“Wow, you’re here again for us…Now I know for sure that the community is with us if we go on strike!”
This was the response from workers at a local supermarket that we met as part of the Community Education for Social Action (CESA), a community organization working in the greater East L.A. region. Class consciousness — workers supporting and standing with other workers, regardless of their job, “race,” or country of origin — is an absolute necessity for organizing a force for communist revolution. Building this consciousness was our task as we set out to support supermarket workers who were considering a strike in response to an unjust healthcare proposal their bosses were offering.
The plan first began with getting to know the store we “adopted” in East L.A. CESA members, along with students from a nearby State University, selected one day out of the week and the time to go to the store to meet and talk to the workers, develop their contacts, and follow up with them to build a relationship. For an entire month, the group was at the supermarket on Mondays at 5:00 PM, split into groups, and talked to the workers and customers about the unfair contract and opportunity for a strike.
We also discussed how capitalism is based on exploiting workers and how the entire working class is under severe attack in the form of cuts to benefits and wages at work, cuts to education and social programs that provide critical services, and the racist mass unemployment that especially afflicts black and Latino working class communities.
Building class consciousness, class confidence and the Party takes time. We knew that we couldn’t show up once, pass out a CHALLENGE, and expect the Party to grow. This is a long-term project, and we found we were up to it. Over many weeks we made friendships. One worker remarked, “Wow, every time you come here to visit you always bring a group of people.” The student worker felt a great support from CESA members and community allies. We were also able to build a close relationship with a veteran female bakery worker.
As weekly visits continued, trust was being established and recognition of the genuine support was seen. We hit a high point when we brought a group of 17 people to enter the store chanting, carrying signs and delivering a student resolution supporting the workers to management. We saw many smiles as we left because she did not expect such a large body of community residents to arrive.
We still have a lot of work to do. Class consciousness and good feelings among workers will not, in and of itself, bring on the revolution and communism. We’ve made a good start, but we have to continue to support the workers we met, even though they have accepted the new contract. We still live under a capitalist system. The workers will continue to be exploited.
To that end, we are organizing a Labor Forum with student groups at a local community college. We’re inviting grocery workers and also local transit workers — who recently also had to negotiate a new contract — to talk about their experiences with the union, the company, and the community. We will continue to bring awareness about how capitalism destroys the working class but how we need to fight for communism.J