and stayed (like London Nelson of Santa Cruz, Dave Boffman of Happy Valley, and Dan Rodgers of Watsonville). James Gadsdens 1851 petition to make Southern California a slave state failed, but the state passed a ban on black testimony in court. In 1852 South Carolina and Florida slave-holders petitioned for a slave-owners colony in California. The issue was tabled, but Californias Fugitive Slave Law of 1852 suspended its anti-slavery clause, and while some refused to enforce it, others used it to re-enslave free Blacks. Yet the states fugitive slave law was dropped in 1855.

Then the Andres Pico Act of 1859 was introduced to make California a slave state from San Luis Obispo south. But the April 12, 1861 attack on Fort Sumpter starting the Civil War, ended any thought of splitting the state over slavery. It also stopped shipments to California of black powder, used for blasting and gunpowder, yet with no alternative sources west of the Mississippi. East Coast manufacturers couldnt risk these shipments being captured by Confederate pirates, nor deplete what supplies the Union needed to fight secession.

California feared the loss of black powder limited the states ability to defend itself against invasion, or defend the gold and silver shipments being sent east supporting the Union cause. Without blasting powder for mining, the amount of gold and silver being processed could be reduced. Blasting powder was also crucial for construction of buildings, forts, roads and railways.Confederate members of the secret society Knights of the Golden Circle, conspired to seize Pacific Mail Steamerships transporting gold, and turn the captured ships into a pirate navy. Their ultimate goal was to make California a slave state, and redirect gold shipments to the Confederacy. But their plot was foiled, and the insurrectionists were sent to prison at Fort Alcatraz.

To fill the need, a group of investors got together and incorporated Dec.28, 1861, as the California Powder Works. Sites were studied statewide in a four month selection process, needing access to a shipping port, yet isolated, midst a population loyal to the United States. Los Angeles was ruled out for having two Confederate militias. At last Rincon Gorge a mile north of Santa Cruz was chosen, because the gorge was a narrow canyon that would confine any accidental blast, was little populated, had plenty of timber to make charcoal, had just been wiped clean by a megaflood, and had a wharf for sale for supplies and exports, in a town of mostly pro-Union abolitionists.

Construction commenced in November 1862. A dam was built north of the site in 1863, and water would pass through a 4-foot by 6-foot tunnel 1,200-feet long, to power the water wheels that ran the machinery. The 20-acre site was laid out with 15 industrial buildings arranged around the grounds in a circle. A ways below the plant was the office, boarding house, dormitory and homes.Safety precautions were abundant. Each industrial structure was spaced 100 to 500 feet apart. The powder magazine warehouse and manufacturing structures were constructed with 2-foot thick masonry walls, but only on three sides, then finished with a wooden fourth wall and ceiling. In this way, any accidental explosion could be directed into the hillside, or away from populated areas to minimize destruction. In addition, these buildings had thick groves of resilient eucalyptus trees around their perimeter to catch flying debris.

Black powder was made by importing saltpeter from India and Chile, to refine and combine with Sulphur and charcoal, plus graphite to keep it from clumping.

The Powder Works began production in May, 1864, with a crew of 30 men making 200 25-pound kegs of powder a day. By wars end in 1865, production had doubled to 400 kegs a day, or a total output that year of 150,000 kegs. The mill employed from 150 to 275 men. These were mostly white, a number were teenagers. But there was also a Chinese population that started with a dozen in 1864, then reaching 35 by the mid-1870s, with their own boarding house and Joss Temple. Paid a third of white workers, they were often cooks, coopers, or construction crews, endangered by the prejudices of the white workers, whose growing outrage became the Anti-Chinese Movement in 1878, when management bowed to pressure and fired them all. But a decade later, the Chinese were back at work.

The Powder Works was a community, with its own Social Hall, Post Office in the Superintendents Building, and School House. Superintendent Col. Bernard Peyton built his 1870s Italianate Villa on top of the hill overlooking the gorge. The assistant superintendent was his son, William, who built his bride an 1890s Eastlake castle beside his fathers house.

After the war, the Powder Works supplied blasting powder for railroads across the west, with the 1874 Felton-to-Santa Cruz line running past the plant, completed in 1880 as the South Pacific Coast Railroad over the mountains. Yet the iron horse didnt enter the grounds, for fear of flinting off sparks. When a railroad of sorts was built in the grounds, it was composed of wooden ties, and pulled slowly by horses with sacks over their iron horse shoes. Yet shipping by rail was a safer method, and the Powder Works Wharf was demolished in 1882.

By the 1880s, the powder works extended a mile up the river, hosting 21 powder mills, 10 shops, six magazines, and numerous support structures. Black powder was the chief local product, along with military grade gunpowder. Soon, Santa Cruz was the first smokeless powder producer in the west, one of two nationally. But Santa Cruz led the industry as the only producer of hydro-cellulose gun cotton, for perfect nitration of the fiber.

William Peyton invented a press to manufacture brown prismatic smokeless powder for high-power breach loading cannons. It created uniform consistency, so gunmen could precisely calculate each shot. The U.S. government was so impressed, it used Santa Cruz powder exclusively for its Pacific and Asiatic fleets, providing a 4-inch and 8-inch Navy deck cannons to test the powder. When the U.S. Army began using Krag-Jorgensen .30 caliber rifles, it determined Santa Cruz Peyton Powder was the best.

In spite of great precautions, explosions at the Powder Works were regular events. One blew out all the windows on a passing train. So a steam whistle was sounded to notify the public of a test firing, with a second whistle to give the all-clear. When no whistle was heard connected with an explosion, people would come running to find out the fate of loved ones.

The worst explosion happened April 1898, across the covered bridge on Eagle Creek. It left a crater and a cloud of smoke, and buildings a distance away tilted by the force of the blast. Phyllis Patten was a student at Holy Cross School, gazing out the window at 5:15 that April evening, when the explosion shook the whole town, rattling or breaking windows. Then lightning-like streams of sparks shot past the windows. People ran outside, uncertain what it was, and wondered if Spanish saboteurs (during the Spanish-American War) were taking revenge on Admiral Deweys only source of smokeless powder.

Shortly, a man on a galloping horse said a fire was about to blow-up the main powder magazine. Townsfolk evacuated to the beach, huddled around campfires until 9:30 that evening, when they learned the magazine had been spared. The blast injured 15, while killing 13 Chinese workers. But thanks to Smokeless Powder, the Powder Works could rebuild using corrugated metal buildings.

William Peyton married into the DuPont family, who were buying up explosives companies. In the 1890s, DuPont had a controlling interest in the California Powder Works, gained full control in 1903, but was declared a monopoly, and closed the Powder Works in 1914. It is today the site of Paradise Park Masonic Campgrounds.

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The Santa Cruz County boom town that went BOOM - The Mercury News

Forced labor, sexual assault and abuse are not normal dinner-table topics for the relaxing Labor Day weekend. But, sadly, this is often part of the story behind so much of the produce that winds up on our plates in America. As Justice Department prosecutors noted this spring when three defendants in Georgia were sentenced to federal prison for human trafficking on U.S. farms, These men engaged in facilitating modern-day slavery.

As the co-founder and CEO of a values-focused soup company, I have preached endlessly about the need to know the story of our food. And although weve made strides in drawing awareness to sustainability in the agricultural industry, we have not paid as much attention, perhaps, to the vulnerable and often unprotected laborers who do the actual work. That no longer should be acceptable to any of us. What good is it to pat ourselves on the back for buying locally sourced organic tomatoes and onions if those vegetables were picked by farm workers who endured abusive conditions?

There are more than 1.2 million hired farm laborers in this country. They pick the tomatoes for our summer BLTs, the corn for our Labor Day barbecues, and the strawberries for our fruit cups. They do this work by hand. Weve mechanized so much in our food system, but most crops are still picked manually by farm laborers. And these laborers are more vulnerable than ever. The number of workers in this country legally under the federal governments H2A temporary visa program has tripled since 2012, to nearly 258,000 in 2021. This number represents less than one-quarter of the agricultural workers in this country. Unfortunately, the agricultural labor force is often subject to abuse, wage theft, and worse regardless of their immigration status.

The statistics from the Department of Labor are staggering. Over 70 percent of the departments workplace investigations reveal major violations, and many farms are repeat violators. A recent investigation found that violating farms owed more than $9 million in back wages to hundreds of laborers.

We, the consumers, have the power to stop this and to reform the food supply chain for good.

One group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida, is working to end abuse in the agricultural system. These farmworkers say they have seen it all: A farm manager reportedly beating a worker simply for stopping to take a sip of water. Undocumented workers hidden inside walk-in freezers to dodge immigration officials. Women who are raped in the fields and then too terrified to report the assaults for fear of losing their jobs, or worse.

The Immokalee Workers created the Fair Food Program, a unique partnership among farmers, farmworkers and food companies to ensure humane wages and working conditions for the people who help feed our families. Many retailers have signed on to participate, including Whole Foods, Walmart and Ahold. My company, Soupergirl, recently obtained a Fair Food certification just for our tomato gazpacho line. Its a very modest step, and we hope that much bigger companies will join us.

Many Americans feel powerless to stop the seemingly endless stream of tragic events they hear about or read about in the news. But we actually can play a positive role simply by asking food brands to buy only produce that is certified as having been grown on farms that respect basic human values. This isnt some ill-defined boycott that goes viral on social media for 12 hours and is never heard about again. Consumers can do good every time we step into a grocery store by buying Fair Food-certified produce and other products. And we can each do our part to push food companies to buy fruits and vegetables from certified farms that care about their labor force.

Theres no virtue in buying pesticide-free produce grown on farms that abuse their workers for profit. This Labor Day weekend and all days lets make sure that the food we put on our tables is worthy of the decent, hardworking people who picked it for us.

Sara Polon is CEO of Soupergirl, the plant-based soup and gazpacho company based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Twitter @thesoupergirl.

Excerpt from:

This Labor Day, buy produce grown only on farms that respect workers rights - The Hill

The call for unity resonates across a wide swath of todays democratic and social movements. Attend any demonstration and youre likely to hear marchers rhythmically shouting in Spanish and English El pueblo unido jams ser vencido (The people united will never be defeated), a chant born and made famous around the world by Salvador Allendes fight for popular unity in Chile.

In the U.S. today the country faces a growing fascist menace not unlike what the Chilean people faced during the Pinochet dictatorship. The challenge is to go beyond slogans and find a strategy that will build the unity needed: that strategy is creating from the ground up a broad anti-fascist alliance. Fortunately, theres a lot to build on.

Indeed, unity concepts and slogans abound in U.S. history and culture. One of its first expressions came from Abraham Lincoln, who, in an 1858 convention speech on the eve of the Civil War, warned that slavery threatened to tear the nation asunder. A house divided against itself cannot stand, the then GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate famously declared, arguing that the country could not survive, half slave and half free.

An injury to one is an injury to all is another popular slogan that came straight out of the labor movement at the dawn of the last century. The IWWs Big Bill Haywood attributed the saying to David C. Coates, a socialist labor leader and former lieutenant governor of Colorado.

A few decades later, black and white, unite and fight was the clarion call of communist organizers in the CIO as they led the fight to organize workers in the steel, auto, and electric industries in the 1930s. Today, black, brown, Asian, and white, unite and fight more accurately reflects the increasingly diverse composition of the U.S. working class.

Fighting for unity, while not always successful, is a veritable way of life for U.S. communists, and many of the Partys strategic concepts revolve around it. Left-center unity, that is, the imperative of developing strong ties between left and moderate forces in the trade union movement, has long been a mainstay of CPUSAs labor policy and remains so today.

An all-peoples unity strategy (which basically means unity of the entire people) was advanced by the Hall-Winston leadership in the 1980s, after the Republican National Committee (RNC), at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce and the big banks, shifted far to the right.

In light of the countrys deepening political crisis, this strategy retains all of its potential force. In fact, Trumps threat to run for a second term makes it even more relevant. All-peoples unity is the current application of what the communist movement once called the popular front strategy, that is, the creation of a broad coalition of the American people to oppose the MAGA movement and the threat of a fascist dictatorship. In its day-to-day work, particularly at the local level, the CPUSA strives to put a working-class stamp on this front by centering its election activity where possible with trade unions, community groups, and other movements who operate independent of official Democratic Party campaigns. Taking initiative on the key issues is vital, including fighting for the passage of abortion rights, the PRO-ACT, voting rights, climate change, and other legislation.

Of course, its one thing to call for unity and quite another to achieve it. Alliance building can be halting and at times even tortuous. Differing agendas, egos, and experiences can impact the ability to forge viable coalitions. The multi-racial, multi-gendered, and cross-generational diversity of the U.S. working class often requires taking special measures to respond to the challenges faced by different sections of the class.

Building unity between the trade union movement and the young generation (what the CP terms labor/youth unity) illustrates this need. For example, during the auto workers strike in 2019, the industrys two-tier wage system where new young hires are paid substantially less than older workers was a major sticking point. And while progress was made to reduce the wage differential during negotiations, it was not done away with. The recent UAW convention pledged to take up the issue in a major way in future contract talks. One resolution, according to Peoples World, instructed the unions executive board to reject management proposals which seek to divide the membership through tiered wages, benefits or post-employment income and benefits. Thus, unity between older and younger workers required confronting the companys tactic of dividing by pay scale. In other words, a united front on the picket line meant the union had to address younger workers special demands for equal pay a refusal to do so could have meant the defeat of the strike.

Another key issue is fully appreciating the nature and strength of ones class opponents. Speaking to this challenge, Henry Winston, the Partys late national chairman, once placed the issue this way when addressing building labor community coalitions in response to the collapse of the steel industry: Why is such unity necessary? he asked. Because victory in the battle against monopoly is impossible without it the ruling class in this country is too strong. The working class, the CP chairman argued, cannot win this fight alone.

In a similar vein, African American, Latino, womens, and LGBTQ movements can ill afford go-it-alone approaches. And while Winston stressed that confronting the most powerful ruling class in history required focusing on common demands, he also hastened to place in the foreground special compensatory measures like affirmative action as necessary for binding alliances with those experiencing historic discrimination, a point that some continue to dismiss as concessions to identity politics.

The working class learned the lesson of building unity of action the hard way. Strikes were lost, campaigns for elected office defeated, attempts at social revolution vanquished at almost incalculable costs. Recall that the Paris Commune was drowned in the blood of 35,000 communards, after 30 days of wielding power.

Set back after these terrible events, but undaunted, burgeoning movements had to consider things afresh, discard strategies that proved infeasible, tinker with others that showed greater promise, and adopt whole new methods as conditions changed. As the bourgeois democratic revolutions against monarchies gained momentum in the 19th century in countries like Germany, France, and England, narrow approaches had to be rejected. New avenues for struggle had to be sought based on the institutions that began to emerge as people began to organize themselves according to faith, occupation, and interest.

The notion, for example, that small, highly committed groups could successfully contend for political power was frontally challenged by Frederick Engels: The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses, he wrote in his 1895 introduction to Marxs Civil War in France. Engels continued, When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.

The struggle for democracy in combination with the class struggle began to take center stage. Socialist parties now had to take into account building alliances as the franchise became a major factor in the exercise of political power. In several countries, Marxist parties were able to build mass electoral coalitions and win office.

Had new, peaceful paths to power been discovered? At first blush it appeared so, and even Engels, the veteran of many a class battle, seemed quite taken with the social democratic movements late 19th-century electoral successes. Still, the old revolutionary took pains to point out that these victories in no way meant renouncing the goal of revolution. Engels warned: Of course, our comrades abroad have not abandoned the right to revolution. The right to revolution is, in the last analysis, the only real historic right upon which all modern states rest without exception.

Some, however, appeared not to have listened to Marxs old friends advice. Even Marxs sage instruction when critiquing the Germany Social Democratic Partys Gotha Program was ignored. Marx had urged comrades to enter into compromises necessary to achieve practical aims but to never make theoretical concessions.

Instead, theoretical concessions were made by those adopting Eduard Bernsteins the movement is everything, the goal, nothing update of Marx. Under Bernsteins advocacy, reforms became the be-all and end-all of everything: reforms would gradually evolve themselves into socialism. The goal of working-class power was lost.

What went wrong? Varying explanations have been offered: the buying off a section of the trade union leadership and the emergence of a labor aristocracy, an undue domination of the labor movement by middle-class elements; the offering of a psychological wage to white workers to promote a feeling of racial superiority, was an explanation posited by W. E. B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction.

Or could the problem lie in another direction, perhaps in the coalition strategy itself? Its a matter of historical record that radical reforms advocated by the socialist parties got watered down as their electoral successes increased. The closer some came to power, the greater was the temptation to concede this or that plank of their program in order to win sections of the vote.

At the turn of the 20th century, echoes of these debates entered the Russian Social Democratic movement, albeit in quite different circumstances. Russia remained largely trapped in feudal-like conditions and was still ruled by a hereditary monarchy. The socialist movement had to find a path to defeat the czar and also design tactics that would address the growing capitalist class in a huge country with an extremely diverse population and a political culture steeped in backwardness. Who could the workers unite with? Whither lay the promised land, and with whom could the oppressed masses get there?

In these circumstances a fierce argument broke out. All the Marxists agreed the country needed to pass through capitalism at least in some form but there were sharp differences about what that entailed. A revolution was required to get rid of czarism on this there was consensus. What kind of alliances were needed and which class forces would lead them was another matter entirely. A section of the party favored confining the coalition to the working class and peasants alone. Others supported including capitalists in the mix. The former group were called Mensheviks. They opposed allying with Russias nascent merchants and industrialists for fear of being dissolved in a growing sea of bourgeois democracy.

The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, conversely, favored including the capitalists. The issue in the Bolshevik leaders view wasnt whether to support a cross-class alliance the challenge was how to do it. In Lenins view, the point was to fight for working-class leadership of this alliance, to place a proletarian stamp on the democratic revolution. Doing so would preserve the working classs independent role and reduce the risk of its objectives being subsumed. How? By fighting for consistent democracy, in other words, by carrying to completion the democratic fight for voting, representative government (a constituent assembly), land reform, the eight-hour day, and a government capable of inflicting a decisive defeat of reaction. In this manner, Lenin argued, the working class would stand the best chance of positioning itself within the emerging capitalist order.

These arguments are pointedly made in Lenins Two Tactics, where, in embryonic form, and yet unnamed, what became known as the united front concept is first introduced. They guided Bolshevik domestic policy through 1917.

The united front tactic was formally adopted by the world movement at the 4th Congress of the Communist International in 1922. What is the united front? Simply put, it is a politically diverse coalition of working people who come together to address a specific set of issues. Ideological differences, for the moment, are set aside in pursuit of common goals.

What goals? In the first place, to resolve the bread-and-butter issues confronting the working class at any given point in time. In a 1922 speech, Grigory Zinoviev, one of the leaders of the Comintern, put it this way: We are in such a phase of the struggle of the world proletariat that we should unite in the struggle for the eight-hour day, aid for the unemployed, and in the fight against the offensive of capital.

The adoption of the united front was a major part of Lenins polemic against left-wing communism, the knee-jerk responses of the newly formed parties that had split from the 2nd International, many of whom rejected electoral work, shunned compromises, and, heady with the success of the October Revolution, believed themselves to be on the verge of world revolution. Under the influence of strategies like Bla Kuns theory of offensive and Leon Trotskys permanent revolution, failed attempts at state power occurred in Hungary, Germany, and other countries with disastrous results.

Lenin, on the other hand, well understood that, after the initial success of October 1917, the revolutionary moment had passed and with it the chance for a European continent-wide social revolution. A protracted era of class and democratic battles instead were at hand, requiring long and patient preparatory work. In these circumstances he offered the parties of the Third International a three-fold plan: Adopt the united front strategy and tailor it to fit each country; win over the majority of the working class in the process; and build mass communist parties, all necessary if the socialist revolution would have any real chance for success.

After the Soviet leaders untimely death, however, and in the face of stiff resistance from potential social democratic allies (the main objects of the united front efforts), the Comintern moved sharply in the opposite direction as the movements stubborn affair with leftism returned with a vengeance. Confronted with attacks on communist insurgents by social democratic governments, the parties of the 2nd International were labeled social fascists, and with this branding hopes for a united working-class front ended as fascist regimes won power first in Italy, then Germany and other countries.

It was in these circumstances that the 7th World Congress of the Communist International took place in 1935. The meetings main report was delivered by Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian communist, who a few years earlier had been accused of setting fire to the German Parliament, a Nazi provocation designed as an excuse for seizing power. In his famous United Front against Fascism speech, Dimitrov reversed course and reembraced Lenins united front strategy.

Describing fascism as the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary sections of finance capital, Dimitrov offered an olive branch to the 3rd Internationals erstwhile Social Democratic allies: Communists, he said, place no conditions for unity of action except one . . . that the unity of action be directed against fascism, against the offensive of capital, against the threat of war, against the class enemy. This is our condition.

Precisely what would this unity consist of? The defense of the immediate economic and political interests of the working class, argued the general-secretary of the Comintern. Dimitrov suggested a threefold approach: fighting to shift the burden of the crisis onto the rich, resisting all attempts to restrict democratic rights, and combating the war danger.

It is important to point out here that the offer for united action was largely, but not exclusively, aimed at the social democratic parties and trade unions in Europe, as they represented working-class majorities in several countries. The absence of a large social democratic movement in the United States, however, required an adaptation of the tactic to fit American conditions. The U.S. working class was and remains ideologically diverse, harbored in unions, churches, synagogues, and campuses along with various associations and groups, to say nothing of the two main capitalist political parties. What was required on U.S. soil was not a united front of the left but a coalition of the class as a whole. This remains true today.

A brilliant application of this strategy to U.S. conditions in the 1930s was the American Youth Congress (AYC). Initiated by the Young Communist League and its principal organizers, Henry Winston and Gil Green, the AYC included the YWCA, the YMCA, the national students union along with scores of union, religious, community, civil rights, and youth groups. It met yearly and at its height boasted over 500 organizations. The AYC promoted a youth bill of rights and succeeded in presenting legislation calling for its enactment in Congress. Eleanor Roosevelt lent it important support.

With the creation of the AYC the Communist Party recognized the need for an even broader response as the fascist threat grew in the U.S. The working class needed allies, a militant multi-class coalition of youth, a popular front of the young generation as a whole that could be mobilized in the righteous battles of the times.

And righteous battles they were. Coming out of the Great Depression, the Communist Party and YCL plunged headfirst into organizing the mass production industries, the fight to save the lives of the Scottsboro defendants, and the effort to break the back of segregation. These were the circumstances out of which Lenins idea of a working class-led, cross-class coalition, though born of different conditions, in a faraway land, took root and blossomed. Indeed, the popular front proved more than a notion: it had been given life and organizational form, and it became a material force helping set the course of the entire nation.

Dimitrovs report described the popular front this way:

The formation of a wide anti-fascist Peoples Front . . . is closely bound up with the establishment of a fighting alliance between the proletariat, on the one hand, and the laboring peasantry and basic mass of the urban petty bourgeoisie who together form the majority of the population even in industrially developed countries.

With World War II engulfing much of the planet and the USSR bearing the brunt of the battle, this grand coalition grew to include not only sections of the capitalist class but also entire countries in fact whole groups of countries as the Allies engaged the Axis powers in this gigantic civilizational battle.

Were there grave dangers of getting dissolved in the sea of bourgeois democracy associated with this enterprise? Of course there were: the dissolution of the Communist Party and YCL as World War II drew to a close is a case in point. What began as novel approaches to united front mass work initiated under Earl Browder grew one-sided and detached, drifting far to the right.

Under Browders influence, the antifascist wartime emphasis on national interests tended to replace class interests. Class cooperation, in order to defeat fascism, always a slippery slope, morphed into class collaboration. Illusions began to set in, one of the consequences of which was that the domestic expression of Browders dream of a new era of post-war cooperation saw no need for a party of militant class struggle. The Party was dissolved and an association working within the Democratic Party was created in its stead. The YCL was replaced by an advocacy group and renamed the American Youth for Democracy. Tragically, Browders daydream of class peace fell victim to the American nightmare of McCarthyism after Winston Churchills Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Censorship, jail, mass firings, and war both hot and cold were the high price paid.

With the end of the war, the emergence of a socialist community of nations and the defeat of colonial rule in Africa and Asia, the need for a peoples front internationally began to fade. Events back home, however, were another story. McCarthyism was unleashed in full force. Smith Act and McCarran Actdriven prosecutions intensified, aided by the Truman administration and GOP majorities in Congress. Backed against a wall and incorrectly seeing fascism on the immediate horizon, the Party leadership fled underground, increasing its isolation from domestic currents and limiting its ability to fight back.

In time, the Cold War began to thaw, at least domestically after the growth of the Civil Rights and free speech movements in the late 1950s. Upon the release of its leadership from prison, party activity resumed. By then an updated strategic and tactical framework was required as Communist activists undertook the long and difficult task of rebuilding relations in workplaces, communities, and campuses. The policy of left center unity by means of building of rank-and-file caucuses helped free the labor movement from the grip of pro-employer, business union leaders who embraced anti-working-class policies that were pro-war, anti-affirmative action, anti-immigrant, and anti-international solidarity. Importantly, the Party resumed fielding candidates for local, state, and national office, in an effort to increase visibility and influence the national debate. United front work began in earnest as the Civil Rights revolution unfolded along with the movement to end the Vietnam War. Solidarity with African liberation, particularly South Africa, became a major site of struggle.

In the mid-1980s a major rightward swing by Big Business took place. The decades-long impact of Richard Nixons Southern Strategy, the Iran/Contra scandal during Ronald Reagans tenure, and the RNCs Moral Majority venture combined to produce a new and dangerous quality, a whiff of fascism, as Gus Hall termed it. At stake was how to tactically adjust, and the question sparked a major debate in the CPUSA leadership.

Vic Perlo, then the partys leading economist, had been warning of these trends in National Board discussions. Over time, Gus Hall not only became convinced but alarmed and argued that the right danger had become so grave it was necessary to elect all Democrats and defeat all Republicans.

A shift in gears was proposed: the party would temporarily suspend fielding candidates for office. Thus began the conversation that would later lead to the CPs call for the creation of an all-peoples front.

Hall was nearly alone in the ensuing debate that ranged from mild questioning, to hemming and hawing, to outright opposition. After a long discussion, the proposal was tabled. In his summary of the first NB debate, the longtime chairman complained, You comrades dont realize what youre up against because youve never been hit. His proposal, however, won the day at a subsequent meeting.

Hall, of course, was himself no stranger to the need for unity. In the days following Nixons resignation he called for peoples unity to turn the country around. Nixons leaving office could result in a new beginning if it results in a new unity a unity of all democratic forces, a unity of all working-class forces, a unity of the racially oppressed, a unity of peace forces, and a unity of the younger generation.

That united new beginning, however, has been long in coming. Soon after the aforementioned debate, the CP National Committee adopted an all-peoples front strategy, a policy that, notwithstanding problems of implementation, has stood it in good stead. The election of an extreme right GOP majority in the 1994 midterm elections, led by Newt Gingrich, followed by the two Bush presidencies, the emergence of the Tea Party, and now the growth of a fascist mass movement led by Donald Trump, underscored the partys farsightedness.

During these years, the CP declined to field presidential candidates, but continued to run for office in much reduced numbers at the local and state level. More recently, the party, while retaining its all-peoples front policy, has pledged to encourage communist candidacies and run for office where possible.

Present in all the developments is an ongoing tension between maintaining Marxisms basic principles and applying them in ever changing conditions. How do you decide between whats a primary question around which there can be no compromise and whats secondary and open to negotiation?

Admittedly, its no easy question, as time and again theoretical foundation stones get traded away for seeming advantage. To gain votes, 19th-century socialists gave up key planks in their program. A few decades later, again currying favor, many of the same parties voted to support their governments war efforts. World War II found the CPUSAs leadership so taken with the task of building anti-fascist national unity that they traded away class independence for it.

This problem arises again and again: in Eurocommunism, in the Perestroika reforms, and post-Cold War, in the CPs efforts to break out of narrow strictures and find relevance amidst calls to rethink its communist outlook, change its name, and even dissolve the organization.

But these pressures are unavoidable. Indeed, they are part of the living fabric of Marxism itself, a doctrine whose views are continually tested, changed, and retested.

Clearly, care has to be taken in the course of these social tests that the very door that opens to new insights does not lead to the window through which basic principles are lost.

Concepts like the united front and the all-peoples front remain a living, breathing force in American politics. They have repeatedly come together in real life in the wake of Trumps election: in the womens marches, in the anti-police murder uprisings, in the sojourns from the uprisings to ballot boxes. The concept is not static: the all-peoples front is not an event, a meeting, a conference, but a series of meetings, events, conferences, demonstrations, marches, and occupations, over an entire period. It is the living, breathing mass movement of the people.

Drawing the lessons of its history and creatively applying them with flexibility while avoiding conceding working-class principles is key.

United and popular front forms will vary according to time, place, and circumstance: a housing coalition in one city, an alliance to prevent plant closings in another; a movement for reproductive rights in a third, an anti-war coalition to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a fourth. The Party should never be afraid to participate in, enter, or initiate coalitions. Indeed, it should be afraid not to. What it should really fear, however, is failing to stress the necessity of working-class leadership of these coalitions. As Gus Hall used to say: Keep your eyes on the working class. Youll make mistakes, sure, but you wont make the big ones.

Images: CP banners, CPUSA; Unity meme, CPUSA; UAW on strike, Al Neal, Peoples World; Henry Winston, CPUSA; Friedrich Engels painting, Wikipedia (public domain); Lenin at 2nd Comintern; Georgi Dimitrov (on the right); Hall-Tyner campaign poster, CPUSA; Gus Hall, CPUSA; Poor Peoples Campaign March on Washington, June 18, 2020, Erik Shilling.

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The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - Communist Party USA