What Socialism Has to Do With the U.S. Labor Movement

Bread and Roses is a series exploring the growing interest in socialism among young people who are seeking alternatives to recovery in this pivotal historical moment.
Labor organizers in front of a sign reading whatever it takes
Liz Coulbourn

Democrats and Republicans alike have long tried to harness for themselves the U.S. labor movement’s power, while ignoring and condemning its radical history — and its deep socialist roots.

The Democratic Party has cast itself in the role of labor’s champion and sunk its claws deep into major union power structures. The GOP has talked a big game about representing working Americans while shredding the social safety net and workplace safety regulations, pushing right-to-work laws, and refusing to raise the minimum wage. The roots of this relationship go far deeper than any flawed capitalist two-party binary. No matter how many star-spangled politicians on either side of the aisle try to hijack the labor movement’s messaging and its people power, we must never forget that the house of labor has always flown red — and black — flags.

There are many ways to interpret socialism as an ideology (and well over a century’s worth of theory, arguments, and discussions devoted to doing just that), but a great deal of the conversation revolves around the workplace, and who controls what therein. Socialists advocate for a system in which the workers control the means of production and enjoy the fruits of their labor, free of the demands of a capitalist boss who seeks to hoard profits. To get closer to that goal, workers must organize and exercise their collective power to win what they want, which is where unions come in. No other broad political ideology hews as closely to labor’s own goals. We could go deeper into how specific leftist tendencies approach this struggle (remind me to tell you all about anarcho-syndicalism one of these days), but “socialism” works as a handy umbrella term here.

Many of labor’s most iconic figures — the firebrands, rabble-rousers, and working class heroes — were socialists, communists, or anarchists who saw the radical potential of collective action, and shunned liberal half-measures in pursuit of real liberation. From influential civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to trailblazing Frances Perkins to farmworker champion Dolores Huerta, many of labor’s most cherished ancestors have been red radicals. The Socialist Party had an outsized impact on the labor movement’s early days in this country, as did a number of influential radical thinkers and organizers, like anarchist Lucy Parsons, socialist Big Bill Haywood, and communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. All three were part of a labor organization called the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a member-run union founded in 1905 that embraced an industrial model of organizing and continues to welcome all workers, no matter their trade. The IWW, whose members are known as Wobblies, is still active and has several notable campaigns organizing fast-food workers, retail workers, and freelance journalists (they also accept members of other unions, which is how I’m able to proudly call myself a Wobbly).

Many of these old-school labor greats were comrades and worked together on the 19th century’s great struggles, including the fight for an eight-hour workday and the end of child labor. Much like today’s organizers, many of them were involved in multiple political efforts and organizations, and held evolving views on the usefulness of the ballot box. For example, Eugene V. Debs, who helped found the influential American Railway Union (and helped cofound the IWW), ran for president on the Socialist Party ticket five times; he started his career as a Democrat, but converted to the cause of socialism a few years after being imprisoned for his involvement in the 1894 Pullman Strike. Debs remains a hero to many, including Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who brought at least a little of that radical spirit to his 2020 bid for the presidency.

In the 20th century, the Communist Party also sought to play an active role in the U.S. labor movement, with mixed results. For as much as socialism’s goals align with those of the broader working class, not everyone in the movement has seen it that way, and that enduring resistance to leftist ideas is apparent in the current incarnation of the Democratic Party. And for as long as there have been socialists (and communists and anarchists) involved in the labor movement, there have been opposing factions determined to kick them out, or at least tamp down their ideas into something less threatening to the status quo.

In some cases, people from opposing factions were able to bury their sectarian arguments and work in solidarity. For example, influential labor leader Samuel Gompers served as the first president of the American Federation of Labor in 1886, the same year that the state arrested the Haymarket anarchists of Chicago. Gompers was personally opposed to socialism, yet worked closely with Detroit anarchist Joseph Labadie, who was involved with the Knights of Labor and organized the Michigan Federation of Labor in 1888. On the other side of the coin, when the Red Scare hit Hollywood in the 1940s and early 1950s, communists and those suspected of harboring leftist beliefs were blacklisted by the film industry and abandoned by their unions (some unions apologized years later). The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which continues to hurt workers’ ability to organize in this country, also originally required union officers to deny under oath that they had any communist affiliations, which made it easy for some in union leadership to expel radicals from their ranks. (The anti-communist provision was finally ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1965.)

Now, a new generation of labor leaders — including Sioux Falls AFL-CIO president Kooper Caraway and Association of Flight Attendants president Sara Nelson — are shifting from the movement’s past shaky relationship with socialism and forging ahead for the sake of working people everywhere. On the political side, elected officials like representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and down-ballot democratic socialist candidates like formerly incarcerated parent Mckayla Wilkes, veteran Isiah James, and truck driver Joshua Collins have been vocal in their support for striking workers and the need for more universal programs such as Medicare for all and student loan debt forgiveness. It’s not revolutionary socialism, but it’s a start.

As more young people across the country reject capitalism and turn toward a more radical framing, the labor movement remains at a crossroads, and in my opinion, the only sensible path forward lies further left. As brother Debs wrote in 1898, “Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will Socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation be also found, unfurling its class-struggle banner and proclaiming its mission of emancipation.”

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