LABOR Committee

Louisville DSA has a standing labor committee to help organize workers into a class that can fight and beat the boss. As socialists, we believe that workers produce all wealth and are entitled to the full fruits of their labor. As such, we believe organizing labor is important both in principle and strategically. As workers produce all wealth, strikes hit at the heart of capitalist profit and power. This committee helps create militant unions that can go on and win strikes through rank-and-file organizing and organizing the unorganized in the greater Louisville area.

The labor movement had been in decline over the last forty years, but recent strike waves and unionization victories show workers are ready and able to fight back. Louisville DSA believes the best way to rebuild the labor movement is by helping workers develop militant unions that are willing to strike for better wages and working conditions.

We believe the best way to transform existing unions into militant unions is through the rank-and-file strategy. We believe we need to work with militant unions to organize unorganized workers into unions that can protect them and help them win concrete gains.

Rank-and-file Strategy

The rank-and-file strategy is premised on the idea that a union gets its strength through the mass participation of its members and its ability to go on and win strikes. The rank-and-file strategy is a plan on how to transform unions into democratic, mass participatory bodies where average members are engaged in organizing around shared demands.

The rank-and-file strategy encourages socialists and like-minded trade unionists to get union jobs. At their new jobs, these workers recruit co-workers who are natural leaders and go on to identify widely felt issues to organize around. These issues form the basis of campaigns that engage as many of their co-workers as possible, which builds the mass power of the union. 

Louisville DSA has decided to do the rank-and-file strategy at UPS WorldPort to help Teamsters win a strong contract in 2023. If you are interested in getting a job at UPS or if you work at UPS and want to organize for better conditions, fill out this form and contact us at logistics@dsalouisville.org.

Organizing the Unorganized

Rebuilding the labor movement means rebuilding labor density: we want workers to be able to organize unions if they don't have one yet. Rank-and-file efforts connect to organizing unorganized workers because they transform unions into organizations that are willing to dedicate serious resources to organizing workers in new industries. From the success of rank-and-file efforts within CWA to engage in new campus organizing through United Campus Workers (UCW), or the efforts of the union reform movement Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) to engage in organizing Amazon, transforming our unions into grassroots organizations helps unorganized workers.

By working with militant unions and offering labor trainings, Louisville DSA is committed to organizing the unorganized. If you are a worker and you want to organize your workplace, visit DSA's national Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) to get resources and mentorship from experienced labor organizers. If you are organizing or on strike in the greater Louisville area and would like support from Louisville DSA, please contact us at dsalouisville@gmail.com.