DURHAM—“Who’s got your back? We got your back!” chanted Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW) worker-organizer and Communist Party USA labor organizer Erica Meade to a gathering of dozens of trade unionists and labor activists at the Peoples’ Solidarity Hub in North Carolina this past weekend.
This year, workers have been traumatized by the rapid decay of not only their rights in the workplace but in almost all areas of life—from health care and education to retirement. For immigrant workers, even the ability to work in this country is under threat.
The Southern Labor Organizing Conference faced these threats head on, bringing together trade unionists and activists for a two-day session in Durham, May 31-June 1, to strategize for the struggles ahead.
As has been the case in the past, the South is a primary battleground for the billionaire-backed assaults on jobs, communities, living conditions, and workers’ hard-won, albeit limited, democratic gains.
“The South has a proud and unrecognized history of fighting for democracy under the most difficult conditions,” Roberta Wood of the CPUSA Labor Commission said in opening the conference.
Wood declared, “We workers, actually all of humanity, are living in a political moment when anyone paying attention is scared to death.” She pointed to the growing danger of fascism in the U.S. and said attacks on the labor movement should be seen in that context.
She emphasized that the threat of fascism “is not an expression of capitalism’s power and success,” but rather a “dangerous manifestation of its failure.” Whereas the economic system may have been seen as free market competition in the past, today capitalism relies on “monopolizing markets, price-fixing, squeezing out competitors and extracting profit through government contracts and market manipulation.”
All these things are combining to put a tighter squeeze on workers’ living standards and pushing corporations and government to restrict the labor movement, Wood said. “Fascism,” she pointed out, “is the solution capital turns to when its old ways aren’t working anymore.”
“This is not a new fight, but a continuation of the working-class and broad peoples’ movement for political and economic democracy,” said Cameron Harrison, a CPUSA Labor Commission member who also addressed the meeting. “Trump’s re-election marks a qualitative shift: The most extreme sections of the capitalist class now wield state power and are determined to smash our unions and gut our social safety nets. All this is to pay for permanent tax cuts for the billionaires and secure permanent control over all levels of power.”
“Getting back to basics—worker to worker organizing—in order to build our unions and build our movement is the main task before us,” Harrison said. “We must set our focus where the working class is most concentrated (factories, schools, logistics, hospitals) to build strong points of resistance—not just defensive but also offensive.
“This doesn’t mean we only focus on already-unionized workplaces,” he said. “Keep in mind 90% of our class is unorganized.”
Even before large industrial unions were built in the 1930s, the tactics and methods used by workers organizing other workers won incredible gains: the end of child labor, the establishment of the 8-hour workday, the right to sick leave, and the right to organize a union.
However, “the South was not always as lucky” during those earlier periods of labor victories, said Mama Cookie, a USSW worker-leader, grandmother, and community leader from Durham. “There is fear in the South,” she said. “Racism was front and center, and it still is to this day. They try to create fear and a feeling of powerlessness.”
The Southern states modified their economies in the 20th century to take advantage of this fear, appealing to big business by offering an easily exploitable cheap, unprotected, and racially-divided labor force. “The fight for workers’ rights in the South is a fight not just for justice, but for emancipation from racism,” said one attendee.
Even now, with the lowest union density in the U.S., the Southern economic model is reinforced by racist and anti-union features that net massive profits from workers fear, disorganization, and rampant exploitation.
“There hasn’t been a year…that farm workers haven’t been sent home in a coffin,” said Leticia, an organizer with the immigrant workers organization, El Futuro Es Nuestro (The Future is Ours). “From the fields to the factories, workers in the South are seen as expendable and replaceable. And that fear, despite labor laws and union presence, rules their lives.”
Magaly Licolli, a union organizer from Venceremos, had everyone shaking their heads when she detailed the highly oppressive and exploitative conditions at poultry and meatpacking plants in the South.
“We are not allowed breaks, and we’re only allowed to have water on site—not shade, not rest, not lunch. Workers have had to wear diapers because there was nowhere to go and no time either,” she said to shouts of “SHAME!” from the attendees.
“What world do we live in where a worker cannot even go to the bathroom? Cannot even sit down to have lunch, or even find a minute to catch their breath. Do we not deserve decency? Do we not deserve rest?” she said.
“The ground is not the end, however, it is where we find our roots,” Stewart Acuff, former AFL-CIO National Organizing Director, encouraged attendees. “There is no better place in the world than labor unions for workers to learn about their class and class struggle,” he said.
Even recently, the labor movement in the South has made the kind of gains not seen in 20 years, according to Chris Townsend, former United Electrical Workers (UE) Washington representative and the Amalgamated Transit Union’s (ATU) international organizing director.
“In the last four to five years, 75,000 people have joined a union in Virginia,” Townsend said. He pointed out that, while significant, more must be done in terms of organizing the unorganized members of the working class. “Building the trade union movement and organizing new workers into our ranks is the main task before us today,” he said.
Conference attendees spent several sessions discussing how they would take the lessons from past struggles and connect them to the fights ahead. They talked about strategies for building broad unity to combat the MAGA right, how to get involved in Central Labor Councils, and how to build rank-and-file worker organization, regardless of whether the workplace is union or not.
The conference concluded with discussion of a resolution outline that participants could bring back to their union locals or other organizations to strengthen the struggle for immigrant workers’ rights on the job, their right to due process, and to defend them against ICE raids at work or at home.
“Many like to differentiate between supporting immigrants and supporting workers,” Licolli said. “But I’m here to say that we are both immigrants and workers and you cannot separate those from one another,” she said to cheers.
“Our movement is awakening,” Harrison said. “We see it during the national days of action against the attacks on our public services like Social Security and Medicaid, the national movement for May Day, the movement to defend Brother Kilmar Abrego Garcia of the Sheetmetal Workers, and the efforts of organizations like the Union of Southern Service Workers, the Southern Workers Assembly, CAUSE, and all the other unions we are proud members of.”
Wood sounded a similar note, telling the conference that fascism can be defeated. “Our job is to build resistance, and our superpower is solidarity.” She asked, “How do we disarm fascism?” Her answer: “Bring people into struggle, not just as individuals but as communities, families, neighborhoods, campuses, and especially workplaces.”
And the time is right for resistance, she declared. “The working class is in, and people use that term. More people are pro-union than ever.”
“People are hungry. They are hungry for a better life…a life where people can grow and create value for themselves,” said Steve Noffke, chair of the CPUSA Labor Commission. “All unions across America should take a note from the United Southern Service Workers core values: anti-racism, militancy, solidarity, and soul.”
Mama Cookie agreed. “The soul is our Southern power,” she said, “and that is how we win.”
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