In the industrial hub of Spartanburg, SC, nearly 400 rank and file workers from every Southern state and key sectors across the region gathered from June 13 – 15 to chart a path to building more worker organization and broader fightback in the midst of the attacks from the billionaire class. The gathering – the Southern Worker Action Summit – was convened by the Southern Workers Assembly in collaboration with 16 worker organizations throughout the region (see full listing below).
In addition to strong contingents from the convening organizations, the Summit also included participation from delegations from all fifteen active workers assemblies, the United Autoworkers (UAW), several locals of the International Longshoremen’s Association, Beyond the Bars, Amazonians United, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, Labor Notes, and more.
Taking place just days after the community uprising in Los Angeles in response to ICE raids there, a wide-range of topics around those two key themes were taken up throughout the weekend: assessing the nature of the billionaire attacks and what lessons can be drawn from the fights across sectors; uplifting the fights by immigrant workers in their workplaces and communities, and how to build broader solidarity to defend migrant workers from ICE raids; tactics and strategies for building fighting workplace organization in key sectors across the region; building mass workplace and community actions on May Day 2028; hearing directly from workers in Mexico, Palestine, Cuba, and elsewhere on the impacts of U.S. policies abroad and the need for international working class solidarity; among many others.
Spirit of working class resistance
Southern workers are perhaps more familiar than most with fighting back when things are hard, having waged some of the most militant and courageous struggles under repressive conditions. That spirit carried into the Summit, which was marked by an electric energy of resistance and solidarity throughout. Cultural performances from the Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble, El Futuro Es Nuestro, Jaribu Hill, and others contributed to that dynamic.
Discussions and exchanges around building workplace organization and sharing lessons learned through struggle took place throughout in various settings including large group discussion, smaller group trainings and political education sessions, as well as sector and state based strategy groups.
Workshop discussions included sessions on building Black and brown unity, Dark Work: Precarious Labor and the Southern Economy, the history of class struggle in the South, connecting tenant and workplace organizing, building strike power, organizing conversations, and how to build workers assemblies, to name a few.
The main sessions on Friday largely focused on assessing the political climate and the state of the workers movement in the region, while the second day was oriented towards developing strategy, tactics, and plans for advancing organizing efforts and the broader fightback. Saturday opened with a cultural performance from El Futuro Es Nuestro, and led into a panel of immigrant workers from various sectors speaking on the fights they’re engaged in, how the Trump administration’s attacks are impacting their conditions, and ways to build solidarity to resist these attacks. This panel was held entirely in Spanish. The day concluded with a commemoration of the Charleston Five struggle led by Leonard Riley and other members of the ILA Local 1422, before moving into a panel with international worker speakers from organizations in Palestine, Cuba, Mexico, and Trinidad.
The second day of the Summit also fell on the national No Kings day of action, which saw over 1800 demonstrations nationwide opposing the attacks by the billionaire class and their efforts to rollback every social gain won through struggle over the last century. On June 14 during lunch, workers in attendance at the Summit held a spirited march and rally to participate in this national day of action.
“To the Trump administration, anyone that speaks up against these kind of injustices is a threat. In that case, they’re right – we are a threat. We’re a threat to their corporate greed, we are a threat to the status quo that these billionaires are trying to uphold,” Tee Gonzalez, a Union of Southern Service Workers member, told the crowd during the rally.
“The system has always put us to compete with each other,” Magaly Licolli of Venceremos pointed out during the rally. “The white working class, the Black working class, the immigrant working class, we’re all in the same struggle. We have the unity, we have the power!”
Organize the South, Fight the Billionaires
The Southern Worker Action Summit was developed to not only be a space for training, political education discussions, strategic and tactical exchanges, and building connections among workers throughout the region, but to also advance concrete organizational and action initiatives.
“To withhold our labor puts the hurt on the capitalists, and it all starts with two or three workers in each workplace, the militant minority,” Abdul Alkalimat, chair of the SWA Political Education Committee, explained in his opening comments, motivating this orientation. “They have power, but we have to take it from them. That’s the workers assemblies, many workplaces connected together across a city. We get there by blitzing…salting…and looking for those few workers, the militant minority, who can spark workplace struggles.”
To that end, some of the key outcomes of the Summit include:
- The creation or consolidation of industrial councils in various sectors, including education, gig workers, manufacturing, logistics, public sector, healthcare, and others
- The formation of state groupings of workers assemblies and worker organizations that are oriented towards conducting coordinated workplace blitzes, identifying strategic industries for workers to get hired into to organize, and planning for state-level worker meetings in late 2025 and early 2026
- Initial steps to concretize the 16 convening worker organizations and other participating groups into an ongoing formation to raise the ability of workers across the region to coordinate, make interventions, identify organizing priorities, and begin developing plans for mobilizing unorganized workers to participate in May Day 2028 activities
- The expansion of the SWA political education committee and development of plans to produce studies on the political economy of various Southern states to inform organizing strategies
- Agreement to make coordinated efforts to engage unorganized workers to participate in mass demonstrations against the billionaire attacks, and raising a more visible presence of Southern workers in those mobilizations
The response to the Summit and the various outcomes it was able to advance demonstrate clearly that a combative mood is widespread among workers across industries and states throughout the region. The challenge now is how to coordinate, organize, and channel that fighting spirit into a unified effort to build organization and a broader workers movement.
A chant that closed the Summit summed up the weekend and set the direction very clearly: “Workers want power, organize the South!”
Southern Worker Action Summit Co-Conveners: Asheville Food and Beverage Workers United; Black Workers for Justice; Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment; Charleston Alliance for Fair Employment/Charleston Workers Center; Chester Worker Empowerment Center; El Futuro Es Nuestro/It’s Our Future; International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422; Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights; National Domestic Workers Alliance/We Dream in Black; Southern Human Rights Organizing Network; Truckers Movement for Justice/TAMEXUN; UE Local 150, NC Public Service Workers Union; Union of Southern Service Workers; Venceremos; Virginia Caucus of Rank and File Educators
Photo credits: Angel Duran, Sam Bacurin, others
