Month: May 2021

Originally published on 10/5/2019 … To Build an Independent Labor Movement By ALAN BENJAMIN (Editorial Board, The Organizer) [Note: Following is a slightly edited version of the presentation delivered by Alan Benjamin to the opening session of the Labor Fightback Conference on Saturday, May 11, 2012, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.] On May 20, 2011, AFL-CIO President

Originally posted on 10/5/2019 The 2014 Med-Term Elections and the Struggle for Independent Working Class Political Action By ALAN BENJAMIN (Editorial Board, The Organizer) The November 2014 mid-term elections were not just one more case of the voters’ rejecting the twin parties of Big Business: the Democrats and Republicans. What took place on November 4 was a rout of the

Originally published on 10/4/2019 (Black Agenda Report, December 2018) In January 2019 the 116th Congress will swear in, this time with a Democratic majority in the House. Corporate Dems and even many self-described lefties are still celebrating some kind of victory. But it ain’t so. The headline on a November 20 Roll Call article “On Medicare For All Democrats Tread Lightly” says it

Originally published on 10/4/2019 A Green New Deal is a fine demand, but ultimately the project is hopeless if it’s executed under a capitalist umbrella. Only a socialist Green New Deal can deliver a thorough transformation of society demanded by the situation, coordinating the vast wealth and technology of the country while inviting more nations into the project, since climate

Originally posted on 10/1/2019 By Alan Benjamin (September 2005) The Labor Party that was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1996 is hanging by a thin thread. It exists in name only with a tiny apparatus. The LP’s collapse can be attributed in part to the LP leadership’s refusal to stake out a genuinely independent course against the Democrats and Republicans,

Originally published on 10/1/2019 Gabriel Torres, Member, California Federation of Teachers and Sacramento LCLAA) Workers need an organized front to fight Capital and confront the trade union bureaucracy. For starters, we need a new independent political party that will fight for the interests of the working class. And the term “workers” has to be in its name. This is fundamental.

Originally published on 9/26/2019 The launching by Bernie Sanders during his election campaign of the Workplace Democracy Act — “a plan aimed at doubling union membership over the next four years” — is extremely significant. … But this poses the $64,000 question: How will this Workplace Democracy Act see the light of day? When Bill Clinton was in office, he

Originally published on 9/24/2019 Once again, advocates for independent working class political action are confronted with activists who argue that a central arena of struggle today is between the Democratic Party “establishment” and the “progressive” and working class base of the party. Many of these activists — particularly in the Democratic Socialists of America — argue that the Sanders campaign

Originally published 9/9/2019 By the Editorial Board of The Organizer Newspaper There is a component of the fight for working-class unity and independent political action that must be a high priority: the Black struggle, which, in the aftermath of the uprising in the Black liberation movement since Ferguson, Missouri, has moved to center stage in U.S. politics. The murder of

Originally published on 9/7/2019 What many of us have been saying for decades concerning the Democratic Party and Single Payer healthcare is that the Democrats always find ways to divert this discussion with language like, “Yes, we support Single Payer, but … we cannot do it because of A, B, C, D, E, F, or G” … and the list