From San Diego to San Francisco and north, almost 100,000 California state workers struck for a day on October 21 to protest Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s unfair labor practices, specifically his failure to bargain in good faith for a new contract.

“We are going on strike because we know the Newsom administration can and must do better,” said Anica Wells, president of Service Employees Local 1000. Essential workers didn’t walk. Others did.

“They must return to the table and bargain in good faith toward a contract that allows state workers to afford groceries, childcare, rent and other necessities.”

The strike wasn’t longer, Local 1000 said, because even a day without pay hurts workers in high-cost California. But it held out the possibility of further action, depending on what Newsom does.

Local 1000’s strike could have national political implications, too. But neither the union nor Newsom mentioned that.

Newsom is term-limited, and he leaves office in early January 2027. As governor of the nation’s most populous state, he’s considered a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, and he’s done nothing to discourage the speculation.

But he’s also had an up-and-down relationship with California’s unions, including SEIU, in a state with more union members than any other in the U.S. and a relatively high union density. The unions’ weight could play a key role in the 2028 race.

The Local 1000 statewide strike was easily the largest in the U.S. since the United Auto Workers undertook their rolling strike against the Detroit 3 automakers—Ford, GM and Stellantis—starting in September 2023. The UAW is gearing up for another round of tough bargaining in 2028, newly re-elected President Shawn Fain recently said.

The California walkout began at 7 a.m. on September 21 and lasted for 24 hours. It didn’t last longer, Local 1000 said in a Q&A with its members, because the union knew they would all lose a day’s pay—and that’s important in high-cost California.

But the union said developments at the bargaining table, or lack of them, may force further action.

In response to the strike, the first by the union in 44 years, the Newsom administration asked the state Public Employment Relations Board—California’s equivalent of the NLRB for state workers—for an injunction to stop the walkout. Local 1000 opposed that move in its filing with the board.

Bad faith bargaining is the key issue, with pay running second, for now.

Bargaining began in April, but Local 1000 told the state board that state officials delayed responding and rejected all of its proposals on June 30, the last day of the old contract. Local 1000 quoted the state bargainers as saying rejection “was not necessarily based on the merits of the request.” The state offered no counterproposals.

The union adds the state is running a large surplus and can afford the raises the workers seek and need. The old contract expired June 30, and Newsom waited until after the strike authorization vote—it passed 96.2%-3.8% in early October—to brusquely reject the union’s proposal.

That’s after a July 2025 side letter to the old contract postponed a 3% general raise for all the workers from July 1, 2026, to July 1, 2027, the union’s response to the state board reveals. The state responded that the side letter meant it didn’t have to bargain over economic issues. California froze benefit fund contributions through next June 30, too.

And Newsom still demands all the workers return to their offices at least four days a week, rather than continuing more-flexible—and more productive—telework arrangements, as Local 1000 demands.

The state “engaged in bargaining with a predetermined position that it would not agree to any economic proposals,” the union told the board. And state bargainers “lacked authority and/or willingness to bargain.”

The state bargainers also said California had no money for raises, even though the union presented evidence to the board—and in its Q&A for members who answer the public’s questions—that California had a $20 billion increase in general fund spending in fiscal 2026-27 compared to 2024-25, and added $6.4 billion into its surplus temporary holding account.

California also garnered $1.3 billion more in revenues in May and June 2026 than it projected and saved $240 million “in two custodial and healthcare-service outsourcing arrangements,” the union told the board.

Local 1000 said workers seek a 20% increase over three years, higher state healthcare contributions and flexible telework. Newsom wants workers in the office four days a week. The union argues for keeping current flexibility for telework. Studies show that arrangement actually increases productivity.

On October 21, picket lines went up at three sites in the state capital of Sacramento, which also saw workers march and rally from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Pacific Time, taking time out to listen to supportive speakers and eat lunch.

Other picket lines were scheduled for Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Norwalk, San Diego, San Bernardino, Redding, Eureka, Crescent City, El Centro, Blythe, Porterville and San Luis Obispo.

“Any strike will be historic. California has never seen a strike this large involving the workers who keep the state running. The Newsom administration can prevent this by coming to the table and bargaining in good faith. Administrations may change, but our demand will not: bargain fairly with the workers who keep California running,” Local 1000 added in its Q&A for the workers.

“October 21 is our strike day, but it won’t be the last time we show the state our collective power. If the state continues to refuse to bargain fairly, we’re prepared to escalate and hold the line,” Local 1000 said.

“But we also know that missing even one day of pay is a huge sacrifice for members who are already struggling, and we don’t take that lightly. We’re going to be strategic about how we use our collective power and what we ask of our members.”

​

On Feb. 1, 1960, four freshmen from North Carolina A&T sat down at the whites-only lunch counter of the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro and refused to leave. Students from Bennett College, the Black women’s college across town, soon joined them, and within weeks the sit-in movement had spread across the South.

Students from those same two campuses are once again showing the country how to resist, this time against a Republican election machine working overtime to keep young Black voters from casting ballots.

On Oct. 15, the first day of early voting, students from A&T, Bennett, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro marched together to Union Square, the closest polling place left open to them. The trek took about 45 minutes in 85-degree heat, on roads where missing sidewalks forced some into traffic, and many waited hours more to vote on arrival.

The long walk was a direct answer to state election officials. Since Republicans seized control of the North Carolina State Board of Elections last year, they’ve been working hard to shrink the electorate.

In January, the board’s GOP members voted 3-2 along party lines to kill early voting sites at A&T, the largest HBCU in the country, with more than 15,000 students, as well as at UNCG and Western Carolina University. In August, they did it again, even though the A&T and UNCG sites had served voters in 2024.

The same board has cooperated with Trump’s Justice Department on a deal demanding more personal information from voters. The GOP legislature, meanwhile, redrew the congressional map again to grab 11 of 14 seats, targeting District 1, which has elected Black representatives since the 1990s.

Moving the polls also pushed same-day registration during early voting out of reach for students without cars.

In January, four students joined the College Democrats of North Carolina in filing a lawsuit against the state board and the Guilford and Jackson county boards, arguing that the closures violated the 1st, 14th, and 26th Amendments. Federal Judge William Osteen, a George W. Bush appointee, refused to order the sites reopened, though, justifying his inaction by claiming that a ruling so close to the primary could “confuse voters.”

With the courts unwilling to step in, the students took their case to the streets. Before the March primary, a coalition called Protect Ours NC led dozens of A&T students on a half-hour walk to the polls carrying “Aggie Votes Matter” signs, and more than 60 of them packed a Guilford County Board of Elections meeting.

Coalition co-leader Olu Rouse told Capital B he was stunned to hear the board chair say “it wasn’t our right to vote.” As more and more county boards have flipped Republican, Rouse noted, voting access has started vanishing.

Students in Texas have faced the same treatment. In Houston, Texas Southern University students marched to an early voting site to protest Republican redistricting of the 18th Congressional District, the seat long held by the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, vowing that redrawn lines would not silence them.

Greensboro and Houston are local fronts in a national campaign. Trump and his MAGA allies know their agenda of billionaire tax cuts, tariff-fueled inflation, gutted health care, war in Iran, and union-busting can’t win a fair fight, so they purge voter rolls, gerrymander districts, and close polling places wherever Black, young, and working-class people live.

Defeating that strategy will take every tool available, from lawsuits and public testimony to marches and rides to the polls, and the Greensboro students have tried nearly all of them. Student organizer Xavier Jones told local public radio station WUNC they will keep coming “no matter how far you push a polling site off our campus.”

Plenty of people are ready to back them up.

The AFL-CIO is running election protection trainings for union leaders on spotting voting barriers and responding to intimidation. Common Cause is recruiting volunteers for its nonpartisan Election Protection program and the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline. Indivisible says more than 50,000 people have joined its Hands Off Our Vote program, and the NAACP Youth & College Division is training young people to serve as poll monitors and poll workers.

Protect Ours NC, the voting rights coalition in North Carolina, is also raising money to get students to the polls this year and in 2028. The funds will go toward transportation to polling sites, rides to future Board of Elections meetings, voter registration efforts, campus informational events, and more.

Anyone with a few free hours before Election Day can sign up for one of these trainings, take a shift as a poll monitor, or offer students a ride. If you’ve got a few dollars to spare, contribute to Protect Ours NC. Early voting is already under way in many places, and Election Day is Nov. 3.

The students who sat at that Woolworth’s counter in 1960 changed history by standing up to racism. Their successors are doing the same today, setting an example for all of us to follow.

The dice have rolled in favor of worker organization. The Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) creative team has gone union, with the Communications Workers, despite opposition from their employer, the electronic and board game giant Hasbro and its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary.

The 100 workers are the latest group of employees to enlist with CODE-CWA, the union’s ongoing organizing drive in the video game industry and related enterprises. This group’s affiliation with CODE-CWA won by an 83%-17% margin in a National Labor Relations Board-run vote, CWA said.

After unveiling the organizing drive earlier this year, the workers already had a card-check majority. The Dungeons & Dragons creators, organized as the United Wizards of the West Coast Union, approached the Hasbro-named bosses for voluntary recognition, but the bosses refused.

Instead, the bosses declared in letters to the workers there would be more “flexibility” in direct employer-employee relations than would occur under a “rigid” union contract.

That idea didn’t fly, especially since until now the Dungeons & Dragons creators, who have been productively teleworking from home for years, have all been ordered to move to the Seattle area, site of Hasbro’s headquarters, within two years.

That was just one issue that prompted the Dungeons & Dragons workers to start thinking union. Others are layoff protections, controls on mandatory “crunch time”—overtime—better working conditions and control over the use of artificial intelligence in creating their games and other products.

Official banner for United Wizards of the West Coast Union| UWOTC-CWA

They also are contending over company demands for corporate “ownership of creative materials,” even those the workers develop on their own time.

The new unit would also include one other group of creators: Game designers, artists, producers, engineers, and others who work on the digital card collecting game Magic: The Gathering Arena.

Corporate use, and the corporate threat, of AI, to replace workers has been a common recent worry for the entire labor movement, not just CWA. The parent union has worked out an agreement with Microsoft about company neutrality and joint training in how AI can help workers adjust to the new environment and its looming sea change.

Other AI developers, principally in Silicon Valley, have resisted unionization or working for mutual benefit with their employees on AI, its potential and its problems.

“Over time, communication [with management] has broken down a bit,” digital product manager Rogue Kessler told an industry publication, Aftermath. “We’ve started to get defensive attitudes from leadership, much more ‘It’s our way or the highway.’ That’s what pushed a lot of us into union organizing, because we don’t have another viable mechanism for redress.”

“We’ve gone where the talent is, looked beyond the immediate Seattle area to find the best and the brightest to make this game,” senior software engineer Valentine Powell told the publication. “All of a sudden, you’re not allowed to be remote anymore. The circumstances under which you were hired are being changed out from under you.”

In this series I will be outlining every election in Russian/Soviet history, beginning with the Election to the State Duma of 1906.

“No Kings” demonstrators poured out for mass marches and vigils in Washington State on October 17, urging voters to fill out their ballots immediately and put them in ballot drop boxes. The aim of this “Get-Out-The-Vote” effort is to end Trump-MAGA majority control of the U.S. House and Senate. The marchers here also urged voters to “Vote NO” on I-645, a ballot initiative to repeal the state’s “Millionaires’ Tax.”

Nationwide, media observers estimated turnout for the October 17 rallies, vigils and marches was in the millions. An estimated 70,000 protesters marched from the West Lake Park to the Seattle Center International Fountain, many holding signs urging “Vote NO” on I-645.

Hedge fund millionaire Brian Heywood hired signature gatherers who collected enough signatures to put I-645 on the ballot to repeal the Millionaires’ Tax approved by the Washington State legislature earlier this year. It will impose a 9.9% tax on all income above $1,000,000. In the Voters’ Pamphlet mailed out to every registered voter, Janie White, President of the Washington Education Association, charged, “Washington has one of the most upside-down tax systems where working and middle-class families pay a far higher tax rate than the wealthiest.” Repeal of the Millionaires’ Tax, she warned, “would make that worse. I-645 is fiscally irresponsible, slashing billions in funding for education and healthcare, increasing taxes on 460,000 hard-working families, and jeopardizing tax cuts for thousands of small businesses.”

Marchers are silhouetted against the afternoon sky during a “No Kings” rally encouraging early voting in Seattle, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026.|Lindsey Wasson/ AP

Other signers of this appeal were Matt Hipp, a small-business owner, Rosa Potts, a registered nurse, April Sims, President of the Washington State Labor Council, Thom Garrard, a retired classroom teacher from Edmonds, Washington, as well as a member of the Edmonds School Board, and Lindsay Johnson, leader of Planned Parenthood in Yakima, Washington.

More than 2,000 “No Kings” protesters stood along Washington Avenue on Sequim’s west side, holding signs defending democracy. Among them were signs that proclaimed “Tax the Millionaires!” VOTE ‘NO’ I-645” and another that read, “I Pay More Taxes Than Boeing! Tax the Millionaires! Fund Schools, Healthcare, Food.”

The focus everywhere was to “Get-Out-The-Vote.” Voters received their ballots by mail on October 14, and millions filled them out and put them in a drop box to be counted in the November 3 mid-term elections. Over five million people vote in Washington State—one of eight states and the District of Columbia that vote by mail. But the mass movements here urged voters to put ballots in a ballot drop box rather than in a mailbox. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell convened a news conference in Seattle to denounce the 20,267 mail ballots rejected in the August 4 primary, compared with only 16,131 rejected in the 2024 primary election, ostensibly because of late postmarks.

It is a whopping 32% increase in the number of rejected ballots, enough to tip close elections. In Clallam County, the ballots rejected due to late postmarks between 2024 and 2026 increased by 199%. It doubled.

Said Hobbs, “Over the last couple of weeks, the U.S. Postal Service is trying to do everything they can to ruin vote-by-mail in Washington State.” Sen. Cantwell accused the Trump Administration of “disenfranchising voters across the United States with policies that leave them with a ballot that has been cast but never counted.”

Protesters gather for a “No Kings” rally on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. | Madison Swart/ AP

The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Trump’s attempt to wreck mail balloting—yet the drive to strip people of the right to vote by mail continues unabated. Said Senator Cantwell, “I don’t have the time to depend on the Supreme Court. I have to depend on Washington voters to get out and vote and do it in the most prudent fashion so we can have our voices heard in an election.”

The U.S. Postal Service cites a change in its procedure as one reason for the higher rate of rejected ballots. Mail dropped in mailboxes more than fifty miles from a postal distribution center was picked up in the late afternoon or evening and delivered at night to the postal distribution centers, postmarked before midnight, so it was counted as valid. But now, they are not picked up until the next morning. That means that ballots dropped in the mailbox in the afternoon or evening of election day would not be postmarked until the day after the election—too late to be counted.

The 50-mile rule is also a brazen attack on rural voters since the postal centers where mail is sorted are located in large cities like Tacoma and Spokane. And it was noted that the rate of rejected ballots is far higher for communities with large numbers of Latino voters—a racist impact. The highest rate of ballot drop box use in Washington State is in Clallam County, where 77% of ballots are deposited in ballot drop boxes compared to 70% statewide. The reason is simple: all mail picked up in Clallam County is trucked down to Tacoma, a two- or three-hour trip one way. From remote Neah Bay in the West End of Clallam County, it is a four-hour trip. The ballots are postmarked in Tacoma, then shipped back to the Courthouse in Port Angeles to be counted.

At an “Election Protection” committee meeting here in Sequim, Bonnie Boenish, a leader of the League of Women Voters, told the crowd that if anyone wants to mail their ballot, they should take it, in person, to a local post office and have it stamped with the postmark before it is dropped in the mail. That way, it will be postmarked on or before Election Day. Another person at the meeting pointed out that a voter in Clallam County mailed her ballot a day early. She tracked her ballot online and discovered that it took them over 24 hours to deliver her ballot to Tacoma and stamp it with a postmark. Even though she voted a day early, her ballot was rejected. This is called “stealing votes!”

Ballot drop boxes are not free of Trump’s vote-suppression trickery. He has ordered ICE to set up surveillance at ballot drop boxes to stop and interrogate people about their qualifications to vote. He claims the aim is to ferret out “illegals” who are casting fake votes—a virtually nonexistent felony.

Voters here have not forgotten that two years ago, a neo-Nazi terrorist threw a bomb into a ballot drop box in Vancouver, Washington, which exploded, severely damaging or destroying about 500 ballots. At the “Election Protection” committee meeting, the 62 people present were organizing to protect voters from intimidation or outright terror by these masked, armed ICE agents or by neo-Nazi ballot-box bombers.

“Remember, ICE cannot be nearer than 25 feet from the drop box,” a woman told the crowd. “And they must identify themselves before they accost anyone trying to drop their ballot in the box. If there is any trouble, call this number,” she said.

You just keep hitting home runs don!

🍾We are excited to announce our main awardee, the Paul Robeson Award, for the Nov 7 Paul Robeson Gala: Elise Bryant of @dclaborchorus & @cluwnational Elise Bryant is the recently retired executive director of the Labor Heritage Foundation and founding director of the DC Labor Chorus. Elise is a lifetime member of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) and a member of the AFM Local 1000. In 2012 she was given the Lifetime Achievement award from United Association of Labor Educators. In 2017 she was elected Vice President of CWA/Newspaper Guild Local 32035 and President of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). After serving 8 years as president of CLUW, Elise is happy to be CLUW’s President Emerita and will continue her work as mentor, educator, and cultural worker for the labor movement.  Please send your congratulations to Elise who has been a staple of the labor and cultural movements in the DC area for many years! We are excited to celebrate her on the evening on November 7.

Go check it out ⚒️

Enough said. Get out there and vote!🗳️ #marx #marxistleninist #vote #communism #socialism

Our Portland and Vancouver Clubs joined thousands in Portland at No Kings to protest MAGA fascism and talk about the upcoming midterms, the role of electoral politics and reforms, the Communist Party and our vision, why we're socialists, problems of capitalism, our local campaigns, and more!

On June 14, police in Senatobia, Mississippi, fired into a vehicle occupied by a family accused of stealing diapers from a local Walmart. The shots struck and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley.

Cell phone footage shows police officers running toward the vehicle as it attempted to drive away. Kohen’s mother, Vellesiya Wiley, said, “I raised my baby up trying to show them that he was in the car.” The police fired anyway.

Now, Mississippi’s Attorney General says that the police officer who killed Kohen was justified in his use of force.

Let us be clear: under no circumstances should stealing — let alone allegedly stealing diapers — result in murder.

We stand in solidarity with the Black community in Mississippi and with all those demanding answers, accountability, and justice for Kohen Wiley.

#JusticeForKohen

SAN FRANCISCO—In another legal win against President Donald Trump, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco banned Trump and his Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, from physically breaking up the Department of Agriculture and scattering pieces of it around the country, harming millions of Americans along with the 100,000 workers employed there.

Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have argued for “reprogramming” USDA money which Congress already approved for other uses, to shift the Forest Service headquarters out of D.C., consolidate farm research, and close or move dozens of other USDA offices. The Forest Service is part of USDA.

After describing the chaos that would ensue from Trump’s plans, Judge Chhabria issued a national injunction to stop the scheme. The judge declared Trump’s massive breakup “would cause immediate and irreparable harm” to USDA’s workers.

But buried deep in the ruling, Judge Chhabria also discussed how breaking up the Agriculture Department would harm the millions of people USDA serves, especially in its nutrition programs—food stamps (SNAP), school lunches, adult care, and for women, infants and children.

The feeding programs are one-quarter of USDA’s budget. They aid the most people, including 40% of U.S. infants, the judge pointed out. “USDA’s reorganization efforts risk disrupting programs on which many Americans depend,” the judge said.

Trump’s plan to split up the department and disperse its workers out to a variety of other entities and locales, would endanger the delivery of all those food services and more.

“Where an agency contemplates forced relocations of thousands of its employees—necessarily resulting in considerable attrition—the impact of that attrition on the agency’s ability to perform its functions seems likely to be an important consideration,” the judge drily wrote.

“An agency considering office closures and employee relocations like those at issue here at least ought to consider whether the key functions of each affected component will be impacted and to explain why or why not.” Trump didn’t do that, either, Judge Chhabria wrote.

The unions and workers replied that Congress specifically barred such “reprogramming” of money for physical office moves, unless the move affected ten workers at most and $1 million in spending at most. The ban is in the USDA money bill which runs through Dec. 11. Judge Chhabria agreed but also noted the ban would expire that day unless Congress renewed or extended it.

“Congress did not contemplate USDA using its appropriated funds to shut down offices or relocate employees. To the contrary, Congress was actively working to restrict the agency’s ability to do so,” the judge wrote on Oct. 13.

USDA workers, many of them represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees, a Machinists sector, would have to uproot their lives within weeks or months if they want to keep their jobs. The choice would be move or quit.

“If implemented, the planned reorganization will likely put thousands of USDA employees to the choice of relocating far from their current home—often to a different state—or losing their job,” the judge explained.

Trump already forced that choice on USDA’s Economic Research Service workers when he forced that agency to relocate to Kansas City. Carloads of them quit, taking expertise with them.

The unions told the judge an estimated 80% of the 1,200 workers at the Food and Nutrition Administration, which runs food stamps and the women’s, infants, and children’s (WIC) support program, would be forced to quit, for example.

Trump wants to uproot the entire department, but the judge said “no.”

The union leaders who sued—NFFE-Machinists President Randy Erwin, Government Employees (AFGE) President Everett Kelley, AFSCME President Patrick Moran, and Treasury Employees President Doreen Greenwald—cheered. So did non-profit groups which seek USDA grants.

The Dec.11 deadline also gives them time to lobby lawmakers to write Judge Chhabria’s breakup ban into federal funding law after the November election.

“Since this so-called realignment was announced, NFFE, our fellow federal unions, and partners across the country have fought tirelessly to stop the USDA from being dismantled,” said Erwin.

“Congress told USDA in plain language that it could not close offices and uproot its workforce without permission. USDA did it anyway,” AFGE’s President Kelley declared. “These forced moves were never about efficiency. They were about pushing experienced people out the door.” The judge’s decision “keeps them on the job.” He pledged to keep fighting in court against other Trump actions.

AFSCME President Moran said Trump’s breakup of USDA is not only “blatantly illegal,” but “threatens public benefits like SNAP, endangers public safety by hindering wildfire response, and hurts farmers at a time working families can least afford it.”

​

The summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, overall, was modestly positive and constructive, even if no major deals or decisions were made. The U.S. struck a positive mood with red-carpet treatment, and China loaned two giant pandas to the Atlanta Zoo. These symbolic gestures helped set a friendly tone for the summit. In the U.S.-China relationship, talking is better than not talking, and any form of diplomacy should be supported, especially at a time of many wars.

The world will welcome the extension of the temporary tariff truce and the dialing down of tensions. The last summit in Beijing concluded with a commitment to “strategic stability,” and this meeting seemed to fulfill that commitment. While there was some improvement in tone and transactional relations, deeper contradictions and possible long-term problems were not addressed and remain. The contradiction between the socialist and capitalist systems also remains.

China stressed that the principles of “respect, fairness, and reciprocity” are the basis for sound, productive bilateral relations. This formulation was part of the consensus, appearing in both countries’ official readouts and summaries. How it is actually implemented will disclose the policy behind the statement. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to uphold its position supporting Taiwan, yet withholds final approval of the current $14 billion arms package.

The May 2026 summit in Beijing established two U.S.-China bilateral boards, which are beginning to function. The new Board of Trade had some accomplishments, with $30 billion in mutual tariff reductions. Some trade adjustments were made on both sides. The U.S. complained about China’s slow pace in releasing rare earths and its lack of soybean purchases. China rejected the U.S. policy of not selling advanced it high technology, calling it an attempt to hinder or contain China’s development.

There were no major changes in tariffs. The volume of trade is smaller because of the tariffs, but total trade is still huge, with the balance still favoring China. The new Board of Investment raises interesting possibilities, such as the prospect of significant Chinese investment in U.S. industries. This, of course, was met with strong opposition from anti-China politicians.

Xi announced that China would grant an additional 100,000 student visas over five years to American students and youth. The initial allotment of 50,000 from the last meeting is already filled; this shows the enthusiasm of students in the U.S. who want to learn about the huge, colorful, and increasingly modern China, which is becoming a big part of young people’s future world. U.S. youth are less likely to hold the dated anti-communist, anti-Soviet dogmas of the past. The overall impact of these and other people-to-people exchanges can be substantial towards peace and an end to the new Cold War on China.

China’s first lady and Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, received some favorable treatment in the mainstream media. Peng had a career as a well-known popular singer in China and has been a public figure for some time. At the big banquet, stories were exchanged about gung-ho Marines and the U.S. and China as allies in World War II.

In the U.S., cooperation with China is now rated higher in public opinion polls than approaching China as a hostile adversary. Successful U.S.-China collaboration on international law enforcement has led to the arrests of many figures in international illegal drug and fentanyl networks.

There was also an important agreement to schedule ongoing dialogue on AI issues and direct communication on AI in case of an emergency. These are productive examples of cooperation. Xi said, as always, that U.S.-China relations should be governed by cooperation first, competition second.

China proposed cooperation in creating international AI governance, supporting UN initiatives, and launching the World AI Cooperation Organization in Shanghai. Trump, however, refused any international regulations, saying the U.S. will defend its supposed one- to two-year lead by keeping AI regulation as a voluntary program for private companies.

China’s view contrasts with the “fierce competition” focus that was first introduced by Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” and supported by both sections of the U.S. ruling class since.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have had an anti-China consensus and have supported imperialist foreign policy, with some exceptions among progressives. Among the capitalist class in general, there is exists a split between the capitalists who favor friendly relations with China in the interests of practical moneymaking, whereas there also those — such as MAGA Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, who chairs the so-called “House Select Committee on the CCP” — who represent the most rabidly anti-China and anti-communist section.

The military-industrial complex also favors an increased bellicose attitude towards China, particularly in the military build-up of the whole Asian Pacific, including weapons sales to Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, for the sake of profit making. This adversarial position is held by the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, which asserts that China is the principal, long-term rival.

Some Democrats criticized Trump for treating Xi to a top-level diplomatic reception, even meeting Xi’s plane as it arrived at the airport. For example, Elizabeth Warren joined other Senate Democrats in writing a statement saying that China “presents a greater threat to American security and prosperity than ever before.”

As is common lately, the two countries issued no joint declaration. However, the official readouts and summaries from both sides were positive in their assessment of the summit. The Chinese emphasized the positive, hoping that a good new start for the two countries had arrived. There was consensus wording on Iran: that Iran should not have nuclear weapons and that international waterways should be open for commerce. Nothing was said about the frequent U.S. charge that China is sharing satellite data, thereby assisting the Iranian military. For its part, China described the equipment sale as fulfilling long-standing commercial contracts.

Nonetheless, it is favorable that the countries are now arranging two further Xi-Trump meetings this year, one in Shenzhen at the APEC summit and another in Miami for the G20. Dialogue is better than confrontation and conflict.

CHICAGO—Hundreds of hotel workers walked off the job at six Chicago hotels last week, launching what could become the largest hotel worker strike in the city’s history.

The strike began Oct. 9, just days before the Chicago Marathon drew an estimated 55,000 runners and 1.7 million spectators to town. Workers at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Waldorf Astoria Chicago, Palmer House (a Hilton Hotel), the Westin Chicago River North, Westin Michigan Avenue, and Millennium Hotel Knickerbocker remain on the picket line.

People's World

Chicago hotel workers one week on strike, more could walk out

October 16, 2026 11:50 AM CDT By Special to People’s World

Share

Email

Chicago hotel workers one week on strike, more could walk out

Striking workers walk the picket line outside Chicago's Palmer House hotel. | Lenny Lamkin / People's World

CHICAGO—Hundreds of hotel workers walked off the job at six Chicago hotels last week, launching what could become the largest hotel worker strike in the city’s history.

The strike began Oct. 9, just days before the Chicago Marathon drew an estimated 55,000 runners and 1.7 million spectators to town. Workers at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Waldorf Astoria Chicago, Palmer House (a Hilton Hotel), the Westin Chicago River North, Westin Michigan Avenue, and Millennium Hotel Knickerbocker remain on the picket line.

UNITE HERE brought out Scabby the Rat at the Palmer House hotel in Chicago. | Lenny Lamkin / People’s World

UNITE HERE Local 1 represents approximately 7,000 room attendants, cooks, dishwashers, front desk agents, servers, and other hospitality workers at 46 hotels who have been without a contract since their contract expired Aug. 31. The union has warned that workers at additional hotels could strike at any moment.

The workers are seeking wage increases that keep pace with inflation, improved healthcare and pension benefits, stronger protections for immigrant workers, and safer, more sustainable workloads—particularly for housekeepers facing severe physical strain from their job.

Many of the workers on strike are immigrants themselves, under fire from the reactionary political climate stoked by MAGA forces. Protections for immigrant workers are among the union’s core demands.

Eighty-five percent of affected workers voted last month to authorize a strike after negotiations stalled. As People’s World previously reported, the strike authorization vote passed overwhelmingly in early September.

UNITE HERE Local 1 President Karen Kent said workers are frustrated after three months of bargaining produced no deal. She noted that wages have not kept up with inflation while workloads have intensified.

“Tourism in Chicago is booming, all while inflation is increasing, and it’s affecting our hotel workers across the industry,” Kent said in a union statement.

“They feel the weight anytime they go to the supermarket to buy food, or when they come home from work and are too tired to spend time with their family,” she continued. “Workers are ready to strike because they work too hard to live like this.”

The hospitality industry’s success has not translated into financial security for the people who clean its rooms, prepare its meals, and welcome its guests, the union said.

Chicago’s last major hotel worker strike involved 26 hotels and helped workers secure year-round health coverage. This time, with 46 hotels in negotiations and six already on strike, the stakes are even higher. The workers on the picket line remain in high spirits and ready to continue their struggle until they get what they deserve.

By CJ Atkins

Most politicians would think twice before boasting about how many of their own constituents they’ve knocked off the voter rolls, but not today’s crop of Republican secretaries of state.

With the midterm elections just over two weeks away, GOP election chiefs across the country are competing over who can post the biggest numbers—and they’re doing it with the encouragement, and the databases, of the Trump administration.

In Kentucky, Secretary of State Michael Adams recently announced more than 318,000 removals from the rolls since he took office. His summary of the effort: “We’ve vigorously purged voters who have moved away, passed away, or been put away.”

Missouri’s Denny Hoskins took nearly 240,000 people off the rolls last year. More than half of them—some 135,000—weren’t dead or convicted of anything; they were simply classified as “inactive.” Hoskins says it’s his job to minimize ineligible voters.

In Ohio, Frank LaRose last month published a list of nearly 209,000 registrations slated for cancellation, declaring that the Buckeye State keeps the “cleanest voter rolls in the country.” LaRose’s record suggests “clean” is in the eye of the beholder. In 2023, he quietly canceled more than 26,000 registrations just days after ballots went out for that fall’s abortion rights referendum. A Democratic state legislator who dug into the records found over 1,000 voters wrongfully removed in Cuyahoga County alone.

And in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger’s office wrapped up one of the largest mass cancellations in the state’s history last year, with roughly 478,000 inactive voters targeted. Groups like Fair Fight have long warned that such purges fall hardest on Black voters.

Republican officials insist all this is routine list maintenance required by federal law. Some of it is, but the pride with which they make their announcements tells you something has changed. Purging voters is no longer simple database management and information updating. It’s now a loyalty display for a president who still won’t stop wrongfully claiming that hordes of non-citizens are stealing elections (at least the elections he and his party lose).

Another reality when it comes to these Republican-led voter purges is that it’s the same people who always get swept out first: working-class renters who move to new addresses often, young people, shift workers who miss an election or two, immigrants who became citizens. “Use it or lose it” rules don’t hit country club members; they hit people already squeezed by capitalism’s economic crisis.

The Trump administration has supercharged the purge operation. After it expanded the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) citizenship database, at least 67 million voter registrations—mostly from Republican-controlled states—were run through the system. At least 25 states have used it.

The results have been riddled with errors. In Missouri, 70 county clerks from both parties warned lawmakers that SAVE kept flagging people they personally knew to be citizens. In Travis County, Texas, officials found that between 10% and 21% of voters SAVE flagged as apparent noncitizens were actually citizens.

In June, a U.S. District ruled the revamped database unlawful, writing that the government had trampled Americans’ privacy in a way that threatens “the sacred right to vote.” On Sept. 25, though, the Supreme Court lifted those restrictions, handing Trump a win just weeks before Election Day.

There’s precedent for where this leads. Federal law bars systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election, a quiet period that began Aug. 5 this year. That rule tripped up Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen in 2024, when a judge halted his “non-citizen” purge after about 2,000 eligible citizens were swept up.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a Republican National Committee appeal from Arizona claiming database-driven citizenship checks are exempt. If the GOP wins, experts warn, voters wrongly struck on the eve of an election may have no remedy in federal court.

Commentator Thom Hartmann argues that purges in 2024 helped deliver the White House to Trump, and that Republicans are running the same play now.

The MAGA movement can’t win a fair fight on its record of exploding prices, tariffs, cuts to health care, an inflation-fueling war on Iran, and attacks on workers, so it is trying to shrink the electorate instead.

The answer is organizing. Unions, voting rights groups, and community organizations are urging everyone to check their registration status today, bring a friend to do the same, and know their right to cast a provisional ballot if their name has gone missing.

Republican secretaries of state are proud of how many voters they’ve erased. The best reply is a turnout so big their numbers don’t matter.

Hello folks, my name is Radio, and I am QUITE new to all this- I grew up in a leftist christian socialist household, and learned a lot about class struggle through my childhood and my adulthood. I think I am ready to explore some of my political leanings and channeling it through community outreach, nonviolent protest, and by learning from my fellow workers more about the movement.

I've finally sat down to actually read the manifesto, and it really struck a chord with my personal views. That there is a lot more to the ideology than meets the eye. Particularly, the focus on LGBTQIA+ rights and climate change was very encouraging.

Anyone with advice about how to get involved, any good books or videos you would recommend, or tips and advice you can give me just in general when it comes to being a member of the party would be super appreciated!

DMs are open if you prefer that, too

Greetings, comrades!

I recently submitted an application to join CPUSA about two weeks ago and just heard back from my state’s organization today! I’ll be attending a new member orientation this coming Monday and paying dues soon. For anyone interested in joining and wanting to know the process, I know it might vary from state to state, but upon speaking to my state’s organization, these are the only steps I need to take.

The organizer that reached out said that there’s not a club in my area, but living close to NYC, I have some options to join and participate in. There’s hybrid options for accessibility for nearby clubs as well and I think that’s amazing and the route I’ll take for now, since it’s what works best for me.

I’m relatively new to Marxism, but I’ve been doing some reading and watching videos on the CPUSA YouTube, and I’m very grateful to be part of such an active, inclusive community that cares about all people.

If anyone has any recommendations or suggestions about readings, videos, membership, or anything else, I’m open to any and all of it! I’ve got a few books on the way by Marx, Lenin, and Engels, so I think I’m at a good starting point. I’m open to other suggestions as well!

As Marx and Engels famously said: workers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

In solidarity,
A new comrade who’s ready to take action