The Rank and File Strategy
The labor movement is the critical institution for the Left. Socialists should root themselves in it — not as supporters from afar or paid staff, but as rank-and-file workers.
Alfred Palmer / Library of Congress
One of the first questions most people who decide they’re socialists is, “How should I think about the labor movement?” Many new socialists don’t find immediate answers to this question.
They know instinctually that the labor movement is good — that unions as institutions can serve as a check on massive inequality, that workers going on strike is brave and should be supported, that the labor movement has historically constructed the sense of solidarity that is needed to remake the world into one that is humane and democratic.
Beyond that, though, the details get fuzzy.
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