Author: phillywsa

No Kings! No Capitalism! No State! 

 From Philly Metro Workers Solidarity Alliance 

This Saturday we will travel with our co-workers to No Kings protests, some to City Hall, some to Harrisburg, and some to DC. 

As WSA, of course we will be there with our calls for an end to racism and the class system, and an end to genocide – resistance to fascism without mere reformism. We stand for working-class revolution from below! 

While the cause we bring is more radical than the event the organizers are broadcasting, it’s crucial for us to be there.

The idea of boycotting or dismissing a mass mobilization for democracy against fascism, does not appeal to us. We want to be IN our workplace and present our views, and WITH our co-workers at Saturday’s protests. For some this will be the first protest they ever attend. Among workers at higher risk, in this time of repressive danger, their willingness to attend a protest is courageous. 

We stand internationally with our comrades in the International Workers Association as we deal with this global authoritarian movement, this international threat to immigrant workers and erosion of rights. May the voice of workers this Saturday speak out in solidarity with all at risk, and call for transformation! 

Trump’s Invasion of Portland

REPORT FROM WSA IN PORTLAND

It seems the saying is true, “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.” This week, we are confident to say, is one of those weeks. President Trump, in his continued attacks against the liberty of the American people, has deployed several federal agents to Portland, Oregon. This is yet another attempt by President Trump to use federal agents to stiffle popular opposition to his administration. First, the President targeted Los Angeles to subdue the protests against his immigration policy. Then he took aim at Washington D.C. after the carjacking of Edward Coristine (better known by his online nickname “Big Balls”). Then he turned to Memphis to “[restore] law and order”. Now, he has shifted his focus to Portland.

It was only a matter of time before the president shifted his focus to the City of Roses. Portland was a famous hub of discontent after the murder of George Floyd, which President Trump tried suppressing in his first term. Besides that, Portland is the only major US city with members of the Democratic Socialists of America controlling one-third of the city council. While the electoral method is not and has never been a viable route to revolution, the success of the DSA in Portland is, to quote the New York Times, “[playing] an outsize role in a city where Republicans are an endangered species.” This socialist influence in Portland is especially relevant as a groundswell of progressive candidates have emerged across the country to challenge the capitalist establishment (including in fellow Pacific Northwest city Seattle). And for that, Trump has decided to send troops.

The president knows that people are growing tired of his administration, so he is trying to silence people through strength. If he can suppress Portland without resistance, it is another domino falling that will allow him to become like the dictators he has sought to emulate since his first term. But he is failing. On October 4, Trump-appointed judge Karin Immergut temporarily blocked Trump from sending troops to Portland. However, Trump is already searching for ways around this ruling. Most recently, he floated invoking the Insurrection Act to force troops into Portland. Beyond that, he has already deployed 300 National Guardsmen to Chicago. No matter how many judicial blocks, how many strongly worded letters, how many governments tell him “no,” Trump will always ignore them. The only way forward now is resistance. The people of Portland must take their city back.

To that end, there is hope. Protests have broken out against Trump and ICE, despite threat of injury and arrest. More demonstrations were held on October 7 to protest the Trump Administration’s continued funding of the genocide in Gaza, a march on the Portland ICE facility is scheduled for the 12th, as well as a second round of No Kings protests that are scheduled for the 18th. The people of Portland are fed up. They are not willing to stand idly by while fascists try to take their city from them, and it is our duty to stand beside them. But beyond that, we must work to foster revolutionary potential. We have been given a chance to fight and win true liberty, true equality, and true solidarity. We cannot let it pass us by.

If freedom is dear to you, if you are tired of the continued assaults on our rights, if you are angry at the injustice in the world, now is the time to fight. In any way that you can, you must defy Trump and his fascists. Protest, speak out, organize. Times may seem desperate, and it is normal to feel confused. It is normal to not know what happens next. It is normal to be afraid. But you cannot let fear keep you from action. We are living through the passing of greed, of hateful men who fear the progress of society. But their hatred is not unstoppable. Their rule is not unstoppable. Because so long as humans can think for themselves, tyranny will falter. It will stumble and show its hand. And when it does that, its days are numbered.

May Day and the Struggle Ahead!

Online Gathering: Thursday, May First, 8:30 pm EDT

You are warmly invited to our Fourth Annual May Day Online Event, This Thursday, May First, 8: 30 pm EDT

Hosted by Greater Chicago WSA (Workers Solidarity Alliance, Anarchist-Syndicalist, friends with IWA)

This Jitsi link will get you into the meeting –

(Contact us if you have trouble getting in)

https://meet.jit.si/WSAMayDay2024

A short program :

Opening Song By Martin Traphagan

Annual One Minute May Day Speech, by Piper

Tariffs Divide Us, The Struggle Unites !

Relaxed Report backs from May Day, and our current crisis

See you there !

Tariffs Divide Us – The Struggle Unites!

From Workers Solidarity Alliance, Labor Committee. 

  Revolutionary unionists have always stood for the solidarity of the global working class, rejecting every attempt by the ruling class to divide us—whether through borders, race, gender, or any other means of exploitation. The idea that workers in any one country have interests in common with their bosses is a lie designed to keep us from recognizing our true power. The recent trade war policies of the fascist U.S. President Trump, which sought to pit U.S. workers against workers in other nations through tariffs, were just one example of how those in power manipulate workers for their own gain. When ruling classes in other countries retaliate, it is nothing more than a struggle between competing capitalists—none of whom serve the interests of the working class. Meanwhile, their economic and political systems continue to brutalize migrant workers, exploit marginalized laborers, and uphold structures of oppression that harm all but the wealthiest few.

Any attempt to rally workers behind protectionist policies—whether by right-wing nationalists or union bureaucrats like United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain—is a betrayal of true working-class solidarity, operating within a system that assumes the permanence of exploitation, seeking only to negotiate for slightly better conditions rather than challenging the system itself. It is no surprise, then, that they accept the logic of capitalist competition, framing economic struggles as battles between nations rather than between workers and bosses. If our unions are led by those willing to collaborate with the ruling class, then workers must build new structures of power—organizing outside the limits imposed by hierarchical union leadership and embracing direct action, mutual aid, and truly democratic decision-making in our workplaces, communities, and beyond.

At the same time, we reject the myth of “free trade” as a benevolent force. For centuries, imperialist powers—including the U.S., Russia, and China today—have used it as an ideological cover for the exploitation and plunder of workers in smaller, less powerful nations. The wealth hoarded by the ruling classes of imperialist nations is stolen from the labor and resources of the Global South, just as capitalism itself is built on the theft of Indigenous land, the unpaid labor of enslaved people, and the continued oppression of marginalized communities. Some workers in the imperial core may receive small material benefits from this exploitation, but we reject any suggestion that this justifies their complicity. The labor movement must refuse to be a tool of capitalist expansion, and those who try to convince workers that they share a common cause with their bosses—whether through nationalism or reformism—are enemies of true workers’ liberation.

Rather than being trapped in the false choice between “free trade” and protectionism, workers must demand a new world—one where resources and wealth are shared equitably, and decisions about production and distribution are made democratically by those most affected. A movement for workers’ liberation must be rooted in feminism, anti-racism, disability justice, environmental justice, and the struggle against all forms of oppression. Only through solidarity that recognizes the full humanity of all workers—across borders, genders, and identities—can we create a future beyond capitalism, where our labor serves our communities, not the profits of the ruling class.

Earliest Days of This Trump Attack  

By Philly Metro and Greater Chicago WSA 

Among many reports and conversations at our November 40th Anniversary Congress, two that stand out are a  renewed excitement about working-class journalism, and how our WSA Branches are trying to orient our work to our worksites and co-workers. 

What this has meant in these early days of the Trump-Musk Attacks? 

We can’t speak for all WSA members, but many of us have felt depressed and in shock, aware that our families are directly vulnerable.

In contrast to 2016, where the resistance to Trump was immediately galvanizing, there has been a cultural sea-change. We certainly feel part of this ‘just-getting-on-our-feet-now’ period.

Speaking for only some in our branches, these early months have felt like a tornado watch. We keep looking out our window to see how close the danger is. There has been a noticeable pause on our public national level projects as this Trump-Musk attack is unfolding, but  as we write this, we are getting back to our work! 

As regards our worksites, one of the immediate responses has been to the scapegoating ICE raids some of our most at-risk families have been living in terror at the haphazard nature of these assaults. 

We’ve been actively working on connecting our coworkers with community organizations, putting out flyers with contact info for immigrant rights hotlines, helping with outreach for multilingual trainings. 

Locally, we’ve also been helping to organize an upcoming protest in coalition with local activists. While we are not reformists, we bring our workforce concerns and syndicalist analysis as best we can, trying to build momentum for any public opportunity to say “NO!” to this time of crisis. 

As anarcha-syndicalists we are clear as daylight that we use the word ‘democracy’ to mean not bourgeois democracy where the competing elites vie for our votes to get power. We will resist Trump and Musk, but this does not mean we were signed up to support what would have been a Biden-Harris regime of business as usual and genocide.  We are clear that by standing up for democracy we mean a worker’s democracy, and the classless, non-hierarchical society which alone can make the word ‘democracy’ meaningful.  But right now we are focusing on our commonality with at-risk co-workers and others, with Trump voters who suddenly realize their jobs & benefits are now in jeopardy.

While we are few and our branches are small, it feels the best way for us to cope is to stay engaged. While we’ve been slow to get back to journalism, it’s time to do just that. Members are saying it’s time for us to have our WSA National Labor Committee soon, and we will!

As a way back to working-class journalism, today during work hours we did what we meant to do, which was to talk with WSA members and comrades, and try to get their thoughts into print.

As a start today, at 10 am, while on the clock, we talked on the phone with our comrade Greg Mcgee:

“What we should do is have a dialogue with our fellow workers, but make sure we use facts. Use radical websites talking about Russian deserters and Ukrainian deserters refusing to fight. Imagine together if they called the soldiers and no one showed up! The wars would stop.”

“With all this rampant fascist nationalism happening now, the bigotry, anti-semitism, racism, right now, imagine replacing the word “immigrant” with “Jew”, and discuss the fascist past. We know that Mussolini and General Franco were fascists, we really don’t know what Trump and Musk are. LThey may just be narcissists, but I think we need to draw our fellow workers’ attention to the historical past of fascism, how this is looking worse and worse. Again, the scapegoat is immigrants right now; remember what happened in Nazi Germany: Right now it is much much less far-fetched thinking it could happen here. We have to remember what happened to Japanese people in the U.S. in WWII, where people were rounded up and put in concentration camps.”

“This is the time for meetings with our fellow workers at our places of employment; this is the time to work on our common ground, the threat that’s facing us now.”

From Lana –  by phone during work hours, an hour later:

“It’s so multi-faceted, this outright chainsaw to any social safety nets, and we absolutely know as the economy goes south, we in the working class are first in line for the economic consequences.  Isn’t this what we’ve been saying all along? That capitalism is evil because it uses us as fodder in so-called good times, and uses us as frontline fodder in any disaster? 

“I think this is the time for us as syndicalists to get on our feet and organize, to get our fellow workers involved as a group from our workplace in community resistance – it’s a wake-up call. Five-alarm fire, let’s get to it !” 

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Saturday at 3pm est, Steve Rabinowitz at the WSA Congress, “WSA Past And Future” a pubic workshop!

Join us this Saturday at 3pm est, where founding member of WSA, and WSA’s first National Treasurer reflects on WSA’s history, and invites us to its future !

For info how to participate, write to us at

Philly-Metro-WSA@proton.me

we will check email just before the meeting, see you then !

Workers Solidarity Alliance to hold 40th Anniversary Congress ! 

By Greater Chicago WSA 

The Workers Solidarity Alliance, a national organization of anarchist-syndicalists, will hold its National Congress on the weekend of Nov 22. 

The organization was founded 40 years ago, and this Congress will also be a celebration. WSA is currently working on a ‘40th anniversary of WSA’ issue of its publication, Ideas & Action # 18. 

This will be the WSA’s first congress to be held online.

“We are presented with some creative challenges,” said member Hanna Waldman. “We have a lot of democratic procedure to move through, so how to pull this all off with a Zoom conference, is new territory for us.” 

Since just before the pandemic, WSA committees such as its Labor Committee and International Committee, began to hold meetings by Zoom as a way of increasing participation. 

Member Danielle K added “A whole Congress online will be very different than just a committee— it’s all the committees and the coordinating committee and two local Branches. How to we make this lively and dynamic? How do we make this ‘embodied,’ not just boxes on a screen? But it’s a challenge we’re ready for!” 

In addition to the reports, proposals, and voting, the Congress will include two public events as part of its celebration. On Thursday night, Nov 21, Suzy Subways, a well-known Philadelphia organizer, will be the guest speaker. Suzy will talk on “Group Democracy, Journalism and Anarcha-Feminism.” 

Saturday, Nov 23, the organization will offer a history workshop with one of its founders, long-time organizer and writer Steve Rabinowitz, who is currently serving as a delegate on the Coordinating Committee. Steve will present on “WSA, Past and Future.” 

For updated information on the public talk and history workshop, please contact WSA’s Philadelphia area Branch: 

philly-metro-wsa@proton.me

From Week Against Unpaid Wages Local Report, Oct 16-22 

By Philly Metro WSA 

At three different worksites, WSA members wrote short invitations to take part in solidarity actions for the fight against wage theft; each invitation  included an accessible intro to the history of the IWA-AIT. The Invitations were tailor-made to the co workers at each workplace. 

One of the invitations read in part:

“Many of us here have been in the US workforce for years, even decades. We’ve had the experience of having a boss not pay us what we were due, or trying to withhold benefits. We’ve heard from our families’ bad experiences, or we’ve had friends or co-workers who’ve had to go through this. Now is an opportunity for each of us in our own work situation to educate ourselves about how to act in solidarity when these situations come up! 

“The world’s oldest anarcho-syndicalist international, the IWA-AIT, invites us to be part of an international week of action against unpaid wages, Oct 16- 22.  Several of us here are excited to be part of this, and we plan to do a workshop on how we can teach ourselves about this issue, how we can act in solidarity, and how we can be ready to advocate for our friends and family when things happen!” 

Labor Day Greetings 2024!

Coworkers, comrades, and fellow labor activists—wishing you a restful Labor Day weekend!

In keeping with our radical political traditions, we put our activist energies into May Day, not Labor Day. This doesn’t mean that we haven’t been craving a rest from the bone-aching grind of our labor. In our WSA branch, we are furniture movers, home workers, pink collar assistants, and healthcare workers. We all need a rest from exhaustion. This three day weekend is needed to recover.

Labor Day was fought for and won by workers. But we also know that this is far from enough. It’s a drop in the bucket.

Labor Day, with its parades and picnics, took the shape of a more capitalism-friendly alternative to the more radical May Day that was characterized by street protests and strikes.

While we focus our eyes on May Day, you will still see us with friends at local Labor Day events, re-affirming the community aspects of our work lives. We need to recuperate in preparation for amplifying workplace voices and building relationships. As we know, building relationships is the heart of organizing. So, strike up the grill. But tomorrow, we build the General Strike ! 

From Philly Metro WSA 

“We are committed to building a future rooted in a classless and stateless society, where we, as working people, create workplace and community democracies that prioritize human needs over profits for the few. Our vision is a world free from the social oppressions of racism, sexism, and queerphobia. Through our revolutionary unions, we will transform the nature of work, paving the way to our collective liberation.”

From Greater Chicago WSA