“Fighting for Our Livelihoods:” The League of Revolutionary Struggle on Plant Closings, Reaganomics, and Job Security, Eddie Bonilla
This chapter focuses on the League of Revolutionary Struggle, a multiracial Communist Party that existed from 1978-1990 after Chicana/o, Asian American, and African American Communist groups merged. It is an economic history focused on lower stratum workers by examining how Communists sought to mobilize them. League members worked within labor unions including the United Auto Workers to prevent the running away of factories. They also supported workers seeking better wages in the Watsonville Canning Strike (1985-87). These mobilizations, and this chapter, stress how the League’s organizing approach centered women, immigrants, and lower stratum workers whom big labor often ignored.
Respondents: Geraldo Cadava and Toni Gilpin