It's time for Class War in 2025
New Year, a new chapter in the struggle, and a few resources
It is easy to despair. It is easy to look around and see fascism, the climate crisis, and the relentless repetition of the worst of the world’s news across media outlets and social media and our various screens and think that it's all downhill from here. But today I’m here to tell you that’s not true. It might get worse before it gets better, but 2024 ended with multiple important events that should give us real hope.
It’s not that everything was rosy at the end of last year, far from it. But there were signs that millions and millions of people are tired of the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, that millions of people think the pendulum has swung too far toward oligarchy, and most importantly that people are willing to take action and organize and devote themselves to pushing that pendulum back. In other words, we’re catapulting ourselves into this New Year on a wave of class warfare. We enter 2025 with the working class finally fighting back in this war that the owning class has lop-sidedly waged relentlessly for decades against a near-dormant population. But now, slowly, the working class is waking up and learning to fight back – not just that, we’re coming to realize this is the fight of our lives.
This holiday season, two corporate giants saw a hint of what could be in store. Workers conducted unprecedented strikes at Amazon and Starbucks. The Amazon strike was the largest in the U.S. history of the company, hitting multiple distribution centers as well as the first unionized Amazon warehouse. The two trillion dollar company has refused to negotiate with workers at the warehouse and has attempted to claim that its thousands of drivers aren’t Amazon employees, hiding behind subcontractors. So the Teamsters, and thousands of workers, decided to take the fight directly to the corporate giant.
The strike at Amazon wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. This is true of each of the big fights I’ll talk about today. But workers at Amazon sent a strong message during the busiest time of year that they’re willing to fight, despite union busting, despite the NYPD arresting people on the picket line, despite the tough terrain they’re organizing on. The long struggle to fully unionize Amazon will include countless hurdles, and now Bezos is cozying up to Trump, who is sure to usher in a wave of anti-union policies. But the heroes who have already led the way were told from the beginning that their task was impossible, and they organized 10,000 of their co-workers anyway.
In a parallel story, Starbucks workers were initially told that organizing countless small shops, many with high turnover rates, was impossible. Then, they organized over 10,000 of their co-workers at over 500 locations in just three years. In December they went on strike just as Amazon workers were striking. Both sets of strikers, and their respective unions, employed the strategy deployed just over a year ago by the United Auto Workers: the stand up strike. In the case of Starbucks Workers United that meant just four stores shutting down on day 1, with the strike spreading to a full 300 locations by day 5. That’s worker power. That’s the working class building the capacity to fight back in the class war, then using it. And that’s just a hint of what’s to come next year if we all continue to build real power from the ground up.
There was a slightly lesser-known strike through the end of 2024 as well. Tenants in Kansas City went on a historic rent strike in October at two major buildings with hundreds of residents. It’s the biggest rent strike in decades, the longest ever in Kansas City, and the first to deliberately target federal regulators. These tenants want federal rent control in buildings that the government subsidizes and regulates, in addition to other federal regulations that could help keep millions of people in their homes. And, most important, they’ve organized to bring these goals within reach. The striking tenants out in Kansas City are member of KC Tenants, the city-wide tenant union, which in turn is part of the first national tenant union federation in the country, created this past year.
I don’t need to explain to you the potential power of a union of tenants organized nationwide. That right there is real people power, built from the bottom up. Much like the Amazon and Starbucks unions, these amazing heroes are just getting started, just beginning to show us what we can do if we build power in ways that are truly radical, giving us the power to be a threat in the class war rather than victims.
Ultimately, tenant organizing aims us toward a society where housing isn’t a for-profit industry, much like trade unions aim us toward a world where we control our workplaces democratically. Both are vital tools in creating a world that is just, equitable, and actually democratic. The Chicago Teachers Union is currently showing us a beautiful example of how building worker power can lead us toward this better world, and it’s at the intersection of labor and housing. This incredible union is going far beyond trying to win better wages and job conditions; the educators of Chicago are aiming to get housing for homeless students.
The union has been working to house their students in contract negotiations across much of 2024. Then, on December 30th, union president Stacy Davis Gates announced that there is a tentative agreement on housing between the union and the city. It’s hard to overstate how big of a deal this is. Organized labor, organized teachers, and specifically a union that has helped revive the labor movement across the country with its democratic structure, commitment to class struggle, and willingness to adapt and fight is on the verge of setting a precedent that educators can push governments to house students. This is what it’s all about. Solidarity is about fighting for others, not just for ourselves, and about realizing how our struggles are intertwined. And, if the CTU wins a commitment to house students, unions across the country will expand the horizons of possibility, their conceptions of what we can tackle when we organize and push for more.
This is the energy we all need to bring to 2025 – an eagerness to organize, demand more, and not settle for crumbs. Because crumbs will certainly be offered. The ruling class has created a situation where more and more people are desperate. Homelessness jumped 18% in 2024, a fascist is about to take office, and millions of people are struggling to pay bills. So as we organize and begin to fight, minor concessions will be offered, especially when violent repression doesn’t work. The super-rich want anything other than radical change, anything other than the uprooting of the systems that have placed them at the top of the ladder, and they will act accordingly.
As Amazon workers and Starbucks workers and tenants and people everywhere rise up, crumbs will be tossed our way. Workers fighting for $30/hr will be offered $23. Tenants struggling for decent conditions will be offered small buyouts and half-fixes. We need to understand that we are infinitely more powerful than we’ve been told. When we organize and start making demands that are backed up by real power, the ruling class will get scared. We ended 2024 with a good look at that fear.
One of our many tasks is to not jump at the first concession. Guided by a clear vision of real transformative, system-wide change, we won’t settle. We can and will continue to build the capacity to reach a world where no one has to choose between back-breaking work and homelessness, where no one has to choose between a lifetime of debt and life-saving medical care, where no one has to choose between their health and happiness and working a second job to afford groceries.
This year you can help make a new world a reality. You can talk to your co-workers about unionizing, no matter how hard the far-right government tries to make it. You can talk to your neighbors about a tenant union. You can start where you are and work with the people around you to build organizations, or join organizations that build real power to challenge the status quo. You can play a role in creating a new type of society that values you, that values life, right here and now. This is where our hope lies, in strong communities and people power. We’ve spent long enough losing the class war; the pendulum is starting to swing powerfully back towards the people, and it’s up to us to take up the task of continuing to push it towards a better world. So let’s get to work this year. Solidarity.
P.S. Here are a few resources you can use:
Organizing your workplace: https://workerorganizing.org/ and https://www.ueunion.org/org_steps.html (plus the book Class Struggle Unionism)
Organize a tenant union: https://atun-rsia.org/ and https://tenantfederation.org/ (plus the book Abolish Rent)
And a helpful perspective for how we approach all this organizing in the coming year: https://organizingmythoughts.org/wading-into-2025-how-to-begin/
Lastly, one more book, Jackson Rising, a comprehensive vision for grassroots change.
This is inspiring & EXACTLY what I needed to read today. The list of resources at the end of the substack piece, along with books, well, here’s your boilerplate America, along with reasons why NOT TO GIVE UP OR CAVE IN! Do not settle. America is worth it & so are you!
This is a good start, but we need to nationalize our civic disobedience. For example, one day out of the week, which we all need to agree on, we don’t purchase anything. I mean anything. Get it all Tuesday night or Thursday morning, but not Wednesdays.
Another would be to shut down commerce in our towns by shutting down the biggest roads and means of transport in our general area. You’ve got to cost them billions of dollars for them to listen. Make it hurt or it won’t matter.