The Virginia Worker

24/03/2026

The Blue Ridge IWW has issued the following statement over a recent National Labor Relations Board settlement between their union members and Red Rooster Coffee Roasters based in Floyd, Virginia:

https://thevirginiaworker.com/2026/03/24/4991/

18/03/2026

"Virginia lawmakers passed a bill last week to give all public employees the right to bargain for better wages, contracts and working conditions — but excluded public university employees who are not “service workers,” such as professors, librarians and graduate student assistants."

Virginia lawmakers passed a bill last week to give all public employees the right to bargain for better wages, contracts and working conditions — but excluded public university employees who are not “service workers,” such as professors, librarians and graduate student assistants.

04/03/2026

"Virginia’s largest teachers’ union is backing a proposal in the Senate-passed budget that would eliminate a sales tax exemption data centers currently receive on certain equipment and software they purchase."

“If we can’t keep this tax exemption, we know for a fact that businesses, they’re just going to pack their bags, they’re gonna go somewhere where they can make more money,” said Kwaku Afriyie, a IBEW Local 26 member, at a separate press conference last week."

Virginia’s largest teachers’ union is backing a proposal in the Senate-passed budget that would eliminate a sales tax exemption data centers currently receive on certain equipment and softwar…

02/03/2026

Captain C.C. Ross - a Virginia railroad worker credentialed at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. Listed by the IWW credential committee as "a railroad employee of 35 years, first a machinist, second a shop foreman, and third a locomotive engineer; labor agitator; socialist lecturer, with the world as my field and humanity as my theme."

Ross fought for term limits and spreading the IWW preamble & constitution far and wide during the founding convention. He spoke out against the labor bureaucracy of the railroad unions, which hampered workers' ability to agitate, educate, and organize.

Ross was also a member of Eugene Debs' Socialist Party of America, where he eventually was nominated and ran for the Oklahoma governor's office in 1907.

20/02/2026

"Union workers reached a tentative agreement in the early morning hours Friday, Feb. 20, 2026 with Yokohama Tire Manufacturing in Salem, according to USW Local 1023.

The agreement entails the plant will permanently close March 18. USW Local 1023 says it has secured a “commitment” from Yokohama to continue paying all employees through March 31."

https://www.wdbj7.com/2026/02/20/union-workers-reach-tentative-deal-with-salem-yokohama-tire-plant/

The agreement entails the plant will permanently close on March 18, 2026.

18/02/2026

This is what liberals in office get you:

"A similar bill in the House of Delegates failed six years ago under similar circumstances. The Democrats who controlled the House at the time failed to ever put it on the calendar, and so it was never considered. As a result, none of the Democrats in the General Assembly have a voting record on this issue."

Senator Jennifer Carroll Foy is a Democrat from Prince William County who introduced legislation to repeal the Right-to-Work law, but the senators rejected the bill by failing to ever consider it – essentially forcing it to miss a key deadline this week.

16/02/2026

"On Feb. 9, 2026, the employees from Domino’s in Blacksburg held a workers’ rights strike. The employees protested against being paid minimum wage while enduring a low turnover employee rate and higher management issues."

On Feb. 9, 2026, the employees from Domino’s in Blacksburg held a workers’ rights strike. The employees protested against being paid minimum wage while enduring a low turnover employee rate

11/02/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18D135uV1G/

Edward Johnson (left) was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1891. He served in the US Army for 9 years and was in France during WWI. After WWI, he worked on the railroad in London, Kentucky and in the steel mills in Columbus, Ohio. The Great Depression pushed Edward into the ranks of the under-employed and he participated in the National Hunger March and became active in the CPUSA in 1932.

Edward arrived in Spain on Mach 17, 1937. In Spain, he served as head of the General Food Commissary and later transferred to the Lincoln Battalion. On March 10, 1938, during the Retreats, Edward became separated from his machine gun squad and was captured outside the town of Belchite. He spent the next year as a prisoner at San Pedro de Cardenas where Robert Steck, a fellow prisoner, remembered him as a man who maintained his morale even under the worst conditions. Edward was among the seventy-one prisoners released on April 22, 1939 and returned to the United States aboard the President Harding on May 6, 1939. He was one of the oldest American volunteers to serve in Spain. Here is Edward shown with Claude Pringle as a POW.

03/12/2025

On November 14, 2025, the brave workers at the Port Republic Rd. Starbucks marched on their boss to demand recognition of their union. Unions are one of the most powerful tools workers have to win fair pay, stable hours, and safe, dignified workplaces. After decades of attacks on organized labor, to...

01/12/2025

"All signs point forward to another four years where labor and working people in Virginia make little or no progress on any significant issues. This is despite the Democratic Party coming out of the recent election in solid control of the state House and Senate, and now the Governor’s seat. Spanberger will offer nothing which might end up being controversial with the business community, since those corporate forces will be heavily solicited to support her run for Senate in just a few years."

https://thevirginiaworker.com/2025/12/01/4703/

23/11/2025

We're now hosting the Working Class Party candidates on how they run their electoral campigns:

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

15/11/2025