Inaugural Workers Strike Back Convention Launches National Fight the Rich Campaign
March 8th, 2025 by Willow Reader
On the heels of a wildly successful Fight the Rich organizing conference the day prior, Workers Strike Back held its inaugural National Convention in Seattle on February 23, 2025. The opportunity to gather in person for democratic discussion and voting on priorities, program, and leadership represented a significant step forward for our organization since its launch two years ago. Over 100 WSB members joined in person from across the US with many traveling hundreds of miles to be there for this important event.
A packed agenda began with a speech from WSB co-founder and socialist former Seattle city councilmember Kshama Sawant, introducing the proposal for the Fight the Rich campaign, which would inform our priorities and allow us to take up local initiatives including Medicare for All, taxing big business to fund social housing, unionization drives, ending US support for Israel’s genocide, free mass transit, and more. The plenary discussion that followed allowed all members the opportunity to raise their views, bring amendments to the proposal, and discuss specific campaigns and initiatives. We continued the discussion in breakout groups over lunch. After we reconvened for voting, the Fight the Rich campaign proposal passed overwhelmingly, with 3 abstaining but no opposing votes.
This was followed by a powerful financial appeal for members to increase monthly dues to support these ambitious campaigns. Some WSB members also volunteered to organize watch parties of the next monthly national zoom meeting in their local areas as a step towards launching new chapters.
Calvin Priest – co-producer of On Strike! – then introduced the proposed updates to our political program, or “What We Stand For.” The updated program sparked lively discussion and nine proposed amendments, seven of which were proposed by a Green Party member from Maine. The proposed changes would have included support for the BDS movement, a call for reparations, prioritizing workers co-ops over or alongside union drives, and campaigns for electoral reform. Most controversial was an amendment to strike our call for a new party entirely.
Some Green Party members felt that in order to be inclusive of those who believe that the Green Party is that new party, we should strike this demand. The amendment generated robust discussion about the type of mass party working people need, but was ultimately voted down by 71 votes to 9 with 6 abstentions. The demand for a new party has been a core demand since the launch of WSB, because we believe that what’s needed doesn’t yet exist: a broad, mass party of working people basing itself on building movements. Striking the demand for a new party would also have potentially thrown open the door to those who simply want to reform the Democratic Party.
Through the debate, however, there was general agreement on the need to clarify that we mean a mass party for workers, not just another new third party. An amendment adding the word "mass" was accepted as friendly by the interim coordinating committee, along with a proposal to list “Fight Racism, Sexism & All Oppression” and “Stop Mass Deportations” as separate topline demands.
The proposed amendment on reparations also sparked a great deal of discussion though it was ultimately voted down by a majority of those present. The issue of reparations is an important one, but it also brings enormous complications any time it is debated: will the proposed reparations be intended only for the descendants of formerly enslaved people, or other oppressed groups? How can the enormous debts owed by society to workers and the oppressed be reduced to individual payments, and how can this debt ever be accurately quantified?
Organizers highlighted the example of the Tax Amazon movement in Seattle, led by Kshama Sawant’s socialist City Council Office. That movement won a tax on the city’s wealthiest businesses to fund social housing, and as part of this also won reparations for Black families in Seattle in the form of housing. Black working people have been disproportionately driven out of Seattle due to skyrocketing housing costs. This was a powerful and effective approach that mobilized thousands of people to fight for the Amazon Tax during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. In contrast, reparations as individual cash payments both run up against a number of obstacles and stop short of the transformative social change that is needed. Universal demands such as social housing, free mass transit, and Medicare for All point towards the building of broad movements which can win major gains for oppressed groups and working people, while challenging the oppressive system of capitalism. The broad popular appeal of universal programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid also make them far harder for the ruling class to attack.
Another amendment stated that we should “throw our weight behind an organized Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to pressure the end” of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. One of our primary demands as Workers Strike Back has been an end to the genocide, war, and occupation, including the call for an end to all military funding for Israel — which could in fact end the war if it was won. We focus on ending military aid because that is the backbone of the Israeli war machine, which is completely reliant on military and political support from US imperialism. In contrast, individual boycotts have not generally proven effective, and they tend to point away from mass struggle. Further, sanctions negatively impact ordinary working class people and the poor, rather than hurting the ruling class which is carrying out a war.
Instead, we aim to base ourselves on working-class internationalism, so we call for the “need to build a global antiwar and workers’ movement made up of workers of all nations and ethnicities fighting against the bosses' wars and for our common interests.” We highlight the power of working class action to stop wars, as it did with the Vietnam War. We call for a one-day general strike, “demanding an end to all military aid to Israel, and that those tens of billions be spent on things working people need like healthcare, housing, and jobs.”
Jonathan Rosenblum – longtime labor organizer and author of Beyond $15 – offered perspective on the purpose of a program as an organizing tool. He urged us not to seek to capture every possible idea but instead to ask ourselves “Is this a weapon that’s going to be useful in our hands?” Grounded in this insight, our “What We Stand For” as amended passed by an overwhelming margin, formally establishing our updated 10-point program:
Fight the Rich! End the Billionaire Class & Their System
Workers Need a Real Raise — $25/Hour Minimum Wage
Good Union Jobs for All
Stop the Climate Catastrophe — Take Big Energy Corporations into Workers’ Ownership
Fight Racism, Sexism & All Oppression
Stop Mass Deportations
Medicare for All & Quality Affordable Housing — Tax the Rich
End the Genocidal War on Gaza — No Military Aid, No Occupation
Bring Down Trump, the Billionaires & Their Two Parties
No More Sellouts — We Need a New Mass Party
You can read the full program on our WSB website.
Finally it came time to vote on democratic structures and elect a National Coordinating Committee. The Resolution on Democratic Structures outlined formal leadership structures, a biennial National Convention, monthly meetings, guidelines for the formation of local chapters, and plans for a Constitution and Code of Conduct. The interim WSB leadership proposed a slate for the National Coordinating Committee including Kshama Sawant, Calvin Priest, Steve Edwards, Em Smith, Emily McArthur, Raghav Kaushik, and Jonathan Rosenblum.
A Green Party member proposed the addition of two Green Party members to the National Coordinating Committee slate. Given that both proposed leaders had signed up for dues that weekend and neither had been participating in monthly meetings, he also proposed an amendment to the Resolution on Democratic Structures, lowering the bar for leaders from having “played an ongoing role” in building WSB to merely paying dues and committing to do so going forward. During the discussion, several members spoke passionately against the proposals, emphasizing the importance of tested leadership after decades of abandoned promises and outright betrayals by “progressive” Democrats and other Left figures. Ultimately both amendments resolutely failed. The original resolution and NCC slate passed with no votes opposed and few abstentions (5 and 6, respectively), demonstrating the high levels of confidence in these leaders’ track records and abilities to build our movement.
After the Convention, many WSB members shared that they found the open, democratic debates both clarifying and inspiring. WSB saw a huge spike in membership applications during and immediately after the organizing conference and Convention. The newly elected NCC will be meeting soon to discuss how to carry this momentum forward, but organizers are already reaching out to new members who have offered to set up watch parties in their areas. Stay tuned for updates about chapters in new cities.
Workers Strike Back is calling for a national day of action on March 22, protesting Congress members from both parties who have supported and fueled the genocide in Gaza and demanding an end to military funding of Israel. In Seattle, we’ll be targeting warmongering Democratic Congressman Adam Smith.
If you’re not already signed up as a dues paying member, do that now and join our next monthly meeting. We’ll be discussing the 5 Do’s and Don’ts of Building Movements, drawing lessons from Kshama Sawant’s socialist city council office and how we won historic victories like the Amazon Tax for Affordable Housing, landmark renters’ rights, and the first $15 minimum wage in any major city.
