The Militarization of Europe and The Workers’ Fightback: Lessons and Connections for the US

As Europe is increasingly drawn into the expansion of NATO and into the Ukraine war, workers are increasingly rebelling, seeing evaporate not just the peace they’ve experienced since the end of WWII begin but also the Cold War creep back, while their economies increasingly falter. Organized and unorganized they are beginning to fight back, while at the same time right wing forces are gaining some foothold in Europe as in the US.

Workers in the US have not known peace now for many decades, with the US involved in endless wars all over the globe, endless billions of tax dollars flowing into production and export of weapons, and real wealth continuing to flowing into fewer and fewer hands. US workers rage against the government, the true nature of their wealth decline obscured by rightwing rhetoric and misinformation.

Are there lessons we can learn from the workers’ fightback in Europe? Are there experience to he shared from our own increasing fight back? Can workers’ rage be channeled more constructively? How? Working together, can the workers in Europe and in the US create an effective front against the militarization of their economies and the ongoing march forward of NATO and the Right?”

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Peter Mertens  is a Belgian statesman and activist who led the Workers’ Party of Belgium from 2008 to 2021 and continues to lead the party as General Secretary. He has served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives since 2019, and as a municipal councilor in Antwerp since 2013. He is the author of a number of articles and books, the most recent of which, available in English, are: They Have Forgotten Us (2021) and Mutiny: How Our World is Tilting (2024) as well as numerous articles.

Carlos Aramayo is the President of UNITE HERE Local 26, the Union for hospitality workers in the greater Boston area and Rhode Island. He is also a Vice President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, an International Vice President of UNITE HERE and a trustee of UNITE HERE Health and the Greater Boston Hospitality Employers Trust. In addition to his work in the Union, he is a member of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Board of Directors and a member of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy’s Advisory Council on Latino Empowerment. During his eighteen years with UNITE HERE, he has organized casino gaming, hotel, and industrial food service workers in Connecticut, Nevada, Florida, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

Harris Gruman (moderator) is Executive Director of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) State Council. He is co-founder and co-chair of Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of 150 organizations which successfully campaigned to raise the minimum wage to $15, enact paid family and medical leave, and pass the Fair Share Amendment, aka millionaire’s tax. A veteran of decades of successful issue and electoral work in community and labor organizing, he is an astute political strategist. A former executive director of the Neighbor to Neighbor Education Fund, he studied at Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Massachusetts Peace Action, the Ukraine Committee, and of the Peace and the Working Class Working Group sponsoring this webinar.