Reprinted with permission from the Freedom Socialist
Washington State Labor Council
Union delegates came to the annual Washington State Labor Council convention in July fired up to resist Trump’s wholesale assault. Rage over mass deportations and the genocide in Gaza produced resolutions calling for mass actions and a general strike.
Despite fiery speeches, however, council leaders buckled under pressure from the national AFL-CIO and blocked several initiatives. Many delegates were dismayed that the president and vice president of the council, two Black women who have led the organization in a more progressive direction, also toed the AFL-CIO line.
Two resolutions denouncing Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza were called out of order for “not aligning with the official AFL-CIO position” — a feeble statement adopted in early 2024 that ignores the catastrophic death toll and starvation now taking place.
A bright spot was adoption of strong resolutions defending union siblings facing detention and deportation, reflecting delegates’ alarm over militaristic ICE raids.
Regarding a general strike, delegate Jullianna Dauble summed up the sentiment of many attendees: “I think it is the only way to win the kind of things that working-class people need and deserve.”
The American Federation of Teachers brought a resolution urging “organized labor at the state and national levels to strategize, plan and implement escalating strategies, up to and including a general strike, that directly challenges the profit motives of corporations who support the erosion of democracy and workers’ rights.” My own union, Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 8, submitted a similar resolution calling for labor and progressive forces to “take whatever actions are necessary up to and including a general strike to protect free speech, all workers’ rights, our democracy and the Constitution.”
However, the resolutions committee, which screens what will be brought before the delegates, removed the words “general strike” from both resolutions. The reasons given for striking the phrase were strictly procedural and bureaucratic.
With urging from other delegates, I made a motion from the floor to reinsert the words “general strike.” Unfortunately, many delegates were leaving by then and the motion failed narrowly after a second vote was called.
But the momentum for militant action, including a general strike, was strong. Delegates gave a standing ovation to keynoter Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, who reminded delegates that slavery was ended by a general strike of Black workers who walked off the plantations and brought the Confederacy to its knees.
Oregon AFL-CIO
The 2025 Oregon AFL-CIO held its largest gathering of labor in the last 30 years in early September. Delegates from across the state assembled to call on each other and the state federation to defend workers under attack. I attended as a member of my union’s delegation representing American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 88.
Twenty-eight resolutions were submitted. Only two were ruled out of order, one of them brought by my union. Each called for the AFL-CIO to prepare affiliates for a general strike.
According to an international AFL-CIO representative, the state and national federations have no authority to pass resolutions that would require affiliates to take any particular action. Lively debate ensued on the convention floor.
Tying the hands of local and national labor federations in this way makes a mockery of union democracy. These bodies regularly organize campaigns to get out the vote for Democratic candidates or support local legislation. The argument by international AFL-CIO does not hold water.
But growing rank-and-file advocacy for general strike preparation was clear. Organizers from various locals exchanged contact information to move this effort forward. Unionists know that the greatest weapon workers have against the brutality of capitalism and the threat of home-grown fascism is to withhold our labor and bring these creaking wheels of exploitation to a halt.
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