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Workers’ Voice newspaper: March-April edition
The U.S.-Israel war on Iran is a major escalation in the Middle East that has dangerous implications for working people everywhere. The brutality of the imperialist assault internationally is paired with the attack on civil liberties by the Trump regime inside the U.S. This includes the continued operations of ICE and Border Patrol, the threats to the 2026 mid-term elections, environmental rollbacks that deeply impact the Black community, and unchecked police brutality.
Our editorial in this issue warns us: “There is a great danger of underestimating the determination of the U.S. corporate elite to drive through this effort. We cannot rely on court rulings or upcoming elections to save us. We must organize now, not only for mass demonstrations and community networks against ICE violence, but to find our way to building a new working-class party through which we can organize our political defense on every plane and on every day.”
In this issue we also have articles on the Epstein files and the ruling class, the San Francisco teachers’ strike, and a review of the new album by U2.
The March–April 2026 edition of our newspaper is available in print and online as a pdf. Read the latest issue of our newspaper today with a free pdf download! As always, we appreciate any donations to help with the cost of printing.
Click on the image to read the paper or message us to get a hard copy:
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Trump’s colonial project for Gaza begins even as international support surges for Palestinians
By INTERNATIONAL WORKERS LEAGUE – FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
OCT. 12 — The global political situation is becoming increasingly polarized and unstable. Brutal attacks on workers are causing a decline in living standards in both imperialist and semi-colonial countries. However, these attacks are also generating intense class struggles with explosive mobilizations in various parts of the world, such as in Nepal, Angola, Madagascar, and Morocco, where impoverished youth have played a particularly prominent role. These mobilizations have also occurred in imperialist countries.
Nearly two years after the Oct. 7 attack by the heroic Palestinian Resistance, the Palestinian question remains at the epicenter of the global class struggle.
It has galvanized the vanguard worldwide as an icon of struggles against oppression intertwined with all other struggles.
Unlike the Nazi-fascist genocide of World War II, which only became known years later, the Israeli genocide is being broadcast online by social media, and it has had an impact around the world.
Support for the Palestinian struggle is now more widespread than ever, despite the complicity of the vast majority of bourgeois governments and media with Zionism.
The Sumud Flotilla’s actions focused world attention on Palestine. Its detention provoked a spectacular international mass reaction. There were two general strikes in Italy in support of the Palestinians—the first of its kind—and massive mobilizations in several European countries, including Spain, France, and Germany, as well as in much of the global vanguard. In Italy, on October 4, one million demonstrators gathered in Rome.
We should follow Italy’s lead! On Oct. 15, Spain’s major unions are calling for a two-hour strike. Several trade union federations have joined forces, calling for partial strikes or even a 24-hour strike, in order to organize a large national day of solidarity with Palestine. This will force the Spanish government to completely and truly break off relations with Israel and impose a comprehensive arms embargo.
This is one way that global polarization is expressed. Despite the inequality in Gaza, the resistance continues to fight against the brutal Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 60,000 people and uses hunger as a weapon of war. Internationally, Zionism is increasingly isolated, and support for Palestine is growing alongside discontent over neoliberal attacks. This is an expression of the process of permanent revolution at the international level, reminiscent of the struggle against the Vietnam War.
The Trump plan
Trump’s “peace plan” aims to address this situation. The attrition and discrediting of Israel and Zionism had already forced a significant portion of European imperialist governments to “recognize a Palestinian state.” However, this has no practical value since those same governments continue to maintain trade relations with Israel, send weapons to Israel, and repress pro-Palestinian demonstrators in their own countries. However, this signaled an adaptation to the isolation of Zionism among the masses.
Trump then backtracked on the delusional plan to create a “Middle East Riviera” in Gaza and presented a proposal demanding the immediate handover of all Israeli prisoners and the disarmament of Hamas and all Palestinian resistance in exchange for the cessation of Israeli attacks and the withdrawal of the plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza.
This proposal was negotiated only with Netanyahu, not Hamas. Hamas then received a new ultimatum from the U.S. government. The “peace agreement” calls for the acceptance of a military occupation of Gaza, with a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces until a US-controlled international force arrives, as well as the establishment of a puppet government in Gaza that serves imperial interests. Obviously, the agreement does not guarantee peace and eliminates any possibility of self-determination for the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Trump is responding to the critical situation of Zionism’s isolation worldwide and the fact that it is becoming increasingly costly for imperialism to maintain this war. He is also expressing his ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It would be another disgrace, worse than the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords.
It is a colonial plan to hand Gaza over to imperialism and Israel and defeat the Palestinian struggle. Furthermore, demanding the handover of all hostages (living and dead) to Israel while the Zionist army occupies Gaza allows Netanyahu to resume attacks at any moment.
Trump and Netanyahu aim to achieve through diplomacy what they have failed to achieve militarily: the return of imprisoned hostages and the withdrawal of all resistance forces from Gaza to legitimize a new occupation of Palestinian territory. Netanyahu boasts of a “total victory” with the agreement and categorically rejects the idea of a “Palestinian state.”
The international acceptance of this plan highlights the complicity of imperialist and bourgeois governments with Zionism and the genocide in Gaza. They want the Palestinians to be disarmed and subjugated to imperialism and Israel.
Furthermore, the imperialists hope that the disarmament of the Resistance will also lead to an end of the mobilizations in solidarity with Palestine that threaten the stability of their governments in various countries.
What now?
Hamas’s response to Trump’s proposal revealed the pressure exerted on its leadership by bourgeois “allies” in the region and abroad. Hamas praised Trump’s plan and agreed to release the hostages and negotiate the “details” of the plan.
Hamas’s response to this new proposal is actually open. By showing its willingness to negotiate the handover of the hostages without specifying the terms yet, Hamas may resist the total handover before Israel withdraws from Gaza. By rejecting the puppet government of imperialism, Hamas questions the overall plan.
We do not question the brutal, concrete difficulties of the resistance in Gaza. They are isolated in terms of weapons and food, with closed borders, and have been in a struggle for two years. It is a brutal situation of military and food isolation.
However, we believe that the only way for the Palestinian resistance to win is to continue the military resistance in Gaza while receiving significant support from people worldwide. As the Palestinians know, we know that no peaceful coexistence with the colonial and murderous state of Israel is possible in the region. Any “peace plan” that legitimizes the Zionist entity will only pause the just and legitimate war of national liberation.
The Palestinian people must decide on any peace agreement and negotiate its terms on their long road to the total liberation of Palestine.
While Gaza is militarily isolated today, the opposite is true politically. Israel is increasingly isolated on the world stage, facing a rise in boycott actions and growing popularity among workers. This is why we must redouble our efforts to show solidarity with the Palestinian people and provide them with the necessary material, political, and moral support to resist imperialist blackmail.
Other signs of crisis in the Zionist plan are beginning to emerge. Significant mobilizations are taking place in Morocco, which could lead to new political crises and a potential Arab Spring-like movement in the region.
The coming days will have significant consequences for the Palestinian situation and the global class struggle.
To defeat Trump’s colonial plan, we must continue and expand mobilizations in support of the Palestinian people worldwide.
Free Palestine from the river to the sea!
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Immigrant defense requires action by the whole working class
By ERWIN FREED
Immigrant workers continue to find ways to survive and build new communities. Now, in the face of ICE becoming the largest federal law enforcement agency, the question is posed for all of us—how can militant workers build movement organizations capable of mobilizing a real defense of immigrants?
A current tactic is that of “Rapid Response Networks.” These networks can take many different forms. Some versions are more in line with the goal of building a movement that can connect immigrant self-defense with the broader labor movement, while others tend to miss opportunities at building mass actions and collective organizing.
Perhaps the most common type of “Rapid Response Network” is a collection of groups and individuals who maintain a phone line for people to report ICE and other immigration activity. Ideally, reporting ICE sightings allows at-risk community members to avoid potential contact with La Migra. Although Rapid Response Networks of this type have value, they are short of what is politically needed to defeat the whole deportation machine. They generally do little to create the types of broad and democratic grassroots organizations that are capable of politically empowering immigrant and non-immigrant workers.
These networks also have the unfortunate structural tendency toward solidifying “leadership” based on who has access to resources (phone lines, activist lists, ability to “staff” lines 24/7)—usually some non-profit or collection of non-profits—rather than who might be most committed to the struggle and articulating strategic ideas that are coherent and developed collectively.
At the same time, it should be recognized that mass reporting methods of this type are already prevalent in many immigrant communities. Facebook groups, WhatsApp threads, and even phone trees where people report ICE activity were common well before Trump. These existing and emerging networks are one place to look for potential class-struggle leadership in working-class immigrant communities.
Deportations and immigration policy are fundamental parts of capitalist class rule. Police harassment, cruel detention centers, and constant uncertainty all work to make undocumented workers nervous about fighting back. Working-class leaders are targeted with raids, arbitrary arrest, and often torture. These methods of subjugation are then used to discipline the rest of the working class when it gets too unruly. Every worker’s wages, benefits, and political rights are inseparable from the legal, political, and social conditions for non-native-born workers.
Unity between workers and immigrants is on the order of the day. Unions must begin dedicating resources to not only running campaigns against deportations but giving real working-class support to immigrant communities. Formations based on deep, person-to-person organizing—like the community defense watches in Los Angeles—provide a skeleton and a model for what the working class can create. Neighbors in that city are collectively organizing themselves to join their community members watching for and quickly demonstrating against ICE presence. These concrete experiences show the possibility of organizing rapid mass mobilization response committees that combine organized labor, immigrant community activists, and the broader social movements—all of which have much overlap.
In moments like these, demands such as “open borders” and “papers for all” can become rallying points to move forward. Connecting broader political demands with deportation defense, community patrols, and mass, on-the-ground, political education campaigns are some of the tools we have to building a real fightback to police terror. ICE’s strength comes from lawlessness and secrecy; ours comes in our numbers and social position. Workers and students must understand that their fates are tied in with the undocumented community.
If driven forward through enthusiastic coalition building, principled separation from Democratic Party control, and actively organizing behind the immigrant working class, these community defense efforts can fundamentally shift the terrain of class struggle in the United states. Student walkouts against school members’ immigration arrests point the way for broader struggles. Heroic and important examples of high school students leading their entire schools in walkouts show the embryo of the movement that we need.
Unfortunately, the labor movement has been frustratingly hesitant in this moment of ruling-class onslaught. At a time when all unions should be calling for a general strike in defense of public-sector workers, there are only harsh words and symbolic actions. Millions of rank-and-file workers are looking for the opportunity to mobilize and organize for a better world. All over the country, non-immigrants are showing that they are willing to put themselves at risk in defense of their immigrant neighbors.
Unions can make use of this enthusiasm for struggle. Organizing union participation in defense of immigrants will largely depend on shop-floor discussions on the current situation. It is at this level where clear connections can be made between local ICE activity, the national situation, and the ongoing attack on working-class living standards.
Just as important as shop-floor discussions is movement organization. There is a need for inspiring events to which workers who are interested in learning more about the struggle and getting involved in it can go. Every new escalation from Trump, every capitulation by the Democratic Party, every new excess by ICE demands urgent forums, discussions, and mobilizations. Building campaigns around specific deportation cases like that of Imam Ayman Soliman, the former chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, who was granted political asylum in this country, can become moments of clear unity in struggle between thousands and potentially millions of people. Trade unionists can bring these cases to union meetings, raise money for defense funds, and stand in political solidarity with detainees. Importantly, they can connect with other locals and community networks and begin to mobilize in the streets, with picketing and other forms of collective public action.
Maintaining this level of mobilization and organization is not easy, but it is necessary. If the current vanguard of the working class in the United States is capable of combining these sectors and energizing these struggles, the possibilities are endless. Rank-and-file school, industrial, health, logistics, and every other sector of essential workers have extraordinary power in this society. Despite all of the attempts to displace workers with automation and lean production methods, nothing moves and nothing is made without human labor.
A labor movement capable of taking strike action in defense of immigrants is a labor movement with rich internal discussions and some level of democratic functioning. It will take enormous pressure from the ranks to push the unions into motion, and a fundamental transformation in their current organizing methods to go on political strikes. However, this is the surest of pushing back the tide of ICE terror. The point that labor action is not only necessary but possible must be made at every opportunity in the shop floor.
The moment is ripe—as many thousands are yearning to fight back—and the need is urgent. Trump’s overextended political and repressive measures are taking the blindfolds of bourgeois culture halfway off. Experiences in working-class organizations of struggle can reveal the full reality—both the rot of capitalist society and the endless capacity of workers to run things in a better way.
Photo: San Francisco protest: “We are not criminals; we are workers!” (Creative Commons)
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Crisis in farm country
By RICHARD WESLEY
One year ago, ”Farmers for Trump” signs peppered the landscape in rural America. Over half a year into the second Trump administration, the enthusiasm for the election of 2024 has considerably abated in farm country. Policy decisions coming from Washington have dealt a series of blows to rural populations.
Tariffs and instability in export markets
The on-again, off-again tariffs imposed by Trump have shaken once reliable trade markets. As far back as April, Forbes cited a report from the American Enterprise Institute on the potential impact to agriculture: “In South Dakota, 87% of the land is used for farming, including corn, soybeans, and wheat, as well as dairy and beef products. Major crops include corn, soybeans, and wheat, and the state also produces beef and dairy products. Its neighbor North Dakota is also an agricultural powerhouse that produces significant amounts of grain and other crops. Iowa, Nebraska, and Montana round out the top five states with the highest proportion of farmers. These are the states most likely to feel the pain from tariffs that impact farmers.” Ironically, these are all “red” states that voted heavily in support of Trump.
The tariffs are not only affecting markets for produce (outputs), but they are driving higher prices for inputs—i.e., agrochemical imports, seeds, and farm machinery. These items face tariffs of 20% or more, making it costlier to bring agricultural products to market where they already face retaliatory tariffs. For example, costs for new farm machinery is up 60% over the last eight years—and rising, due to tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Moreover, the uncertainty of market conditions is causing once primary trade partners in the agricultural sector to seek other less volatile exporters. The most telling example of this effect is what happened in the first Trump administration when Trump imposed tariffs on China, and China responded with retaliatory tariffs on soybeans. According to Forbes, in the period prior to the tariffs, Brazil and the United States each provided 40% to 45% of Chinese soybeans imports. After the tariffs, Chinese importers shifted their business away from the United States to Brazil. Trump tried to soften the blow to American soybean farmers with a $61 billion relief package to farmers who suffered losses during this period. But it isn’t all that easy for market consumers to return once they have established a more reliable partner in Brazil.
The same could be said of other commodities, but it is unclear how or whether the administration could provide relief as before. While farmers are being sold on the idea of tariffs bringing long-term benefits, it may simply be a ploy to defer the damage being felt by the short-term effects.
Immigration policy damage
Another source of serious harm that is being inflicted on the agricultural sector is related to the Trump administration’s immigration policy. The violent ICE raids and the constant threats of arrest and deportation have terrified farm laborers and disrupted their lives. Many farmworkers and their families have been thrown into extreme financial hardship and made to face severe psychological trauma. Children who are U.S. citizens have often been separated from their undocumented parents.
Simultaneously, the wave of raids, detentions, and deportations has affected the agricultural market, as it has suppressed the supply of both skilled and unskilled workers. According to Farmonaut, a farm technology company, about 50% of agricultural workers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants.
For example, tomato farmers in Florida have suffered a severe shortage of migrant labor, causing many to plow their crops under. As reported by Moneywise on July 20, Tony DiMare, who owns 4000 acres of tomato farms across Florida and California, has had to mow over his Florida tomatoes and leave them to rot, due to Trump’s immigration policies.
The labor shortage means that Florida farmers must pay more for labor while, at the same time, they’re getting less money for their produce due to Trump’s tariffs. Farmonaut also notes that “the impact of tariffs and immigration policy will have a knock-on effect in grocery stores. If U.S. farmers don’t have enough workers to harvest crops, Americans will have to buy more imported produce and pay more, due to the tariffs assessed.”
A similar scenario is being played out in Oregon where cherry orchard farmers are watching a promising crop rotting on the trees. Laborers, along with those immigrants who have the skills to operate mechanized equipment for the harvest, are not showing up. Instead they have been intimidated by the prospect of ICE arrests, should they brave the journey north from California.
In dairy country (think Wisconsin and Vermont), the intensive labor required to run dairy operations has been stifled by the fear of ICE raids. Many of these workers are year-round employees and are easy targets for the quota-driven ICE agents.
Medicaid cuts causing rural hospitals to close
Another blow to rural America is the cuts to Medicaid triggered by the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law by Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. This reconciliation bill will lead to a reduction of approximately $911 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Of this amount, over $137 billion will be lost in rural areas. Estimates are that 10.3 million people will lose Medicaid benefits.
In addition, when cuts to the ACA (Affordable Care Act), which created an alternative to private insurance, are included, the number of people losing their insurance rises to 16 million. As noted by Rokosz Most in the Barn Raiser newsletter, “This put enormous strain on rural hospitals already underpaid by re-imbursements offered by federal healthcare programs, limited in the services they can provide, frequently understaffed, and frequently serving primarily those community members in or near the verge of poverty.” Already, rural hospitals have suffered a wave of closings, with more to come.
Farmers rally during 1984 farm crisis. (Bettman / Getty) Resistance in farm country
One of the first signs of farmer resistance occurred in the rural community of Hadley, in Western Massachusetts. Approximately 300 citizens gathered in late March to protest the cuts to federal programs supporting farmers. One example was the loss of funds for the Local Purchasing Assistance Program (LPAP), an allocation of $1 billion. The LPAP helps local farms to market a wide range of produce to schools, food banks, and other food access programs, in Massachusetts amounting to $12 million for the second half of FY2025. Due to a loss of 4,000 acres of farmland in the region during the previous two years because of a combination of both drought and floods, these funds would have helped offset production deficits.
Another farmer protested that she stood to lose $120,000 from the breach of her Rural Energy for America contract—money she had already borrowed on the promise of reimbursement and started to spend in compliance with their contract.
Since the Hadley protest, we’ve seen a crescendo of unrest elsewhere across the nation, with farmers showing up at town halls to confront congressional representatives in “red” districts about the damage being wrought by government policies. Most recently, there has been a surge of anger over a $20 billion bailout given to Argentina, which is a major competitor in the soybean trade with China. The bailout was given as a method of boosting the domestic standing of far-right Argentine President Milei, whom the Trump administration sees as an ally in promoting the objectives of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.
While the Trump administration keeps speaking of love for U.S. farmers, there is little evidence of that being translated into relief for the crisis which is hurting rural America. Many small farmers are unsure of being able to sustain their life in the multi-generational traditions of rural enterprise.
American consumers are already feeling the pinch, as prices are rising for basic grocery items. Indeed, the crisis in farm country will have a ripple effect reaching the tables of working-class families. It will be up to working-class America to stand with rural partners against the greed of the ruling class—more concerned with the cuts that lead to tax breaks for their opulent lifestyles.
Moreover, rural America needs a political option that truly represents their interests. It wasn’t so long ago that agricultural workers and independent farmers recognized that their real enemy wasn’t the immigrant, but rather the banks and corporate entities that controlled their lives. In the early 20th century, independent socialist and radical populist parties (like the Farmer-Labor Party, founded in 1919) were strong in the rural Midwest. It is time once again for industrial workers and working-class families to unite in common cause with small farmers against the capitalist behemoth.
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Ecuador: Call for international solidarity with 12 detainees branded ‘terrorists’
By ART (Articulación Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores) – Ecuador
OCT. 8 — During the national strike in Ecuador, 12 protesters from the province of Imbabura were arrested and branded terrorists by the government simply for exercising their right to protest. On Sept. 25, the protesters were illegally transferred to prisons in Esmeraldas and Potoviejo, far from their homes and families. This constitutes a serious violation of their rights. Serious irregularities were recorded during the hearings, such as:
• Denial of the right to a private lawyer, which prevented an adequate defense.
• Unfounded accusations of terrorism were made, which criminalize social protest.
The Regional Foundation for Human Rights Advisory Services (INREDH) has warned that this forced transfer represents not only a violation of due process and fundamental principles of justice but also endangers the lives of the detained activists, as the state does not guarantee their rights. Evidence of this includes two recent prison massacres in Esmeraldas and Machala, resulting in 14 and 17 fatalities, respectively. We alert the national and international community that this type of repressive action sets a dangerous precedent for the exercise of human rights in the country.
We demand:
1) The immediate release of those arbitrarily detained.
2) That the principles of due process be respected.
3) Those responsible for these violations must be investigated and punished.
4) The right to protest and free expression must be guaranteed.
We hold the Ecuadorian state and the government of Daniel Noboa responsible for the lives and well-being of those detained:
Luis Enrique Moreta Flores
Elvis Damián Lanchimba Morán,
Juan Sebastián Muenala Traves
Diego Armando López Ramírez,
Luis Ernesto Tituaña Maldonado.
José Segundo Amaguaña Quinchuquí
Washington Jeremy Lita Perugachi
Luis Henry Jácome Espinosa
Berny Jonathan Anchundia Andrade
Alfredo Padilla Criollo
William Andrés Rojas López
The ART section, affiliated with the IWL (International Workers League – Fourth International), urgently calls on human rights organizations, the international media, social movements, and global citizens to remain vigilant, speak out, and stand in solidarity with those who are currently facing criminalization for defending their rights.
The struggle is not a crime!
Free those imprisoned for fighting!
Long live the strike! Noboa must go!
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National strike in Ecuador grows stronger
By LENA SOUZA
OCT. 6—The national strike in Ecuador enters its third day and is growing stronger every day. What began as protests against rising diesel prices, the cost of living, and Daniel Noboa’s neoliberal policies has turned into a massive popular uprising, with demonstrations in 22 provinces across the country. Indigenous peoples, peasants, students, and urban workers have joined forces in the streets, on highways, and in squares, setting up roadblocks and holding community assemblies. Indignation over precarious conditions and official indifference is fueling a mobilization spreading throughout the country.
Noboa violently represses protesters & confronts Indigenous leaders
Noboa’s response has been to intensify repression. Through the militarization of territories, arbitrary detentions, and the brutal use of force, the government is attempting to suppress legitimate protests and apply anti-terrorism laws to demonstrators. Rather than opening a dialogue, the president has resorted to violent and racist rhetoric. The statement he has made against Indigenous peoples: “They want to drive us out of their territories; we will drive them out of the country,” clearly demonstrates the policy of hatred and exclusion he seeks to impose.
His direct confrontation with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) is no coincidence. The indigenous movement has historically been at the forefront of social struggles and remains the main organized force challenging neoliberal policies. The criminalization of protests and the persecution of their leaders are part of a state strategy that seeks to break resistance but has instead strengthened it.
The city of Otavalo has been militarized due to Noboa’s arrival. International solidarity is necessary
In the face of Noboa’s authoritarian and racist offensive, showing international solidarity with the Ecuadorian people is more urgent than ever. The country’s community and alternative media outlets have revealed how the mainstream media is hiding the magnitude of the strike and covering up state violence. It is of the utmost importance for social and popular movements in Latin America and the world to support the voices of communities, denounce repression, and spread their demands.
The struggle in Ecuador is not isolated; it is part of a continental battle against neoliberalism and the governments that prioritize the interests of elites and transnational corporations over the lives and dignity of the people. Now more than ever, we must raise our voices and firmly affirm our support for the Indigenous and popular resistance in Ecuador.
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Herbal Wellness Center workers strike in Columbus, Ohio
BY HUEY TACKNIN and COCO SMYTH
On Sept. 27, workers at the Herbal Wellness Center cannabis dispensary in Columbus, Ohio, began a strike demanding fairness from management at the company.
Herbal Wellness Center workers, represented by Herbal Wellness Center United (Teamsters Local 413), won recognition for their union a few years ago when the store was known as Strawberry Fields and was run by a prior management team.
The original management sold the company, at which point a larger corporation took ownership and a new set of problems presented themselves to the workers. As part of the transition process, the budtenders of Strawberry Fields had to reapply for their positions and half of the workforce was let go. Today, only six workers remain of the 24 who worked there before the management transition, mostly due to layoffs and firings. The store now runs with far fewer employees than when the store was known as Strawberry Fields.
HWC United has continued to advocate for the workers and has been demanding a decent contract and fair negotiations with their employer. Due to lack of progress in negotiations for over a year, HWC workers had no choice but to go on strike to bring management to the table.
Since the 27th, workers have set up daily picket lines outside of the Herbal Wellness Center and have won significant community support. Many union workers and labor organizers have come out to join HWC United to support them on the picket line. Community members driving by the busy road that Herbal Wellness Center sits on regularly honk to show their support for the workers and their demands. Even some workers who had been laid off or fired during the management transition joined the picket line “to help us get better,” as one current employee put it.
Due to the strike, Herbal Wellness Center has been forced to bring in management from other locations to scab on the budtenders, yet has still needed to reduce the store’s hours of operations. Large portions of their customer base have respected the picket line and refused to shop at the store through the duration of the strike. While no figures are publicly available, workers believe that the company’s profits have been significantly impacted by the ongoing strike.
On the picket line, we heard directly from workers about their experiences and their demands. Their attitudes and focus were strong and determined, from the first employee that we talked with to the last. We spoke with three employees in more engaging conversations, while a few other employees also contributed to the discussion. We were struck by their resolve to get a fair deal, involving wages, administrative processes and rules, fair hours and scheduling for employees, etc.
The workers emphasized how they want to resolve the unfair labor practices that have predominated since the new management took over. They demand job security and want fair disciplinary processes. There is a strong feeling that the prior layoffs were unjust, and that since then, there has been an atmosphere of favoritism that has led to further unfair firings. Workers want to see formal disciplinary procedures that can bring fairness to these processes.
Another qualm workers had was with unequal pay and raises. HWC workers feel that these inequalities in pay and raises without any serious processes or explanations is unfair.
A final key demand that workers highlighted was formal procedures for successorship of the company. The handover from the old Strawberry Fields management to the new Herbal Wellness Center management led to large layoffs and a variety of negative changes for the working conditions of the remaining employees. In the case of future changes in management, HWC workers want protections to prevent these types of unilateral actions on the part of management. They are demanding “successorship,” in which employees would have a say in what happens to employees in case of a change of ownership.
The workers at HWC highlighted repeatedly that they’re making these demands because of how much they love their jobs. One employee, Ian, stated that this has been his “favorite job.” But when the business changed ownership, he had his hours cut back while many other co-workers were laid off. He lost four to eight working hours per weekend. Nonetheless, he stated, “I love this job so much that I’m out here striking for it.”
Kalyana, another worker, shared that she has “never done this [strike] before” but believes the “strike is a good thing. I think that we’re being fair.” Another employee summed up their vision in these words: “We want to be protected; we want to be where we can grow as workers.”
As of writing, the strike has been going for almost two weeks. HWC workers on the picket line were in high spirits and believed that the company would come back to the table to negotiate with them soon.
We encourage workers to spread the word about the strike and offer their support to Herbal Wellness Center workers demands. Solidarity and support from the community can materially aid the strikers bring management back to the table and recognize their demands. The demands that HWC workers are putting forward are very simple. Every worker should have fair working conditions and protections. And HWC workers are showing the means for the working class to secure their rights—through solidarity and struggle.
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What’s at stake in the government shutdown?
By JOHN LESLIE
At midnight on Sept. 30, the U.S. government shut down after Republicans and Democrats failed to reach agreement on a short-term spending plan. As a consequence, there is a looming danger that the shutdown will lead to a series of service cuts and permanent layoffs of federal workers that go far beyond what the administration has already carried out. A memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)indicates agencies are directed to “use this opportunity to consider reduction in force (RIF) notices for all employees in programs, projects, or activities.” Conditions in which layoffs could take place include the consideration that they “are not consistent with the president’s priorities.”
During budget negotiations, the Democrats were holding out for the extension of the temporary tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which were put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. Without the extension of these subsidies, 22 million ACA enrollees could see a sharp increase in their premiums.
Prior to the shutdown, GOP leaders claimed that the Democrats were holding up a deal in order to give health insurance to “illegal aliens.” Trump posted a fake and incredibly racist AI-generated video on X of Senate Minority Leader Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
According to KFF, “If Congress extends enhanced premium tax credits, subsidized enrollees would save $1,016 in premium payments over the year in 2026 on average. In other words, expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits is estimated to more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay annually for premiums—a 114% increase from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026. (The average premium payment net of tax credits among subsidized enrollees held steady at $888 annually in 2024 and 2025 due to the enhanced premium tax credits).”
The result of soaring premiums could be catastrophic. ”Some people will need to drop their insurance all together, but households with someone with a chronic illness will have to pay those big, big increases,” said Rohit Chopra, former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
All of this is on top of the huge cuts in Medicaid under the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) and changes to ACA rules under Trump, including shortening the open enrollment period, restrictions on special enrollment periods, and extra monthly fees levied on auto-enrollees who don’t actively re-verify their eligibility.
The OBBB also changed the rules for ACA eligibility. Beginning in 2027, only certain groups will be eligible for subsidized health insurance through the ACA marketplaces; these are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (LPRs) (green card holders), Cuban and Haitian entrants, and migrants from Compact of Free Association (COFA) nations, including the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Excluded from the marketplaces are a group of legal immigrants—refugees and asylum holders who do not have a green card, recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), persons with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), humanitarian parolees, and holders of certain work visas. According to the KFF, this “will result in about 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants becoming uninsured.”
We should note that although congressional Democrats have chosen to fight on the question of cuts in health-care benefits, they have offered no opposition to the stupendous amount of government funding given to the military, which amounts to over 13% of the budget. In June, Trump requested $961.6 billion for the Department of Defense in 2026, while the House passed a bill for $831.5 billion in discretionary funding for the military, and the Senate approved a bill for $852 billion. These figures are almost 10 times the amount ($95 billion) that has been budgeted for the Department of Health and Human Services in 2026.
Jobs and services on the chopping block
Some essential services will continue during the shutdown, with Transportation Security Administration staff and air traffic controllers continuing to work. Social Security checks will still be issued, but hundreds of thousands of federal workers across multiple agencies have been furloughed. Furloughed employees are considered to be on “non-duty, non-pay status” but will receive back pay at a later time, according to a 2019 law; previously, furloughed employees were not guaranteed back pay. Those deemed “essential” must continue to work without pay until the shutdown ends.
According to Politico, “A shutdown now presents him [Trump] and his budget chief, Russ Vought—ever eager to test the limits of executive authority—with a fresh means of wielding even more control over the federal workforce and spending. Last week, the Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to develop plans for firing employees if a shutdown happened.” Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is one of the authors of the far right Project 2025.
In response to Vought’s directive, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees AFSCME) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) filed a lawsuit challenging these threats.
AFSCME President Lee Saunders said, “The Trump administration is once again breaking the law to push its extreme Project 2025 agenda, illegally targeting federal workers with threats of mass firings due to the federal government shutdown. … If these mass firings take place, the people who keep our skies safe for travel, our food supply secure, and our communities protected will lose their jobs. We will do everything possible to defend these AFSCME members and their fellow workers from an administration hell-bent on stripping away their collective bargaining rights and jobs.”
Alissa Tafti, co-executive director of the Federal Unionist Network, said, “We’ve known for some time that this administration wants massive RIFs (reductions in force). This is not new. … What is new is using a shutdown as a threat to pressure Congress to pass a budget that impacts our most vulnerable, including seniors, rural communities, hungry children and cuts out access to healthcare for millions of Americans.”
Indeed, Trump may try to use the shutdown as the pretext for massive spending and service cuts, federal workforce restructuring, and retribution against political opponents. According to the Associated Press, “The Office of Management and Budget announced it was putting on hold roughly $18 billion of infrastructure funds for New York’s subway and Hudson Tunnel projects—in the hometown of the Democratic leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.” Trump praised Vought, saying, “He can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
Coupled with anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) measures, the firing of federal workers will disproportionately affect women and Black workers, and the ripple effect in the economy from the loss of secure employment could be catastrophic for communities. For decades, government jobs have offered Black working-class people a stable path to a middle-class income. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 300,000 Black women have left the workforce since Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025.
Economists and researchers attribute these job losses to a combination of federal workforce cuts, elimination of DEI initiatives, and a broader economic slowdown. A round of mass layoffs in the public sector will only exacerbate this trend. This is on top of previous mass job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, when unemployment rates for Black women reached 16.5%, the highest of any demographic group.
According to Forbes, “Federal job cuts are disproportionately impacting women of all ages and career stages. The Trump administration projects a reduction of 300,000 federal jobs this year, comprising nearly 12.5% of the workforce, according to press statements by Office of Personnel Management director Scott Kupor. Women represent roughly half of federal employees and have higher representation in the agencies targeted for cuts. These administrative actions threaten not only women’s jobs but also their career growth, retirement security and financial stability.”
Building opposition to Trump’s cuts
Trump’s attack on public-sector unions is a prelude to an all-out attack on the unions as a whole. Some union leaders, like the Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien, think they have a seat at Trump’s table, but they are on borrowed time. Not since Reagan’s anti-union onslaught in the 1980s has there been a federal attack on the unions on this scale. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Trump has hurt working people and the economy [in] over 100 ways. From his attacks on workers’ rights to his chaotic implementation of historically high tariffs, and his dismantling of critical federal agencies and the programs they administer, Trump’s actions have left workers with fewer rights and have put the U.S. economy on a path toward an almost certain recession.”
Since Trump’s ascension to his second term, the union leaderships and the Democratic Party establishment have been criminally ineffective. In some cases, the lesson Democrats have drawn from their 2024 defeat is that the party needs to move even further right or abandon trans people in a quest for votes. Likewise, in 2024, the Democrats tacked right on the immigration issue, arguing that they could carry out deportations more humanely. In a nutshell, the Democrats would rather compromise with Trumpism than risk angering their capitalist paymasters.
We also need to reinvigorate the movement for a national health-care system that covers all people. The ACA, which was passed as a “compromise” during the Obama administration, intentionally left aside the question of single-payer health care, leaving working people at the mercy of predatory insurance companies.
The alternative for workers and oppressed people is an independent, democratically organized mass movement, the mobilization of the unions at workplaces and in the streets, and the mass defense of democratic rights. The capitalist courts and politicians won’t save us. We hold the potential power to completely reshape society in the interests of the oppressed and exploited. In part, this means building a party of our own, a working-class party that fights for us every day.
It also means building a new class-struggle leadership in our unions. We need working-class methods of struggle—including strikes, mass marches, and community self-defense against far right attacks.
In 1981, in response to Reagan’s union busting, the unions and their allies organized a Solidarity Day march that brought 500,000 working people to the streets of the nation’s capital. In 1991, Solidarity Day Two brought hundreds of thousands into the streets in the wake of the Gulf War to demand workers’ rights, jobs, education, and healthcare.
We need another Solidarity Day march on Washington today to demand:
- No cuts of federal services; no layoffs!
- Stop union busting!
- Stop attacks on democratic rights!
- Defend immigrant communities! Papers for all!
- Defend LGBTQ rights! Defend transgender people!
- Jobs, education, and health care for all!
- Halt Trump’s march towards authoritarianism!
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Labor Roundup
By ERNIE GOTTA
Read here the news and views from the class struggle in the U.S. and internationally! This edition features news from Connecticut, Ohio, Kentucky, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
Auto workers in Conn. threaten strike at Cummins
UAW Local 379 is demanding wage and health benefit increases, profit sharing, and job security at Cummins/Jacob Vehicle Systems in Bloomfield, Conn. Union members have rallied with their bargaining committee and practicing walking the picket line, with 98% in favor of calling a strike if a satisfactory deal can’t be reached. On Thursday, Sept. 25, UAW members held practice pickets outside the factory on Dudley Town Road.
In 2022 Cummins acquired Jacob Vehicle Systems (JVS), maker of the “Jake Brake” into its portfolio. The Jake Brake was actually invented by Clessie Cummins, founder of Cummins. JVS makes engine braking, cylinder deactivation, start and stop and thermal management technologies and was acquired from Alta Industrial Motion Corp as part of a deal that would secure engine components qualified under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Profits have soared at Cummins/JVS. In 2024 alone, the company recorded $8.4 billion in gross profits and $3.9 billion in net income, paid out $21.9 million to its CEO, and distributed $969 million to shareholders. Meanwhile, workers’ wages have stagnated, topping out at $26 per hour.
Follow Workers Voice CT on Facebook to get updates on practice pickets and how to show solidarity should the workers decide to shut down production.
Chicago Teamsters strike Mauser over unsafe conditions, wages, and immigration protections
Members of Teamsters Local 705 at Mauser Packaging Solutions have been on strike since June 9. Mauser, a multi-national company with roughly $5 billion in revenue, reconditions industrial containers that hold dangerous chemicals like acetone. Newly released videos on Local 705’s Facebook page “show clouds of dust, smoke, and fumes engulfing the filthy warehouse. Visible fumes rise out of barrels of hydrofluoric acid and other poisonous chemicals. Orange clouds are pumped out of the warehouse and into Chicago’s airspace. Barrels are positioned near clear structural hazards like cracked walls and damaged pillars. These images confirm what striking Mauser Teamsters have charged: that Mauser is putting its workers’ in daily, direct danger.”
Workers are shutting down production to demand not only safer working conditions and better wages but also protections against ICE raids without juridical warrants.
Despite not costing the company a dime, Mauser has refused to agree to common sense protections for its workers. Since the start of the Chicago strike, the Teamsters union has expanded picketing at Mauser in Los Angeles and in Minnesota.
Labor disputes between Mauser and Teamster members started in Seattle in April when 20 members of Teamsters Local 117 were locked out after the company sent an unacceptable final offer to the union negotiating team. The workers remain locked out and fighting for their jobs.
“Mauser tried to push us out instead of bargaining fairly,” said Brian Perfitt, a locked-out Teamster at ICS and member of Local 117. “Now they’re trying the same thing in Chicago—but they’re not just fighting one group of Teamsters. They’re up against the entire Teamsters Union.”
UAW members in Ohio and Kentucky ratify contract gains at GE Aerospace
Some 600 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) at GE Aerospace returned to work in Ohio and Kentucky last week after ratifying a contract by 82% following a three-week strike. UAW announced on their website, “After a long and challenging path, your bargaining committee is proud to announce that we have reached a tentative agreement with the Company! This five-year agreement delivers significant wins for our members, including: Minimum Workforce Guarantee to protect our jobs and future. $3,500 in cash payments to help offset rising healthcare costs. Additional personal time for all members. Vacation time increases to provide members with more time off. No changes to our grievance or strike language—our protections remain strong.”
UAW members walked off the job after nearly a month of negotiations failed to reach a tentative agreement. UAW workers at the factory in Evendale, Ohio, halted their production of high-temperature engine components for military and commercial use. In Erlanger, Ky., the union workers shut down the production of aircraft engine parts, as well as closing the distribution center for GE Aerospace commercial hardware.
During the strike, the UAW released a statement saying, “Between 2022 to 2024, GE Aerospace has reaped record profit surpassing $17 billion and over $16 billion in shareholder distributions. Notably, a 5-year deal meeting the workers’ demands to maintain their current health care with no premium increases, strengthen job security, and add more time off, would cost GE just $75 million—which is only 1% of its 2024 profits.”
UNITE HERE hotel workers in Philadelphia take on the bosses
About 98% of the UNITE HERE Local 274 members working at the Sheraton Hotel in Downtown Philadelphia voted to authorize a strike. The Sheraton is the largest of Philadelphia’s unionized hotels and is the at the center of contract negations that will feature eight other union hotels, totaling around 1000 workers. Workers at the Hampton Inn Center City-Convention Center approved their own strike authorization vote on Thursday, Sept. 25.
A strike across all eight hotels could hamstring the industry as the city looks to capitalize on tourism. “Next year, tourism is going to bring in over a billion dollars to our region,” said Sheraton room attendant Francine Eason. “Before all that money comes in, we need to make sure we’re getting our fair share.”
The room attendants, cooks, bartenders, banquet staff, dishwashers, front desk, and servers who make up the membership at the Sheraton have already waited over a year for a new contract and are tired of the hotel industry dragging their feet. The key to successful hotel strikes has always been mobilizing the striking power of the largest amount of workers possible across the industry. This was demonstrated by the UNITE HERE San Francisco hotel strike in September 2024, when 2500 hotel workers across the city at the Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton threw a wrench into the works of the hospitality industry.
Los Angeles budget woes put city workers in a tight spot
Labor unions representing municipal workers in Los Angeles made concessions to prevent layoffs. The agreements include up to a week of voluntary furlough days. The LA City Coalition of Unions and Engineers and Architects Association agreed to take “unpaid holidays” in 2026 to prevent 300 layoffs. Pressured by a $1 billion budgetary gap—largely due to Trump’s cuts in federal spending via the “Big Beautiful Bill”—costs due to massive wildfires, and lower tax revenue, the city of Los Angeles threatened to layoff 1600 workers in April. The city has also faced billions of dollars in payouts due to AB 218 legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, which created an extension for survivors of child sex abuse to file claims.
In April, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) launched a ULP strike, which took 50,000 city workers off the job. The County of Los Angeles stated that SEIU members would receive a “$5,000 one-time ratification bonus, a 2% cost of living adjustment (COLA) and $2,000 bonus in year two (effective 10/1/26), and a 5% COLA in year three of the contract (effective 10/1/27).”
At the same time, LA County officials put the blame for future social program cuts on the union workers, stating, “Funding this tentative labor agreement will require making budget cuts that will affect some programs. These sacrifices will be necessary to avoid a structural deficit as we move to provide fair compensation for our workforce in these difficult times.”
While municipal workers are being pressed around modest wage increases, the city is showing its real priorities by giving $2.62 billion to land developers for the expansion of the L.A. Convention Center ahead of the 2028 Olympics. Historically, infrastructure projects like stadiums and convention centers funded by public tax dollars are a boon for private investors and city officials who receive kickbacks while driving municipal budgets deeper in debt.
Photo: UNITE-HERE Local 274 workers picket outside the Hilton Garden Inn in Philadelphia. (Alejandro A. Alvarez / Philadelphia Inquirer)
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Connecticut residents demand: ‘Release Victor Sanchez now!’
By ERWIN FREED
ICE agents kidnapped Victor Sánchez at a routine immigration check-in in Hartford, Conn., on Wednesday, Sept. 24. Victor is a community leader, father, and worker. He is involved not only with immigrant justice organizing but also helping people achieve sobriety. Victor has been in the United States since 2004. According to a press release sent by Make the Road CT and Hartford Deportation Defense, “His work has included organizing food drives, supporting campaigns for worker justice like Fair Work Week, providing support for neighbors looking for legal assistance, and creating safe spaces for dialogue among people fighting for their rights.”
After Victor’s detention, calls for an emergency 6 p.m. rally and press conference spread quickly in organizing spaces and on social media. Close to 200 supporters and press gathered in a lively demonstration outside of the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building, where ICE has a field office.
Speakers connected Victor’s arrest to the attacks by ICE and other agencies’ on workers around the United States. Throughout the press conference, an urgent picture was painted of ICE as one part of a multi-level attack on working-class living standards. While ICE’s budget is set to be tripled and ever more dollars are spent on war, SNAP, MEDICAID, and school funding are being drastically cut. It is worth noting also that in Connecticut, where the Democratic Party controls the entire state government, there are no protections against immigrants on Medicaid having their information shared with ICE.
Victor’s kidnapping is the latest in a string of obviously politically motivated ICE arrests. Alfredo Juarez Zerefino, Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago, and many others have been kidnapped and detained as part of ICE’s ongoing terror campaign. The point is to target activists in an attempt to intimidate and silence the rest of the community. One speaker at the press conference warned attendees not to believe the propaganda and rhetoric that migrant workers are creating this violence.
Speakers were generally critical of the state’s government and its federal representatives. The theme of the mobilization could be summed up with the slogans: “We have the power to stop these attacks! The people united will never be defeated!”
Emergency, statewide mobilizations in defense of migrant activists and community members and against ICE‘s constant escalations show the energy that is mounting for a real, nationwide mass movement.
Workers’ Voice demands the immediate release of Victor Sanchez and all political prisoners. We are committed to working in the union and social movements to turn every attack on workers into a moment to expand and strengthen working-class organization and to win the freedom of our community members.
Photo: Constanza Segovia of Hartford Deportation Defense (KM/Workers’ Voice)
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Big Tech’s artificial solutions to the climate crisis
By HERMAN MORRIS
In 2019, responding to employee pressure and a walkout of thousands of workers, Amazon declared that it would be joining the climate pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Microsoft would also join the climate pledge, with Apple, Oracle, and Meta making similar promises. As part of these commitments, tech companies resolved to source carbon-free energy for data centers, rely on zero or low-emission transportation, and move toward recyclable materials for their physical electronic products. Given these lofty ambitions, one would expect a trend line of emissions going down. Despite these goals, however, Big Tech companies are emitting more emissions than ever, with many of them increasing due to investments into AI data centers.
On a fundamental level, Big Tech’s climate goals have always been a smokescreen. Their profits are built on the backs of extracting, transporting, and refining raw materials into chips, computers, warehouses, and cables. The processes to create these end products are inherently emission creating. The entire business model of Big Tech companies is tied to selling more physical computer devices and connecting more people to the internet and their services every year. With pressure to keep profits up as tech becomes a load-bearing pillar to the entire U.S. economy, Big Tech was always bound to renege on any promise to complete a green transition. However, the advent of AI data centers has introduced a complete about-face to pursuing one of the biggest accelerations of emissions in the modern global economy.
A false start
Data centers are already one of the biggest drivers of greenhouse gas emissions for tech companies. Powering data centers globally contributed to the IEA-reported 330 megatons of CO2 recorded in 2020, or roughly 1% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that year. Already, this measure is a lie that is inherent to net-zero emission targets. Net-zero emission targets (as opposed to “true” zero emissions) allow for an entity to still emit greenhouse gases, so long as they offset these emissions through the purchase of carbon offset credits or other certificates. The Guardian reports that through the use of renewable energy credits (RECs), tech companies are able to buy and use green energy at any other facility in the world, and then use that energy to mark down their data center emissions. This standard of reporting does not even meet the spirit of net-zero energy as there is no carbon capture or any other act of counteracting the total emissions from data centers. Through this creative accounting, data centers can under-report their emissions, which are estimated to be over seven times higher when RECs are removed.
A strain on the Earth and the working class
The development of AI data centers poses an even higher rate of emissions from tech companies. Training and operating AI models must be done with special hardware that most existing data centers are not equipped to provide. This has led to a huge build-out of new infrastructure from Big Tech companies. So far, $750 billion is estimated to have been spent on new data center construction.
In one case, Meta is proposing a data center the size of Manhattan as part of its push to create a new cluster of AI data centers. All these capacity additions have led Big Tech companies away from their climate goals, with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft now creating more emissions than they were in 2021, and Google increasing their emissions by 11 percent in 2024 alone.
While the cost of training the latest AI models is shrouded in mystery, the cost of operating them can be an order of magnitude more expensive than operating services such as Google. Goldman Sachs has estimated that a ChatGPT query requires nearly 10 times more electricity than a Google search. One analysis puts total potential AI-oriented hardware (based on annual GPUs sales for data center use) emissions output at 3.25 gigatons of CO2 a year, or 7% of all emissions produced globally in a year. The current strategy for developing AI tools is not only raising emissions but is creating a new class of software that will cost the planet more than previous web-based tools such as Google search or email.
The exorbitant energy demands of AI are causing tech companies to run up against the existing limits of global energy grids. Searching for a path out of this crisis, Amazon and Google have announced partnerships with energy companies to explore using nuclear energy for their AI data centers. Meanwhile, Meta has an open request for nuclear energy proposals to provide one to four gigawatts of electricity for its AI goals. Future projections place the average electricity bill increase due to AI for Americans to be 8% by 2030, with certain hotspots like northern Virginia to see around 25%.
There is also growing pressure on water use. In comparison to traditional data centers, the estimated total water footprint of Google hyperscale data centers that power Gmail and Google Drive was about 200 million gallons of water a year. At the low end, global AI data center water use is projected to be more than 1 trillion gallons of fresh water a year by 2027. One-fifth of those data centers will be in water-stressed regions.
Developing AI while the world burns
So how are tech leaders working through these contradictions of claiming to save the planet while pursuing more emissions than ever before? At an AI summit in Washington, D.C., former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked about balancing AI development with climate goals. His response was: “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it,” and that instead, more attention should be paid to accelerating AI development. Bill Gates made similar comments at a London event, claiming that any energy grid strain would be made up for by new efficiencies that AI unlocks.
Both comments reveal the actual motives behind AI investment for Big Tech companies. Right now, AI’s ability to positively impact climate change is highly theoretical, with no examples thus far being able to remove or capture emissions at the rate that its development releases. Climate change, on the other hand, is happening right now and destroying entire communities, with the UN forecasting a global temperature rise of 3.1C this century—a far cry from the 1.5C target. Even in a scenario where AI applications do unlock massive energy efficiencies that lower emissions, there is no reason to believe that this solves climate change. Without a fundamental change in how the global economy is structured, efficiencies discovered through new tools will only enable a further expansion of production and extraction from the earth. In truth, tech capitalists are throwing in the towel on the climate change debate and admitting they cannot solve it and would rather focus on their next scheme to keep profit margins up.
For workers’ control and nationalization of Big Tech
As of 2025, the richest seven tech companies in the U.S. account for over one-fourth of the S&P 500 in the U.S. By themselves, they have a market cap equivalent to the Japanese, Canadian, and UK economies combined. The wildly irresponsible investments in AI and its potential to deepen a growing climate crisis are a consequence of wealth belonging to a handful of bureaucrats who run the Big Tech firms. Their need to grow profits to stay in power naturally leads to the situation today in which they are actively making the world less habitable to try and find one more industry to break into.
On the other hand, working people will be forced to bear the environmental and economic burden of pursuing new AI developments. This, plus their collective experience in having to integrate AI tools into day-to-day work, makes them far better at rationally assessing and planning investment into AI.
To manage the climate crisis, it is necessary to take control of these firms away from the hands of the tech capitalists and put them into the hands of the working class. The Big Tech firms must be placed into public ownership, with workers in charge of determining how to structure and run production. Nationalization and workers’ control of the Big Tech firms can ensure actual debate and democratic votes on how much and where to invest the immense wealth that tech capital has produced, as opposed to leaving it up to an unaccountable bureaucracy.
What would this look like? First, the Big Tech companies and their immense wealth would be placed in public hands, with unions and shopfloor committees organizing production. Those unions and committees would have democratically elected leadership from the rank-and-file workers, running and planning production. Under this model, the debate of how much to invest into AI, where to try to apply it, and how to mitigate its climate impacts could be held and decided collectively by workers and not in a closed-door board meeting.
In the short term, this would create the conditions to argue for a dramatic decrease in AI investment regarding data center construction and operation. In the long term, this would allow for a more critical investigation into how to develop AI tools that are energy conscious and explore uses of AI that propose a benefit to humanity.
This structure has other benefits; it eliminates the irrational race to develop technology, as now there is no longer a profit motive to scramble and be the first to discover the next AI breakthrough. It also means being realistic about what is possible with the technology and no longer making sci-fi promises on AI’s potential to appease investors. Perhaps most importantly, it allows workers to determine how these tools will be used in the workplace. This ensures that new AI tools will help make workers’ lives easier, eliminate the less desirable parts of the job, and lower working hours, instead of using it to increase surveillance of workers and to try to impose an intensification of the workday.
Time is running out on meeting the climate goals put forward by the UN and the Paris Agreement. The experience of the past several decades has shown that capitalists are not up to the task of planning an economy that can maintain balance with the Earth. The example of Amazon workers walking out in 2019 shows that a mass impulse exists to protect the environment around us, even in the corporate workforce that is normally mollified through high wages and good benefits.
The clock is ticking for meeting the 1.5C limit that would prevent the worst of what climate change has in store, but there is still an opportunity to mitigate much of the catastrophic damage that climate change could cause. Workers can and must take control of the economy away from the capitalist class; to do anything less is to trust our future to a group that never really cared about the climate crisis in the first place.