This article is the third in a series published by Convergence and Jacobin on the initial years, 2014–2020, of the transformation of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). It focuses on 2017–18, when the union was preparing for a potential strike in 2019. Conditions were different then, but many of the lessons UTLA learned in that process bear on the urgent tasks at hand. Despite the rapid rise of MAGA authoritarianism, we are still in a contested political moment, and labor has a key role to play.
We’re in a critical moment for the labor movement to build resistance against authoritarianism. For the medium term, three foundations can guide our work: building as broad a front as possible against authoritarianism; organizing a leading sector within that front that advances a proactive vision for multiracial democracy while explicitly opposing neoliberalism; and engaging millions with whom we do not usually interact.
The second foundation deserves more detail. Between the 1970s and the 2008 economic crash, the political-economic structure was dominated by a bipartisan consensus around neoliberalism, driven by an ideology supporting free markets, deregulation, privatization, individualism, competition, and austerity. Both major US political parties attacked welfare, expanded prisons, militarized the border, attacked union jobs, and reinforced racism and xenophobia. Clearly right-wing authoritarianism today is uniquely chilling in its overtly fascist features. But it exploits the damage done by these neoliberal policies that created a constituency for right-wing populism. We will not defeat authoritarianism without defeating neoliberalism.
As labor builds the foundations for its antiauthoritarian work,…
Auteur: Alex Caputo-Pearl
