The publication of Eric Blanc’s book, We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big, has sparked a debate in wider labor circles. In the book, Blanc—who is assistant professor of Labor Studies at Rutgers University—challenges long-held wisdom about organizing strategies. The article below by People’s World contributor Bradley Crowder, an organizer based in Texas, is an intervention in the “Worker-to-Worker” debate. As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views represented here are those of the author and not necessarily of the editors or publisher.
Revitalizing the U.S. labor movement stands as a critical priority for the left today, with strategic debates taking on renewed urgency. Decades of decline have weakened the organized power of the working class precisely when the forces of oligarchy and authoritarianism demand a united response. In his recent article “What Strategy for Labor?”, Eric Blanc engages with responses to his book We Are the Union and sharpens these questions, especially regarding “worker-to-worker organizing” and strategic targeting.
Strategic location vs. strategic layer
A central contention in this debate is strategic targeting. In certain left circles, the traditional understanding emphasizes organizing workers at “strategic locations” within the economy, typically key industrial sites, major logistical hubs, or critical infrastructure points where labor’s power to disrupt capital accumulation is maximized. This perspective carries an assumption rooted in an older, insurrectionary model of change: Controlling these economic nodes provides the leverage to halt the system and force significant political concessions.
The overemphasis on “strategic location” is outdated in our contemporary political economy. Globalization has fundamentally reshaped production and made supply chains vastly more complex, rendering national strikes at single locations less crippling to global capital than in a more nationally contained industrial era.
While disruption at points of production remains a valid tactic in specific workplace struggles, relying solely on this economic leverage fails to account for the multifaceted nature of capitalist power, which is economic, political, ideological, and coercive. This approach risks being overly economistic. It can win workplace battles, but it cannot achieve the comprehensive political power necessary to challenge class rule.
We must shift our focus from the “strategic location” of certain workers to targeting the “strategic layer” of the working class, wherever they are. This layer comprises the most politically conscious, active, and capable workers—those with initiative, a developing class consciousness, and the willingness to fight and lead.
This “strategic layer” is the vanguard of the working class, most capable of understanding the historical moment and providing necessary leadership for the broader struggle. Identifying and developing this layer, wherever they are, is the central strategic task.
Recent campaigns illustrate this point. The Starbucks Workers United movement didn’t begin by targeting the largest or most economically vital Starbucks location, but emerged from a small group of workers in Buffalo. Similarly, the new organizing drives at non-union auto plants after the UAW’s victory came from motivated workers within those plants—the strategic layer ready to act.
Tasks in the fight against fascism and monopoly capital
The strategic importance of this vanguard layer becomes clear when we situate our tasks within the immediate political context of the struggle against rising fascism and monopoly capital. These pressing, interconnected challenges demand a politically conscious and organized working class.
Defending democracy is essential. We face a growing assault on democratic norms, institutions, and rights from a far-right movement increasingly aligned with the most reactionary sectors of capital. This fascist threat imperils the working class and oppressed peoples’ ability to organize, protest, and fight for their interests. The struggles for union rights, voting rights, civil rights, and basic democratic freedoms are under attack.
The anti-monopoly struggle spans both major party coalitions. Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialist elements of finance capital, as Dimitrov taught us. However, in their pursuit of profit and power, all sectors of monopoly capital fuel the conditions for fascism, undermine democracy, and intensify working-class exploitation. The wealth and influence of monopolies like Amazon, Monsanto-Bayer, and major financial institutions have destroyed economic justice and democratic governance.
This “strategic layer,” the vanguard of the class, is crucial because it possesses the independent political capacity to lead a broad united front against fascism and monopoly power. Their “social power” is not just the ability to cause economic disruption at a specific site. It is their capacity to:
- Build unity among diverse groups.
- Raise political consciousness through struggle and education.
- Articulate a clear vision for a shared future.
- Mobilize the masses for ongoing political and economic action.
Starbucks workers demonstrated immense social power by capturing public attention, leveraging the company’s brand image, and inspiring workers across the country and other industries, despite their dispersed locations and limited economic leverage. This capacity for political leadership and alliance-building is the measure of working-class power today.
Seeding the vanguard for the United Front Against Fascism
Eric Blanc’s “seeding” concept offers a vital practical component to our strategy of organizing the vanguard. Blanc describes seeding as identifying, training, and supporting workers to initiate drives using modern tools and decentralized methods.
He notes that “some of the most productive seeding techniques include using high-publicity moments like big union elections and strikes to call on (and provide tools to) other workers to start organizing; holding big online trainings; producing viral social media content to generate new leads… and developing in-depth, easily accessible training materials for workers to start self-organizing.”
Seeding is the ideal method for cultivating the strategic/vanguard layer since it isn’t confined to a few traditional industrial centers or “strategic locations.” They exist throughout the economy—in service work, tech, logistics, healthcare, education, and manufacturing.
A strategy focused on the working-class vanguard requires a method to reach and empower worker-leaders anywhere, providing them with the skills and support to organize their workplaces and communities. Seeding, with its emphasis on decentralized initiative, peer-to-peer training, and digital tools, provides this method, overcoming the limitations of staff-intensive, location-bound organizing models.
The rapid spread of the Starbucks Workers United campaign from one store to hundreds nationwide exemplifies successful seeding driven by the strategic layer’s initiative and amplified by digital tools and public attention. Similarly, the UAW’s efforts to provide resources and encouragement to workers in non-union auto plants after contract victories demonstrate a deliberate seeding strategy to activate the strategic layer in a key industry.
The political implications of widespread seeding are profound and relevant to building the united front against fascism and monopoly capital. Seeding allows the labor movement to strengthen its presence nationwide by identifying and developing leaders across diverse workplaces and geographic areas, including those far from urban centers and industrial hubs.
Blanc writes, “It’s hard to know ahead of time how widely worker-to-worker organizing can expand, given that the labor movement has done so little to seed drives in a wide range of economic sectors.” This capacity to build influence and organization in new areas is essential for building the political power to confront fascism. In effect, we are seeding the ground for a democratic counteroffensive, building grassroots leadership and organizational capacity to defend democracy and advance working-class interests.
Conclusion: The path forward for working-class power
Revitalizing the U.S. labor movement demands that we move beyond an outdated focus on “strategic locations” and embrace organizing the “strategic layer”—the vanguard—of the working class wherever they exist. This strategic shift responds directly to our most pressing historical tasks: confronting the rising threat of fascism and challenging the monopoly capital that undermines both democracy and working-class living standards.
Eric Blanc’s insights into worker-to-worker organizing and “seeding” provide tools for identifying, empowering, and multiplying this leadership layer throughout the class, as demonstrated by Starbucks Workers United and the UAW.
We build political capacity to win workplace battles and fight against fascism and monopoly power by cultivating conscious, active leadership and using methods like seeding to spread organization and political consciousness. This is the path to build 21st-century working-class power to defend democracy and advance the interests of the working class and all oppressed people.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article represents the views of its author and not necessarily of the editors or publisher.
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