The administrator of this blog site, I am a lifelong socialist and a retired carpenter and the former recording secretary and an expelled member of Carpenters Local 713. I was expelled for my leading role in the 1999 SF Bay Area carpenters wildcat strike as well as for his opposition to the union bureaucracy in general. I was one of the founding members of a small group called Labor Militant, which was the forerunner to Socialist Alternative. Along with a small group of others, I was expelled when that group started to adapt to the union bureaucracy. I have also visited the workers' movement internationally, including in Pakistan, Egypt (during the Arab Spring), Britain, Mexico and Chile (during the uprising there in 2020). Unless otherwise specified, I am the author of the articles that appear here. Although I am the main author, Oaklandsocialist welcomes articles on any issue that relates to the working class. Contact us at Oaklandsocialist@gmail.com.
An article in today’s (6/3/2015) Wall St. Journal perfectly describes what all the pressure on Greece’s Syriza-run government to further cut living standards is really all about. It focuses on what’s happening […]
Beheadings, mass slaughter, terrorist bombings — all of this is accompanying the advance of the Islamic State with its recent victories in Palmyra, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq. These are having repercussions around […]
I hope everybody who sees this post watches the video and then shares it. As many people know, Texaco – subsequently bought by Chevron – was sued for its destruction of the […]
15 Now Tacoma has proven a central point: That the best way to win reforms is not by allowing the compromisers-to-big-business — that is, the union leadership — to set the agenda […]
In 1831, Nat Turner led a slave revolt that shook up the entire slave owning South. His revolt was just one of many. It was followed 28 years later by John Brown’s […]
With a new Conservative (= Republicans in the US) government, there are some changes in the British Labour Party. In some ways the Labour Party is similar to the US Democratic Party, […]
15 Now Tacoma is making waves. Just last week, the Tacoma Business Examiner – organ of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce – reported on a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in that […]
From London, Roger Silverman analyzes the results of the recent elections in Britain and what those elections say about the mood and consciousness there: Some initial hurried reflections on the general election […]
“Faith in the system is the bedrock of the system. Without it, the system is drained of its inviolable authority. This is the danger America now faces.” So wrote the N.Y. Times […]
This May Day, the longshore workers (ILWU Local 10) voted to shut down the Port of Oakland to protest the police crime wave that is sweeping the country. This was a positive […]
