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.
Justin Mayhugh is an alternate delegate in UAW Local 31 and a member of a UAW caucus called Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD). He works on the assembly line for GM. […]
It’s no exaggeration: Western Washington carpenters can make history. That’s because the situation they face is not that very different from that faced by all union members in the US; if rank […]
by Cheryl Zuur I went to the SF Women’s March today, one of the many across the country. I really did not want to go but knew that I MUST go. Many […]
Last year the Vermont State AFL-CIO made some headlines when it called for a general strike in the event of an attempted coup by outgoing president Trump. Here, Oaklandsocialist talks with the […]
Here is a glimpse of what the rank and file carpenters in Western Washington have been doing, how they have been shutting down jobs. Along the way, they confront the union bureaucracy […]
Excerpts from speeches given by carpenters as well as others (including Kshama Sawant) at a rally she and her group – Socialist Alternative – organized.
Here is Art Francisco, the chair of the Peter J. McGuire Group, speaking at a rally organized by Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant.
Here is the speech I gave at a rally for the Western Washington carpenters on strike against the contractors and their own union leadership. The rally was organized by Seattle city council […]
The struggle of the rank and file carpenters took a new twist on Thursday (Sept. 23) when some union bureaucrats came out to try to red-bait Kshama Sawant. It didn’t turn out […]
Fed up with cut rate contract proposals/“tentative agreements” that were voted down four times, and fed up with a designed to fail “strike” policy, carpenters have started taking matters into their own […]
