Raised up by resistance to the war in Vietnam and the battle for civil rights in the 1960s and 1970s, we were part of a generation of young Americans who realized that the industrial working class was the force capable of making major political change in the US. This was certainly a stretch for many of us who had grown up in the comfortable suburban middle class with little contact or experience with workers. However, our involvement in social movements exposed us to Marxist concepts of class analysis and the role of class conflict in historical change. The organization of workers is central to that theory and to our own history of social and economic progress.

For thousands of like-minded radicals like us, it was farewell to professional careers and off to the factory.

At that time in greater Boston, it was relatively easy to get a job at one of the three Generals: the giant Fore River Shipyard in Quincy owned by General Dynamics; General Motors in Framingham; and General Electric in Lynn. (Today only General Electric remains — a small shell of its former self.) All three of the Generals employed dozens of idealistic lefties committed to a broad vision of radical change.