I have often felt mired in the transactional, campaign-by-campaign culture of the labour movement; one bogged down in electoral power politics and widespread patriarchal white supremacist attitudes, behaviours, and systems. Despite this, I truly believe that with honest and strategic self-reflection, the labour movement can transform itself into the powerful fighting force we need to confront fascism, climate catastrophe, genocide, and other present day horrors. Unions like the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) are prime examples of the power and vision labour needs. Since electing the radical Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) slate in 2010, CTU has won huge gains for teachers and students in Chicago, like smaller class sizes; support for students in precarious housing; sanctuary protections for immigrant students; and LGBTQIA+ supportive schools. CTU identifies their union contract as “a moral document [...] to keep [their] students, staff, and communities as safe as possible in an era of ascending fascism.” CORE emerged from a union member study group that read about neoliberalism, rank-and-file union caucuses and social justice unionism – an alternative to the typically non-combative “service” model seen at most unions. CORE gained the tools it needed to build transformative and popular power within the CTU through intentional study of the capitalist roots of inequality and the strategies used by other trade unionists to build power. In the same spirit, here are some starting points for building the unions and labour movement we need.

Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement (2012)

This book by Bob Ostertag and the late labour organizer Jane McAlevey is one of the few I’ve had trouble putting down, due in part to McAlevey’s gripping account of her organizing career at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). McAlevey recounts the thrilling moments when SEIU members collectively put themselves on the line to win more control over their working conditions and, ultimately, their lives. But she also unflinchingly narrates the SEIU top brass’s decimation of a militant, radical union local she had spent years helping to build because the national leadership prioritized its internal power struggles over generating democratic, rank-and-file power. Raising Expectations is a riveting exploration of organizing and worker power as well as an exposé of the capitalist and hierarchical attitudes and behaviours that our movement must unlearn if we want to build real power to transform our unions and society.

How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective (2017)

How We Get Free is a balm for unionists who believe that to stand at its full height, labour must become unapologetically anti-racist and feminist. This small volume reprints the 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement, a landmark declaration by Black lesbian socialist feminists that outlines their approach to liberation for all oppressed people. Editor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s accessible introduction explains that the statement’s articulation of intersectionality, or of multiple oppressions "experienced simultaneously," aimed to strengthen the commitments between struggles and identify capitalism as their source. She also underscores how the Statement identifies class oppression as central to racial and gender oppression. This is critical for transforming today’s labour movement, where class analysis is often reduced to appeals to save the middle class. Reading Taylor’s interviews with the statement’s authors feels like you’re sitting in on cozy conversations with amazing movement elders. How We Get Free is an inviting call for coalition-building that persuades us that we must simultaneously confront class, race, and gender oppression to build the powerful labour movement we need.

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 (2013)

Actively involving children and youth is another important way that the labour movement can transform itself to become more powerful. Written by Michelle Markel, Brave Girl is a valuable reminder that our movement’s history includes many young people who took action when older trade unionists refused to. Brightly illustrated with watercolours by Melissa Sweet, this children’s book tells the true story of union organizer Clara Lemlich. In Brave Girl, Clara organizes against inhumane sweatshop conditions and stands up to her union brothers’ sexism. In a relatable moment of frustration, after powerful but timid union leaders refuse to take action, 23-year-old Clara calls out in Yiddish for a strike at a general assembly and leads a historic 1909 walkout of 20,000 women garment workers in New York City. Brave Girl reminds us of the importance of creating youth-centred spaces like day camps and workshops to give young people a chance to connect their role in labour history to the present day and to more fully embrace union members who are parents and caregivers.

Finally Got The News (1970)

My time in unions taught me that anti-Blackness permeates the entire movement just as it does broader society. From enslavement onward, white supremacy in labour is a centuries-old phenomenon, and eradicating it is a non-negotiable part of transforming our unions. We can do this in part by learning our movement’s history from documentaries like Finally Got The News, in which revolutionary Black members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) organize for their rightful place in their Detroit union. Footage of Black members picketing a UAW convention chanting “UAW means ‘You Ain’t White!’” contrasts sharply with interviews with suit-wearing white and Black UAW leaders who dismiss the revolutionary movement. This compelling time capsule, which also features many revolutionary Black movement leaflets and posters, grounds us in our movement’s history of resistance to oppression within labour, a historic and ongoing struggle also present in unions in Canada. Studying this history better equips us to carry forward the essential work of dismantling the white supremacy within labour.

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity Through this Crisis (and the Next) (2020)

To transform our unions, we must learn to treat each other well and avoid reproducing transactional, capitalist ways of organizing. In the 19th century, unions began as mutual aid organizations, providing moral and financial support for injured, sick and elderly workers, paying for funeral services, and operating through a participatory democracy that depended on solidarity between members. In the context of today’s bureaucratized unions, author Dean Spade’s critical analysis of the NGO-ization of popular struggles is necessary reading to inform our critiques of labour and to create more deeply democratic processes and participatory spaces. We can also use the book’s resources to foster skills that we need to build up our movement, the most important being that of honest individual and collective self-reflection. The checklists, charts, and lists of critical questions in Part II of Mutual Aid can help us dismantle our burnout-inducing organizing culture, navigate conflict in humane and generative ways, and care for our mental health. Like the other resources on this reading list, this book provides hopeful strategies for transforming our movement into the revolutionary force we need.

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