Labor Commission report presented by Steve Noffke, Cameron Harrison, and Kooper Caraway to the CPUSA National Committee meeting of July 11, 2026.

The labor movement in the United States is in a period of motion, presenting both opportunities and challenges for the working class and our Party.

The recently concluded 30th Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, held in Minneapolis, saw the return of the Service Employees International Union to the federation after more than two decades. The federation now represents nearly 15 million workers across 65 unions, and the federation claimed that union membership is at its highest level in 16 years.

President Liz Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond were re-elected unopposed to a new four-year term, and the convention set ambitious goals: to organize two million new union members in the next five years and to mobilize two million new voters for the 2026 midterm elections.

The convention also passed a resolution on immigrant rights that explicitly denounced the corporate-run, for-profit prison system used by ICE to detain and deport migrant workers. Delegates asserted that comprehensive immigrant defense is a prerequisite to rebuilding union density, recognizing that immigrant workers represent the fastest-growing and most heavily exploited sector of the working class.

The AFL-CIO peace resolution passed on June 9, 2026, Resolution 9: We Want a Just and Peaceful World, contained both positive and problematic elements. It rightly demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, called for a Palestinian state, and targeted transnational monopolies and the billionaire-backed ultra-right forces. The resolution also embraced the State Department-backed Solidarity Center, despite its history of undermining communist, socialist, and progressive-led unions around the world, parroting U.S. imperialist interests in the labor movement.

In Resolution 17: Revitalizing Domestic Shipbuilding, Ship Repair, and Maritime Industries, the AFL-CIO blamed China for industrial decline, particularly in shipbuilding, and during the debates on Resolution 9, they were completely silent on Cuba and the 65-year U.S. economic war against it.

The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters also held their own conventions, which reflected a steadfast fighting spirit, a more explicit anti-monopoly orientation, and a burgeoning political independence. At the UAW convention, delegates resolved to divest their union funds from Israel, a huge win for the Palestinian solidarity movement and for the rank-and-file workers who pushed for and built support around this important issue.

Lockouts and strikes

The class struggle is being waged in sharp confrontations across the country. In Colorado, 1,700 Teamsters are locked out by the meatpacking monopoly Cargill for standing firm against a corporation that booked nearly $7 billion in profits last year. Cargill refuses them basic dignity, including the right to use a bathroom during their shifts.

In Indiana, more than 800 United Steelworkers members have been locked out at BP’s Whiting refinery for over 100 days after 98 percent of members rejected a concessionary contract offer. BP posted $3.2 billion in first-quarter profits while demanding workers accept cuts that would undo 90 years of union gains.

In Michigan, Teamsters nurses have been on strike against Henry Ford Health for over eight months demanding safe staffing ratios while the hospital rakes in over a billion dollars in revenue.

Comrades, these are just a few of the frontlines of the class struggle taking place all over the U.S. These examples demonstrate that workers are ready to fight and it’s happening everywhere. They also reveal the brutal reality of capitalism: that corporations with billions in profits will stop at nothing to break unions, attack workers’ dignity, and extract every ounce of value from the working class in their drive to maximize profits.

The labor movement and the midterm elections

The 2026 midterm elections are of course a critical battleground. The AFL-CIO announced an ambitious plan to turn out 16 million union members and their families and to deploy 50,000 trained union election protectors to polling places where ICE might show up to intimidate voters. Our labor committees and clubs must find ways to participate in getting out — and defending — the vote, either directly through the trade unions, local Central Labor Councils, or with their constituency groups.

In Detroit, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, for example, leads a non-partisan voter registration and canvassing drive every election. The party club there participates, deepens connections in the labor movement, and gains valuable skills in the process that will be needed as we begin to run our own candidates for office. National Committee members are encouraged to look for similar examples in their districts and connect their clubs directly with the trade union movement. It is a practical step toward implementing the workplace concentration policy that we decided on at our 32nd National Convention.

The connection between labor rights and civil rights is a material one. At its convention, the CBTU resolved to organize to defend voting rights as a core component of worker rights. The AFL-CIO did the same. They recognize that the Supreme Court’s gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is an attack on the political power of Black workers and indeed all working people.

Additionally, the growing willingness of some sections of the labor movement to assert their political independence creates space for our party to advance a working-class political alternative. Even at the AFL-CIO convention, they declared that candidates should receive no labor support unless they are willing to fight for collective bargaining rights. This is a step in the right direction. But we must push further still.

The midterm elections present us with a unique opportunity to unite with the trade union movement. We can start this process anywhere, including in areas where we currently are not very active in labor. As we said, sections of the labor movement are increasingly willing to take an independent political stand, and we need to be there to help shape that process. We can support trade union, progressive, and party candidates as we participate with the forces of political independence in the fight against fascism.

In the trade union movement, our members must continue to put forth the call for a labor-led coalition against the far right. This coalition necessitates civil rights involvement and a general labor-community alignment against the most reactionary sections of the ruling class. We must make clear that the fight against white nationalism, xenophobia, homophobia, and anti-immigrant hysteria is not separate from the fight for trade union rights — they are the same fight. The labor movement must lead this fight, and our party must be there to help it succeed.

Let’s be clear about this though. The working class and labor movement, from rank-and-file members to top union officers, have too often failed to make the connections. And right-wing forces have driven a Mack truck loaded with racism, xenophobia, and every other divisive tool right through our movement.

The road ahead

While the momentum in some sections of labor is real, the labor movement is not yet advancing on all fronts. As we have continuously pointed out, union density sits at barely 10 percent. There is also a lack of a clear, resourced, and enforceable plan for labor’s new organizing goal, despite the proclamations. The fightback against Trump, while growing, is still not broad enough among major sections of the trade unions.

Nonetheless, the opportunities for breakthroughs are there. What role can we play in ensuring that the potential is maximized? How can we continue to push class-struggle unionism over business unionism in our locals? How can we promote peace and working-class internationalism more effectively? This again raises the question of workplace concentration policy and its implementation.

We want to commend two clubs’ recent participation in strikes and solidarity actions. Comrades from the Chicago club joined hundreds of locked-out Steelworkers and their supporters at a solidarity rally outside BP’s corporate headquarters in downtown Chicago. There, they deepened existing trade union contacts and made new ones as well. They’ve been there supporting the strike since the beginning. In Michigan, the Wolfskeel club mobilized in solidarity with nearly 1,000 members of UAW Local 2093 on strike at the American Axle plant in Three Rivers. They organized community carpooling, raised strike support funds, collected needed supplies, and even delivered copies of People’s World requested by the union.

These brief examples demonstrate what is possible when our clubs are organized, active in the class struggle, and striving to put the workplace concentration policy into effect. Other districts and clubs are encouraged to emulate this model of direct solidarity with workers in struggle.

Our party’s participation in May Day activities across the country, including in Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, DC, and Minnesota, was also a positive contribution and expression of our solidarity and our commitment to the international working class.

However, we must still do more. We need a call for young party members to go into the shops and take jobs as salts in key industries: auto, nursing, logistics, and warehouse work. We must be on the shop floors and inside the unions, helping workers build power while also intentionally building the party, People’s World, and International Publishers.

Our clubs should work to identify key industries in their districts, recruit workers in those sectors to join the party, and develop a long-term strategy for building the party. This means being present not just at rallies and conferences, but on the shop floors, in the break rooms, on the picket lines, and in the union halls. The Labor Commission stands ready to assist, provide training, and offer support to comrades organizing on the shop floor.

Image: Fred Barr / CPUSA