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Today is the 4 year anniversary of the airport protests against Trump's travel ban, one of the most inspiring moments of mass action I have ever seen. There are a few lessons that have stuck with me that we have to keep hold of, especially now 1/
First, we need to dispel the notion that those protest were somehow spontaneous or unplanned. Several immigrants rights organizations (including the workers center Make the Road NY) called those protests at JFK, and organized them. 2/
When they expanded to other airports, that core of organizations provided support and resources to those protests (e.g. lawyers were mostly using template habeas petitions that were created and adapted to each circuit by the legal team working on the JFK case) 3/
That organization and planning allowed the protest to be strategic; JFK is an economic chokepoint in the system of international capital, and disruption there reverberates out widely. In turn, the demonstration of the effectiveness of the target inspired others to mimic it 4/
It also meant that, when circumstances changed, so could the strategy. When Cuomo shut down the train to the airport at the same time that a federal judge in Brooklyn was decided whether to stay the travel ban, organizers could get the word out to redirect people to court 5/
The courthouse scene gave us another lesson: mass action can and does reshape seemingly unchangeable things like the law around it. When that emergency motion was heard, people filled the courtroom, the hallway outside the courtroom, and the plaza in front of the courthouse. 6/
Would the judge have ordered a stay of the travel ban absent the occupation at JFK, burgeoning actions elsewhere, and the packed courthouse? Maybe, but I am skeptical. (I'll get back to why). That day the implicit threat of the working class rising up forced the state's hand 7/
And it was the working class rising up. Another lesson is that withholding labor is among the most effective tactics we have. Nothing was a bigger threat than NYC taxi drivers refusing to make pickups at the airports. The judge stayed the ban right after the strike began 8/
Those taxi drivers would be joined by a bodega strike the next week. Workers at several companies began organizing to walk out and join protests, leaving those companies to relent and offer PTO to workers leaving for those protests. 9/
The taxi workers strike, like the 2012 CTU strike or the Flint sitdown strike, was a strategic blow against one of capital's weak points that caused enormous disruption and inspired thousands of others across the country to follow their example 10/
All this, however, brings us to the final lesson, which we wouldn't learn that week but much later: unless you can sustain the mass action, and thus the threat to capital, capital can simply wait you out. 11/
There were a couple weeks of major upheaval, nationwide. But then people got bored as the court system ground slowly forward, things died down. Ultimately the Supreme Court upheld most of the travel ban. 12/
That's what tells me that the initial ruling was at least partially dependent on the continued mass action: once the mass action went away, so did the courts' opposition to the ban. 13/
The power of the working class comes only from the collective action of those of us in the class. We cannot win anything if that power is dependent on the day-to-day whims of atomized individuals. We must organize into organizations that can ensure we decide and act as one 14/
I sometimes wonder if a mass organization like DSA were strong and developed enough in January 2017 to capture as many of those people as we could have. Obviously DSA grew enormously, but instead of going from 10k to 20k, imagine if we had gone from 80k to 160k? 15/
Imagine if we had had a mass organization ready to offer people mad about the travel ban a clear political explanation for why this was happening and an easy, ongoing way to be part of fighting it? 16/
Imagine if we had a mass organization that could offer those newly engaged people a vision of how to stop not only the travel ban but the entire system that led to it, and could help them develop a comprehensive understanding of that system and how to replace it? 17/
Imagine if we had a mass organization, open to the entire working class, that could coordinate the taxi strike, the bodega strike, and could help its members in various workplaces organize to strike themselves and push for their unions to call to join that strike? 18/
The airport protests were (arguably) as close as we've come to a nationwide general strike in this country. As inspiring as it was, as powerful as it was, it wasn't very close. 19/
If we want to keep that kind of threat hanging over the capitalists' heads, much less go beyond it, we need strong, democratic, vision-driven mass political organizations to coordinate our efforts and keep the working class in motion against the capitalist class and. 20/20
