The Working Class Struggle - In A Year
The Louisville Workers Brigade
4/1/2025
The working class's struggle for its empowerment and liberation is a never-ending struggle. Since May Day of 2024, the class struggle has escalated further and further, with longstanding and recent issues inflaming the conflict, spurring working and oppressed people to organize in opposition to the inherent qualities of exploitation and oppression in our current economic system. The result has been inspiring scenes of defiance and resounding victories for the working and oppressed people; in other instances, however, brutal defeats; but most often a series of inconclusive battles. Regardless of the outcome, each struggle, each encounter between the forces of radical and revolutionary change and the forces of stagnation and exploitation, solidifies the bonds of solidarity between each of working and oppressed people and invigorates the latent class consciousness within us. It is for this reason it would do us well to look over the year since the last May Day, to recount some of these struggles, and to see where things now stand.
Internationally
The world remained gripped by the Palestinian Liberation Movement, with the ongoing genocide being committed by Israel sustaining the zeal of pro-Palestinian forces abroad. Ever since October 2024, millions of regular working and oppressed people still stand in unwavering solidarity with the plight of the Palestinian people as they face the relentless colonial, apartheid state of Israel. In the US, students have taken up the fire of struggle, organizing mass demonstrations, hosting vigils for the lives lost in the genocide, coordinating dies-ins, establishing pro-Palestine encampments on dozens of universities, and more. The Palestinian Liberation Movement in America carries the spirit of the anti-Vietnam War Movement. Most impressively, in a single day, on March 2, millions of people around the world took to the streets and shouted in unison, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, “End the Occupation”, and “Ceasefire Now”.
Aided by the BDS Movement against Israel, the Palestinian Liberation Movement has had a major impact on the situation. We see universities, such as San Francisco State University, divest from Israel, Puma ending its contract with the Israel Football (soccer) Association, South Africa submitting a case to the International Court of Justice rightfully accusing Israel of committing genocide, and the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Though these actions have not ended the genocide and it's likely that the perpetrators of this slaughter will go unpunished, the sheer displays of solidarity and material support to the Palestinian cause are inspiring and demonstrate that a great sense of international solidarity is being built, which will be vital as the situation continues to develop, with Israel now having broken the ceasefire by launching a widespread aerial bombardment on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 591 people, including children, ending the ceasefire agreement reached back in January.
While the support for Palestinian Liberation grows, an equal and very dangerous phenomenon follows closely behind it in the hopes of snuffing out the foundations of a radical and revolutionary trend: the resurgent far-right. Like in Europe and many parts of the world during the 1920s and 30s, as the contradictions inherent in capitalism grow more acute by the day and working and oppressed people begin to demand alternatives to the status quo, the owning class shakes in their ivory towers. In response, the owning class acts in its own class interests by bankrolling anyone who will serve them and maintain their exploitative and oppressive rule. The result is the election of “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei as president in Argentina, an attempted coup d'etat by then-president Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea, and the electoral rise of the fascist AfD in Germany just this past February. All over the world, the far-right grows more powerful, while the liberal and centrist parties pave the way for their ascension by playing cover for them and allowing these parties to become “respectable.” This only continues, especially as the left remains divided and weak in many countries, such as in the US.
Nationally
In the US, there were many issues and struggles that were happening, though for a good chunk of the year, eyes were on the election. This election was viewed, unsurprisingly, by liberals as the “most important election in our lifetime,” pitting the defenders of democracy against the forces of authoritarianism. Yet, to anyone actually paying attention, this wasn’t the case. The then-president, Biden, was no defender of democracy, with him and the rest of his administration eagerly providing Israel with the arsenal and support it needs to wage its genocide against the Palestinian people. Combined with his previous crushing of the near-Railroad Strike back in 2022, the incarceration of undocumented immigrants in cages, and much more, it’s evident that Biden wasn’t a champion of the people, which is why he was forced to withdraw from the race and endorse Kamala Harris. However, she was no better and would have continued much of the same policies that Biden supported, particularly a full-throated support for Israel. And, frankly, there is so much wrong with Trump that I don’t need to get into specifics.
However, though many working and oppressed people recognized that neither political party represented their class interests, they had fallen into a repeated trend in American politics: doomerism. Due to a myriad of factors, most importantly a disconnect between the masses and revolutionary theory and organizing, most folks see no way out of their current predicament, leading to doomerism that allows for ghouls like Trump to walk in without serious opposition. Yes, folks opposed Trump before his first term in office, and people are opposing him now, but there was no concerted effort by working and oppressed people to challenge Biden, whose administration opened the door for Trump. Despite presenting itself as a “friend of the people,” the Democratic party has a long history of opposing working class initiatives that would actually substantially alter the way the country operates. Instead of action, the Democratic party provides hollow words and empty symbolic gestures, never truly serving as a vanguard for our class interest. Remember how the Democrats never enshrined Roe v. Wade despite their supermajority or how Biden-era immigration policies were escalations of what Trump did, allowing Trump to “continue where he left off”? To build toward our collective liberation, we must firmly disconnect ourselves from both political parties and create a working class party.
Following the election, the country was gripped by a new obsession. On December 4, the then-CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was killed, sparking a massive conversation on the state of healthcare in the US. Few, if any, cared about Thompson’s death, with many rightly pointing out that insurance agencies, including UnitedHealthcare, are exploitative parasites that drain a person for all they are worth and never fork over the money that is desperately needed to fund any medical expenditure. Though the conversation didn’t go anywhere politically, it served as a powerful educational resource in showing people the clear contradictions in American society and why we must organize against our present economic system.
Recently, the struggles that have gripped working and oppressed people have been related to the string of actions taken by Trump over the last few weeks. Though having been in office less than 3 months, Trump is leaving no stone unturned, no people unscathed. Under his watch, Trump is determined to bring untold suffering to all working and oppressed people, with him launching a particular crusade against immigrants. Through ICE, seemingly every facet of the government, including the IRS, is being used to identify, round up, and deport immigrants under the xenophobic and malicious lie that they are “criminals” and “threats to our way of life.” Elsewhere, Trump is keen to dismantle our education system, gut government agencies of their staff à la the EPA, and hound marginalized communities. It is apparent that this Trump presidency is more vile than the last, which is why it's imperative that working and oppressed people form strong bonds of solidarity and organize to combat not only this administration but the very systems and groups that created and will continue to create this suffering.
Locally
Locally, there has been an undercurrent of struggle. In fact, on May Day of 2024, TARC workers with the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1447 organized a practice picket to bring community awareness to the $14 million cuts that the Metro government was proposing with TARC, which would negatively impact the ability of TARC to provide adequate public transportation to the thousands of Louisvillian’s who desperately rely on that service, especially during the time that JCPS was suffering from a major bus driver shortage. Unfortunately, these cuts went through, but, in response, there is a growing community effort to rectify this and to give TARC the funding it needs and deserves! Along with the TARC workers, workers elsewhere were taking a stand against their exploitation. Workers with CWA Local 3310 at AT&T, workers with IBEW 369 and UA 502 at Monument Chemical, and others went on strike against their bosses over contract negotiations and unfair labor practices, with these struggles being resolved shortly after.
Around the time of the presidential election, Kentucky had two constitutional amendments up for referendum, neither good. Amendment 1 would merely reinforce the already existing law that a non-citizen cannot hold elected office, and Amendment 2, the worse of both, would finally have Kentucky join other states in diverting public funds into private schools. In an inspirational display of working class unity, Kentucky voters voted down this measure, a victory for public education. Though other public services are still under threat and this won’t be the last time public education is directly targeted, the defeat of Amendment 2 is a victory for working people and demonstrates that working people, regardless of their affiliation to either political party, can come together to recognize their class interests.
The Path Forward
As can be seen, much has happened since May Day of 2024, which doesn’t even begin to cover the things that I haven’t mentioned. What this all demonstrates is that the class struggle, as always, is actively being waged by both sides on a daily basis all across this country, inside every state, every city and town, every workplace, and every community. With every struggle, working and oppressed people are waking up to the realities of living under capitalism and are taking a stand against it, even if they don’t realize it yet. Yet, for our achievements, the struggle is far from over. Climate change is fast approaching, threatening to destroy the lives of millions and do irreparable harm to our environment. Moreover, the threat of imperialist wars still looms, especially as the American empire continues to dissolve before our very eyes. Worse still, the rise of the far-right across the world is a worrying sign of the exploitation, oppression, and brutalization to come, with eerie parallels to the rise of reactionary and fascist movements in the 1900s, with the biggest difference being that we lack a cohesive revolutionary movement to combat them. It is for all these reasons that we all must intensify our efforts—we must have more strikes, we must continue to expand our understanding of theory, we must organize the unorganized, we must build steeled bonds of solidarity between all sections of the working class, and we must continue to build the foundations of a revolutionary movement that overthrows capitalism, dismantles exploitation and oppression, and sets us on the path to a world for all working and oppressed people!
Power, peace, and liberation to all working and oppressed people!