[Los Angeles] Labor Struggles from the Bottom Up, Then and Now
Sunday, June 14, 2026, 5-7:00 PM, Los Angeles Time
[In first few minutes we’ll hear brief reports/analysis of current issues like Iran war, the struggle against ICE, US voting rights, the Ukraine war, etc.]
Art Share
Classroom 2
801 East Fourth Place (Arts District)
Los Angeles 90013
(Little Tokyo Metro stop)
OR
Remotely on zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86356774240?pwd=DEHDcLHgAMjbdLmUKRtuIRtPv6XDYl.1
This meeting will feature sociologist Sam Friedman, a member of the Tempest Collective, whose classic book, “Teamster Rank and File: Power, Bureaucracy and Rebellion at Work and in a Union,” has just been reissued with a new Marxist introduction and update. It covers Los Angeles truck drivers organizing campaigns to improve workplaces and reform an ineffective union, and how the employers and a corrupt international union leadership eroded the power the workers had built. The new introduction covers past and current efforts to improve working conditions and create a political movement to challenge the rule of billionaires, highlighting the need for a socialist analysis and politics to develop strategies such as “Bargaining for the Common Good” to meet the overlapping economic, political, and environmental crises of our era.
“As a former warehouse employee of Amazon, a company emblematic of modern, high-pressure, logistics-driven workplace – this text resonates as a case study in reclaiming worker power from both management and union leadership. This book doesn’t romanticize struggle. It prepares readers to navigate the practical and political demands of organizing – which, if you’ve seen Amazon’s internal dynamics, you know isn’t abstract. The lessons drawn from mid-century Teamsters organizing are still urgent, especially as newer workers (younger, more diverse, often gig-based) start rediscovering collective action without the institutional muscle of old-school unions” — Ian W. Tulloch, former Amazon driver and union activist
“I found it a fascinating book then and still do today as the Teamster rank and file faces new challenges from within and without” — Dan La Botz, socialist writer and cofounder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union
Sponsored by Los Angeles chapters, International Marxist-Humanist Organization and the Tempest Collective
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