Workers have taken action at important workplaces in Boston, with Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA) striking Mass General Brigham and Teamsters and UNITE HERE striking Encore. These strikes need support from the rest of the working class, especially with active solidarity from other unions to reinforce picket lines. If these unions win strong contracts with real wage increases, better benefits, and improved conditions, it could inspire other workers in the area to join unions and win!
Public support for unions is at 71% as of August 2026, but only 1 in 10 workers are in unions even though half of all non-union workers say they would join a union if they could. 43% of new unions don’t have a first contract after 2 years. Corporations like Amazon and Starbucks refuse to negotiate. Pay for many union jobs is too low. Mass layoffs go mostly unchallenged. Corporations use their billions to union bust, backed by the two corporate political parties. We need a new way forward for our unions.
A breakthrough for labor will take more militancy, active solidarity, and rank-and-file democracy in our unions.
In the past workers have gone on strike to force corporations to recognize the union. In the 1930s and 1940s, mass strikes built the labor movement to its peak when 1 in 3 workers were in unions. We need to bring back strikes for union recognition and first contracts. We need solidarity strikes to stop corporate union busting and organize millions of workers who want to join unions.
No single union can take on major corporations alone. Unions need to unite to win big campaigns. Winning a union contract at Amazon or a major pay increase at UPS or for the postal workers and inspire other workers around the country to unionize and fight for first contracts.
ISG members on the picketline of the Massachusetts Nurses Association strike at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital
WE NEED MASS ORGANIZING AND A NEW POLITICAL PARTY FOR THE WORKING CLASS
Rank and file union members should fight for our unions to use the $32 billion in net assets to open up unionization campaign centers in the 20 biggest metro areas in the US as bases for mass union organizing, door to door recruitment, and public meetings to bring unions to the 90% of workers who aren’t organized. Union resources should be used to support pro-labor independents and launch a workers’ party.
It’s vital for unions to help build a workers’ party to unite the labor movement and connect it with the rest of the working class. Unions waste their resources and endorsements on the two corporate parties. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have made our most effective actions like solidarity and general strikes illegal but allow corporations to illegally union bust. They use the legal system to ban public sector strikes. Both parties refuse to repeal anti-union laws or fight for pro-worker legislation. EFCA and the PRO Act went nowhere.
The Independent Socialist Group calls for:
- Unions to lead the fight for a federal $30/hr min wage, universal healthcare, rent control, public housing, and paid sick leave and parental leave for all!
- Abolish ICE, end the billionaires’ wars and genocides. Stop the cuts in healthcare and SNAP benefits.
- Take key industries, corporations, and banks into public ownership and democratically plan production and distribution with elected representatives from the working class including unions, workplaces, working-class communities.
Revolutionary socialists have been on the frontlines of organizing our unions. Socialists and communists led the 1934 general strikes that built the CIO and massively expanded the labor movement. The only way to permanently secure good standards of living for all workers is through socialism, meaning the public ownership and democratic control and planning of the economy.
Independent Socialist Group 