Labor in the Fight Against Fascism

Is your union antifascist? Is it part of a labor movement that’s fighting against MAGA’s ongoing efforts to establish an authoritarianism government in the US?

These are key questions about the survival of working-class people in this country, as much as they are about the survival of the US labor movement itself. In recent years, labor has witnessed some resurgence in political relevance and activity after decades of substantial declines in union membership. The advent of a bonafide fascist movement in the US poses serious challenges to that revitalization. “[I]n addressing the question of labor’s revitalization, our starting point must be that labor becomes an antifascist movement or it has no future,” writes labor activist and scholar, Bill Fletcher, Jr. 

An honest reckoning of the labor movement’s response to the Trump administration’s second term would be mixed, at best. But do we understand the reasons behind labor’s uneven and sluggish response to the billionaire-backed power grabs of this regime? How do we explain the seeming tension between the broader working-class interests now under everyday fire by the administration’s cuts to social welfare and those that are on the bargaining table for trade unions? What about the prevalence of regressive, fascist politics in US unions today? 

We need to study labor history and analyze our current conditions closely to see why labor is off balance in this critical fight. Only then can we get our unions and the larger movement into fighting form.

REGISTER HERE: https://bit.ly/laborvfascism

In These Times is proud to partner with the Center for Political Education on a new, 3-part online study that will give labor leaders, organizers and activists a space to assess labor’s response to the current threat, learn from and discuss the relevant history of labor in left-right dynamics in the US and globally, and strategize about how to overcome existing obstacles to labor and the trade union movement becoming an antifascist force. 

This is the impetus for CPE’s Labor in the Fight Against Fascism summer class.

This three-part study is intended to give labor leaders, organizers, and activists a space to assess labor’s response to the current threat; learn from and discuss the relevant history of labor in left-right dynamics in the US and globally; and strategize about how to overcome existing obstacles to labor and the trade union movement becoming an antifascist force.

If you lead or work in a labor union or are part of the labor movement through a workers’ center or other worker organizing, we invite you to join this class to learn and help us sharpen our strategic thinking about what’s needed to build a stronger and more militant labor movement. 

Sign-up today and please share with your colleagues and comrades in the labor movement. The first 50 paid attendees will receive a 1-year free print subscription to In These Times!

*Registration requests a suggested donation based on income and/or organizational capacity. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

When: Sessions will run on consecutive Mondays from 4-6p PT | 6-8p CT | 7-9p ET 

• Monday, June 15 
• Monday, June 22 
• Monday, June 29 

Where: Online via Zoom

Accessibility: Zoom captions; please indicate in your registration if you need any other accessibility supports.

To register visit: https://bit.ly/laborvfascism

Bill Fletcher Jr., is a long-time racial-justice, labor, and international activist, scholar, and author.  A former shipyard welder, he has been involved in the labor movement for decades, and is a widely known speaker and writer in print and on radio, television, and the Web. He has served in leadership positions with many prominent union and labor organizations, including the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union. Bill is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” 

Tej Nagaraja is Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University’s ILR School. He received his Ph.D. from New York University, and has held fellowships at Harvard University, the New School and the New York Historical Society. His research and teaching explores the intersections of U.S. labor and African American and foreign relations history. Investigating both ‘top-down’ public policy and ‘bottom-up’ social movements, his work considers how class, gender and race evolve within a changing global division of labor and geopolitics. His newest book, Troop Movements (Penn Press 2026), explains how the mobilization for WW 2—involving soldiers and defense workers—created an anti-fascist mobilization across race, class, and global concerns that catalyzed the national and international political movements and conflicts of the postwar period. Many of these diverse war workers, he contends, led a “greatest generation” of labor, Black freedom, and anti-imperial social struggles, which linked racial and economic and international issues.  

Saba Waheed is the director of the UCLA Labor Center. Prior to this role, she spent 11 years as the center’s research director. With nearly 20 years of experience developing community-led research projects for labor advocacy organizations, Waheed’s work is grounded in the “research justice” framework, which she co-developed to address structural inequities in research. In her time at the UCLA Labor Center, Waheed built the research infrastructure for, and led, more than 40 studies in partnership with low-wage workers. Among these was the first-ever study of domestic work employers, a multi-year study of workers and learners, and the first national study on nail salon workers and owners. She has also conducted research related to gig workers, young workers, Black workers, LGBTQ+ grocery workers, retail workers, fast food workers and restaurant workers.  

Justin Gilmore is on the editorial board of Bay Area Current and teaches political theory at California State Stanislaus. His research brings together political theory, historical materialism, American political development, and social movement studies around questions of political power, resistance, and reaction. His current book project, tentatively entitled Latent Fascism: The Capitalist Origins of Reactionary Politics, develops a materialist political theory to understand how capitalist structures facilitate a persistent, latent fascist potentiality that can take many possible mature forms, including reactionary populisms that fall short of a clear-cut fascist identification. Justin teaches courses on ancient, early modern, and contemporary political theory; Marxism and class struggle; liberalism and conservatism; and the politics of fascism.