Let’s salute the globe’s working-class fighters as they bring their valiant struggles into 2023!
The profit-crazed overlords of the planet bring us unending wars, rampant inflation, and a do-nothing approach to the climate crisis. But working folks the world over are not standing idly by! Led by women and youth, they are fighting like hell, and in many instances aiming for fundamental social change.
Tallest among the heroes in this saga stand the women of Iran and Afghanistan, who defy violent repression as they bravely hit the streets. In Iran their demands go far beyond dismantling the morality police, pushing for the complete overthrow of the reactionary theocracy. Surely their courage inspires others across the globe who continue to battle for basic human rights like access to abortion and an end to discrimination and sexual harassment on the job.
In the United States, the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) is working closely with Radical Women to spread the RW-initiated National Mobilization for Reproductive Justice far and wide, working in particular to attract labor support for the campaign.
Workers everywhere are waging mass strikes to defend their standard of living. They refuse to let the bosses force them to bear the burden of capitalism’s economic mess. In England, a strike wave of both private and public sector workers is mounting in scale and threatens to shut down much of the country. In the U.S., over 300,000 Teamsters members who work for United Parcel Service are preparing to wage an epic strike in 2023.
Young workers are out in front in the labor commotion. They are driving the unprecedented efforts to unionize Starbucks, Amazon, and other low-wage employers who currently exploit their workforce with impunity. And they have been bold – Starbucks employees pushed the national union in charge of the organizing drive to wage strikes and organize rallies.
The widespread labor organizing is also drawing from the tenacity and leadership of Black and other workers of color, as well as from LGTBQI+ workers. With community and cross-union solidarity, it will certainly surge in the coming year.
Youth also led climate strikes throughout the world in 2022, often with a radical perspective. Signs were emblazoned with slogans like “System change, not climate change!” All indications are that young people in their majority support socialism, so their actions have great potential to take on the whole system.
United action by the revolutionary left is desperately needed to harness the rebellious spirit of the globe’s troublemakers and lead the way toward toppling capitalism and putting the working class in charge. The FSP is working to build such action with our comrades in the Committee for Revolutionary International Regroupment, where we collaborate with revolutionaries in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico to build international solidarity and provide radical leadership within workers’ struggles. We seek to engage leftists on U.S. turf in the same way.
FSP’s recent national convention, in December near Seattle, recharged members’ energies and brought thoughtful discussion to bear on how to tackle the crises of our time. Like you, we draw much hope from the courageous efforts in the U.S. and internationally to bring a better world into being. We look forward to diving ever deeper into this noble human endeavor as we greet the Year of the Rabbit. See you in the streets!
