This video gives a good and inspiring overview of the workers' successful occupation of their factory at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago.

For those who haven't heard, a group of about 260 mostly Latino workers in Chicago occupied their factory (Republic Windows) last Friday, in one of the most inspiring actions in the US labor movement in quite a long time.

There has been excellent coverage in Fight Back Newspaper.

Check out links to most of Fight Back's coverage here:

Support Republic Window occupation: All out for Dec. 10 protest at Bank of America

By Staff

Posted December 10, 2008

Milwaukee SDS Shows support for working class heroes, backs Republic Window occupation

By Daniel Ginsberg-Jaeckle

Posted December 10, 2008

Editorial: Victory to the Republic Window and Door Workers!

By Fight Back! Editors

Posted December 9, 2008

Chicago workers occupy factory

Photo from inside the Republic Windwos Plant occupation by Stephanie Weiner

Posted December 8, 2008

North Carolina: Solidarity with Chicago plant occupation

By Josh Sykes Posted December 8, 2008

Chicago factory occupation: Workers say "Fight back!" Posted December 8, 2008

Support Grows for Republic Windows Occupation

By Stephanie Weiner Posted December 7, 2008

Chicago: Leader of union occupying factory speaks out Posted December 7, 2008

Video of rally in support of Republic Windows plant occupation

Posted December 6, 2008

Chicago: Workers occupy plant

By Stephanie Weiner Posted December 6, 2008

May 1st is right around the corner. As most readers of this blog probably already know, May 1st is celebrated as International Workers Day around the world. For those that want more information, background and history about May Day, check out the Marxist Internet Archive resource page about it.

May 1st had been largely relegated to a day celebrated by the revolutionary left in the U.S....until two years ago. On May 1st, 2006, the immigrant rights movement shook the whole country, as hundreds of thousands of mostly immigrant workers skipped work and took the streets en masse in cities all over the country, and even a million people marched in Los Angeles. Pouring out numbers of people on the streets that the anti-war movement can't even come close to touching, it became clear that a new social force had made its mark, and May Day was back as a mass holiday in the U.S.

The marches last year on May Day were not as big as 2006, but that's not really even a fair comparison. The impressive point is that a year later, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters took to the streets again on May Day, on a work day.

Here we are in 2008. After the mass movement succeeded in stopping the heinous Sensenbrenner bill from passing, the ruling class has responded by pushing through pieces of Sensenbrenner, moving forward with the construction of the odious border wall, and most of all massively stepping up raids and deportations.

Those raids and deportations have stoked fear and been a large reason for the lower turnout at the immigrant rights marches since 2006. Also the alliances that came together in 2006 have broken down to varying degrees since then, at times coming together and at times falling apart dramatically. And the grassroots movement has gone through its inevitable ebbs and flows.

But here we are. A couple days from May Day 2008. We can continue to make a mark on history by pushing forward again on May 1st, 2008. I hope everyone reading here finds a way to participate in a march or action of some sort on May Day.

Here are some links for May Day 2008:

FRSO statement: May Day 2008: Long Live the Peoples’ Struggle!

Coverage from Fight Back Newspaper:
Chicago: Huge Immigrant Rights march planned for May 1
Los Angeles: Mobilizing for May 1 Immigrant Rights Protest
Minnesota: March for Immigrant Rights May 1st

National Immigrant Solidarity Network's May Day 2008 site with listings of activities in various cities

New York May 1st Coalition

Voces de la Frontera from Milwaukee, which last year had a demonstration of 80,000 people on May Day

March 10th Movement - Chicago did the first mega-march on March 10, 2006. Hosted the national conference on the heels of the 2006 upsurge, and organized huge numbers again in 2007

Latinos Unidos - Michigan organizing a mass march on May 1st in Detroit

MN Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAc) formed out of the 2006 upsurge and has continued to organize and build since then

This is just a quick start. Please add more links in the comments here if you know of groups organizing marches in other cities.

The following interview brings to light a sharp struggle that has been brewing in SEIU over the past couple of years. This could prove to be a very significant development.

Reprinted from Labor Notes (http://labornotes.org/node/1547)

California SEIU Leader Mounts Battle for Local Control, Union Democracy: An Interview with Sal Rosselli
— Mark Brenner

Sal Rosselli is the president of United Healthcare Workers—West (UHW), the third largest local in the Service Employees union (SEIU). He resigned on February 9 from his position on SEIU’s executive committee—a top-level advisory board to International President Andy Stern.

Rosselli’s departure is the latest, and most public, confrontation over the union’s direction.

Last spring UHW clashed with the International over a controversial partnership agreement between SEIU and a consortium of California nursing home operators (read full story). The local was also at odds with top union officials in Washington, D.C., over negotiations with the private hospital chain Tenet. In both cases International officials took direct control of negotiations and excluded locally elected leaders.

The conflict has intensified this year, with UHW and the International battling over upcoming negotiations with the Catholic Healthcare West chain and a bid to separate 65,000 long-term care workers out of UHW. Rosselli’s resignation parallels rising concern in the ranks of SEIU over the union's direction.

Rosselli spoke to Labor Notes about the opposition emerging inside SEIU. Continue reading...

http://frso.org/about/4Congress/mpr_domestic.htm

Freedom Road Socialist Organization
4th Congress, 2004
Main Political Report
Domestic Section

[This is an excerpt from the Domestic section of FRSO's 2004 Main Political Report]

The Working Class

Attacks on the Working Class

The working class has been under increasing attack in the last period. Unemployment remains high - 9.9 million jobless - and the number of unemployed running out of benefits is at an all-time high.

MRZine ran a review by longtime labor singer Anne Feeney of a new version of the IWW song book, The Big Red Songbook, which includes over 250 songs, writings and more from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) packed into more than 500 pages. The publication of the book (Charles H Kerr Press) is important. But Feeney's review is important to read, to understand the unfortunate weaknesses of the book, seemingly prompted by the anarchist sectarianism and anti-communism of Archie Green, who edited the volume. Continue reading...

Add any more you see in the comments. Or compare and contrast the coverage for extra points.
-----

FRSO
http://fightbacknews.org/2007/05/mayday.htm

Workers World
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/may-day-0510/

SWP
http://www.themilitant.com/2007/7119/711901a.html
http://www.themilitant.com/2007/7119/711901b.html
http://www.themilitant.com/2007/7119/MayDay19.pdf

CPUSA
http://pww.org/article/articleview/10983/1/370/

World Socialist Web Site (WSWS)
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/immi-m02.shtml

USMLO
http://usmlo.org/arch2007/2007-05/VR070503.htm#1

Socialist Alternative
http://socialistalternative.org/news/article15.php?id=533

Check the website for the National May 1st Movement for Worker & Immigrant Rights for protest listing for cities around the country:

Also check out the May Day 2007 statement from Freedom Road Socialist Organization: May Day 2007 - the workers day! Build the fight for immigrant rights.

Below are flyers for the local protest for immigrant & worker rights in Minnesota:

I recently watched the movie North Country. If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend renting or buying it. It's very powerful and it gives revolutionary-minded activists a lot to think about. For example the ongoing widespread existence of patriarchal and misogynist thinking and behavior by men; contradictions among workers and the struggle to overcome them; and the backward role that union bureaucrats can play if they're not guided by a true commitment to class struggle, solidarity and equality. Not to mention the outright reactionary role played by the capitalists - in this case the mining company and it's president who encourage the blatant misogynist behavior at all levels to go on in an effort to drive women (who they only hired when forced to do so by affirmative action laws) out of their jobs.

The movie, based on a real story that happened in the 1970s and 80s in northern Minnesota, provides a challenge in thinking about how to deal with what Mao called contradictions among the people, in other words contradictions that arise among different groups of oppressed people (or within an oppressed group) - in this case between male and female miners. The movie makes clear that struggle - even very sharp struggle - can be necessary even in dealing with contradictions among the people, particularly around issues of male chauvinism in this case (but also by extension white chauvinism and other oppressive behaviors among working people). Just appealing for all workers to unite around their common interests (economics like pay raises for example) is not always going to be enough - in order to build real unity and solidarity among working people it is necessary to directly confront men's sexist attitudes and actions. That is what lays the basis for true solidarity.

The main character in the movie decides to stand up and fight against the chauvinist, oppressive and even violent actions of her male coworkers, after she and the other female mine workers endure oppressive conditions for quite some time. She tries going to the union rep, who is against women working in the mine and just tries to get her to quit. She goes to the president of the company, who (with the union rep sitting at his side!) also says he is against women working there and just tries to get her to quit. She is only left with the option of trying to unite the female workers to fight against the company to get them to stop the blatant sexual harassment that is happening at all levels and every day to the women who work in the mine.

While the main character in the story does stand up and fight in the face of unbelievable abuse, it is also intense and painful to see the unwillingness of all the other women to stand up with her even in the midst of the unreal harassment they all face on a daily basis. It is only after the main character in the story stands up alone and lives through unbelievable abuse, and then when finally one of the men cracks (while on the witness stand in the trial), that some of the other women - and some of the men too - stand up along side the main character of the story, causing the tide to turn.

I guess I've already somewhat spoiled the plot, but if you want a fuller version and more info on the movie you can check out the wikipedia page for the movie. Also check out the page for Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines on sexualharassmentsupport.org, which tells about the real-life class action sexual harassment suit that the movie is based on. This was the first class action sexual harassment suit in U.S. history.

The movie is set the mines in Evelyth, a town in the northern Minnesota iron range. The movie (appropriately) has lots of Bob Dylan music - Dylan himself being from Minnesota's iron range.

In 1983 the Revolutionary Political Organization (M-L), a Marxist-Leninist group (in the Hoxhaist tradition), published an extensive and detailed Marxist class analysis of the United States, Social Classes in the United States. Their document is the most thorough of such class analysis of the US that I have seen (which isn't to say I agree with everything in it, but it is a formidable work worth studying).

Here I'm reprinting the section on Proletarian Clerical and Technical Workers, because it is one section of the document that I found interesting and insightful. Reading this 20-some years after it was written, of course some things have changed quite a bit, but I think their analysis of the proletarianization of clerical and technical work over time is insightful, particularly since they wrote it on the eve of the massive technological changes that have come with the personal computer and many other related technologies.

The section on clerical and technical workers can be found in the section on the proletariat from the document.

Click here to read the RPO(M-L) document