May 2, 2025

UAW reform caucus dissolves in factional split: Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) — a longtime UAW reform caucus that helped catapult current UAW President Shawn Fain into power — was dissolved at the group’s quarterly online membership meeting on April 27th. The dissolution came from a vote (160 to 137) that alleged an inability for different blocs to reconcile its approach. Both the majority and minority blocs of the UAW issued statements on the matter, although the minority bloc has also alleged the dissolution violates the caucus’s bylaws.

The faultlines are not easily analyzable, even within the DSA. As reported by Working Mass, a publication of Boston DSA, socialists active in different labor formations and caucuses in the DSA were found on different sides of the split. Read more reporting/perspectives in Labor Notes and in Tempest.

Unpacking Trump’s Attack on Federal Sector Unions — “Rendering collective bargaining inapplicable to the vast majority of federal workers, combined with the administration’s other attacks on the civil service, would leave the federal workforce in its weakest position in a century.” What are the stakes and the odds that Trump’s attempt to strip collective bargaining rights from federal unions might prevail? All you need to know about this threat to one of TrumpWorld’s most effective opponents. From Lawfare via Portside.

Our comrade David Schwartzman has published a paper, “A Science-based Ecosocialist Strategy for Climate Security,” that addresses how the obstacles to keeping future warming to no more than the 1.5 degree target can be overcome. He stresses that strategy is imperative to guide transnational political struggle, to first defeat fossil capital while creating a Global Green New Deal. In his critique of Degrowth, he recognizes its value in unveiling the extractivist agenda of green capital but argues that the latter must be brought into a broad coalition to defeat fossil capital and its political instruments.

Emerging From a Collective Silence, Universities Organize to Fight Trump — A recent group statement showed that the nation’s academic leaders, at first reluctant to oppose the president’s moves, are beginning to unite. In an unusual show of unity considering the wide swathe of interests that includes ivy leagues, community colleges, and public schools — among others — the statement reads: “As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding.” Note: All of the major schools in the DMV — AU, GW, Georgetown, UMCP and several other UM system schools — appear to have signed. GMU (AKA Koch U.) appears to be absent from the list.

May Day is about workers struggles — and nurses at GW hospital are involved in a struggle now. Two pro-union nurses were fired as part of the hospital’s union-busting campaign. Read more in GW Hatchet, an independent student newspaper.

May Day actions are part of a long chain — the history of the holiday and connection to workers organizing for their rights. Robert Ross, one of the founders of SDS in a time long ago, writes of that past in Stansbury Forum. The article is appropriately titled: “May Day 2025: The current installment of an annual remembrance”