H-1B is about hurting unions amid growing worker revolts. We need a united front against this monopolist scheme.

Above: members of the International Longshoremen’s Association union striking in October 2024, photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The United States is headed in a direction that gives us great opportunities for making communism mainstream again; that’s going to let us form unprecedented connections with the country’s masses, should we take advantage of this moment. The key development is the unraveling of the MAGA movement, which will create a vacuum within anti-establishment politics. And this unraveling is now speeding up. Before Trump has even come back into office, the Elon Musk wing of Trump’s coalition has gotten behind an extremely hated policy: H-1B, the visa program that lets corporations disempower unions by importing foreign workers. This anti-labor plot, which Trump fully intends to advance, is provoking a revolt within MAGA. Which means that communists must assist MAGA’s anti-liberal elements in fighting against H-1B, and build a workers coalition with these elements.

There are forces on the right that aim to divert the backlash against H-1B, and make this issue not about workers rights but about race. But should we put in the work, we’re fully capable of defeating these forces, because they’re not truly representative of the MAGA base. MAGA supporters are not the racist mass that liberals portray them as. Tens of millions of Americans have come to MAGA because as far as they can see, it’s the best path to re-industrializing the country, ending the wars, and defeating the monopolists which dominate our government. The problem is that MAGA does not actually represent such a solution; and many more are going to realize this as Trump continues to betray his supposed ideals.

Trump cannot afford to fail again. Since he was first elected, the country has been damaged even further by inflation, pandemic mismanagement, and proxy wars that have exacerbated all of our crises. And because Trump will fail to solve these problems, the outcome will be that MAGA loses momentum, like the Bernie Sanders movement did after its leader revealed his compromised nature.

For the disillusioned MAGA supporters, and all others who are seeking a way out from our worsening conditions, we must construct an authentic revolutionary force. A united front which encompasses all of the popular masses, and gives them an avenue for combating monopolist rule. A first step is to clarify the nature of H-1B, and why exactly it’s destructive. When the anti-union motives of H-1B’s creators are revealed, all of the present attempts to divide workers by race or nationality fall apart. It becomes clear that the racial aspect is a distraction; the reason why our ruling class has decided to take in these immigrant workers is because it allows labor rules to be bypassed, and the knowledge of this fact is powerful.

H-1B is part of a reaction to the massive rise in worker revolts that the country has been experiencing; because U.S. union workers keep asserting themselves more, our class enemies are feeling ever-more urgency to disempower unions. And one of the tactics they’ve adopted is to recruit non-union workers who are in a highly vulnerable position, where if they’re fired they’ll be forced to leave the country.

That this plan entails pitting foreign workers against domestic workers provides an extra advantage for the ruling class, because it fuels racial resentments. But it has the potential to backfire, because it provides an opening for the ideological forces which seek to foster class unity. When the American Communist Party provides food for striking workers, it puts itself in place to connect with the workers who this anti-union scheme is directed at. This active effort to aid union workers is what gives credibility to ACP’s statements condemning H-1B; when the workers who hate H-1B see ACP making things easier for strikers, they know that communists are their allies in both rhetoric and practice.

The ACP is one among a series of emerging political forces which seek to guide this worker uprising towards victory. Another one of these players is the U.S. Labor Party, created last month by the Amazon union leader Chris Smalls. One of the reasons why communists must ally with Smalls, aside from how he has a proven record of winning rights for workers, is that he plans to electorally challenge Musk’s pseudo-populism in 2028. The U.S. Labor Party’s site says that in the next presidential election, Smalls “will challenge the entrenched establishment, represented by figures like Trump and Elon Musk, who symbolize the unchecked power of corporations and the ultra-wealthy.”

The reason why we should interpret this statement as something genuinely anti-establishment, rather than one of the sentiments which myopically focus on Trump, is because Smalls has not just struggled against Trump or Musk. He’s also done certain things that show he intends to broaden the labor movement beyond leftism, and appeal towards all working-class elements (including the ones within MAGA). Smalls has gone on Tucker Carlson to promote the labor movement’s message; Smalls has pointed out the absurdity of putting labels on people when you’re trying to do labor organizing, repudiating the notion that someone must be a leftist to participate in the class struggle.

His party represents a different practice than that of the leftists who’ve sought to ideologically gatekeep the workers movement. And it’s because of this that many of these leftists, particularly the ones in the red liberal CPUSA, have tried to convince communists that Smalls is an enemy of their cause. But there are many communists who don’t subscribe to this insular and infantile mindset; and they would be glad to work with the U.S. Labor Party, should there come to be an opportunity for such a coalition.

I can’t speak to whether such a coalition will be built, but I can definitely see that a new political trend is emerging within the USA’s workers movement; a trend that’s focused not on left-wing purity culture, but on truly advancing the class struggle. In this new era, the left is no longer as relevant as it was prior to Trump’s re-election; now that Trump is about to be back in office, and the anti-woke psyop is the primary narrative tool of our ruling class, the main adversary we need to decry is the Elon Musk pseudo-populists.

This is why the posture of the U.S. Labor Party, where it presents itself as the answer to Musk’s grift, is the correct posture at this time. Communists must adopt the same strategy; we shouldn’t fixate on Trump himself, like the leftists are doing, but rather work to expose the establishment schemes that Trump is helping advance. Whether it’s H-1B, or the Palestinian genocide, or the new cold war, we must draw attention to how these schemes are bipartisan in nature. That’s how we can win support from MAGA’s disillusioned elements, while fulfilling the crucial task of bringing Palestine back into the conversation.

Musk has outwardly revealed his liberal nature, discrediting himself in the eyes of many who used to support him. And Trump’s support for H-1B has made it so that as his next presidency unfolds, he’ll come to also be seen as a hypocrite by many in the MAGA coalition. So other opportunists are seeking to take advantage of MAGA’s collapse. The racial demagogues are trying to pick up support from Trump’s alienated supporters; and during the next election, Trump rivals like Ron DeSantis will try to present themselves as the authentic MAGA leaders. Amid the revolt within MAGA, the narrative managers are trying to ensure that this doesn’t lead to the rise of an authentic anti-establishment force. But these efforts will fail, if communists and their allies set themselves up as the alternative to the pseudo-populists.

All of our enemies are in crisis; the insular left has lost its former relevance, the Democratic Party has further collapsed, MAGA is falling apart, and the far right is struggling to find its role in the new era. We must fill the political vacuum, and show the masses that we’re their allies in this anti-monopoly struggle.

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