The meeting room of the UNITE HERE Hospitality Local 11 in Los Angeles is clad with status reports. On 7th April, I joined a meeting with six of the service sector workers who run relentless campaigns across a large area, from the ocean at Santa Monica to the Hollywood hills, from the Universal Studios theme park to Palm Springs out east. When glitzy hotelier André Balazs refused to meet them in LA, they followed him to London where they were hosted by Unite Hospitality, helping them win a series of major improvements to their contracts. The hospitality workforce they represent, the workers tell me, is made up of immigrants, women, castaways of society. The union’s density is growing rapidly.

Here, like in most US states, unionising works differently than in Scotland: either the whole workplace is unionised as a closed shop, or none of its workers are union members. The Local’s strategy for growing the union depends on one shop’s members negotiating with their employer that any new shop or premises the company takes over will allow workers to unionise. Members must thus incorporate a demand into their bargaining that is born more of generosity than personal gain. They must sacrifice short term pay to get more members in the long term. Growth agreements mean that new workplaces have a clearer route to unionisation, raising the density of the union, and prioritising the push against poverty wages across the city.

This power is generated through thousands of personal sacrifices, compromises, and risks. When Rudy first demanded better pay for his co-workers he was targeted by management, but he trained up, fought back, and now his co-workers earn $100,000 in the tourist season. Esmerelda tried to play by the rules to get a promotion and earn above poverty pay, but was treated as invisible, so she started having conversations with fellow workers, jeopardising even the basic pay that she relied on, but ultimately winning an increase from $18 to $28. Roberto worked in hotels in Studio City for years and wanted to fight back but didn’t know how. He now takes long leave of absences from his work to campaign in Santa Monica to get workers elected onto the local council.

A few things stuck with me about this meeting with hospitality workforce leaders in Los Angeles. First, generosity moves workers to join fights that often only yield gains for others long after those fighting move on. Second, personal stories are shared as parables about one person’s capacity to commit to the collective good. Third, workers feel closer to the margin than the mainstream of society, and through the union come to meet, to know, and over time to love those of other marginalised cultures.

These three principles are not part of the usual rhetoric for building worker power, which is often rooted in ideas of collective self-interest, pride in collective power, and belief that a unified working class culture underpins the common cause. Even if these latter three ideas might serve those who have a stable and established place in society, they make it hard for those on the margins to enter in the heart of the labour movement.

This issue is centred on those sectors in Scotland where marginalisation, racism, and isolation make organising challenging, but where seeds of future strength are starting to take root. Caroline Robinson and Kevin, an Uzbek worker, write about the early efforts of a worker centre supporting seasonal agricultural workers who are often denied even the right to choose who will employ them when they work here. Xabier Villares provides an account of the work of the Workers’ Observatory to support mostly migrant gig workers to build their influence and generate their own collectives. In hospitality, the story of organising efforts will be familiar to many readers, from its origins in Better Than Zero to the formation of a Unite branch that spread through Scotland and across the UK, to assume a position where it could provide practical solidarity to the US workers chasing down the villains of the LA hotel world. Yana Petticrew’s article describes the branch’s recent work standing by workers affected by storms, and taking up the international cause of BDS through its ‘Serve Solidarity’ campaign and boycott of Zionist companies.

Future stories of the movement may be written in the margins, but it is equally important to share and support the struggles of well-entrenched unions. Angela Daly’s article on the devastation wrought against Dundee University highlights the instability of the negotiated contracts that recently felt safe and secure. In this Scottish Trades Union Congress special issue, Roz Foyer’s vision of a Scotland where ‘every worker has a decent job’ lays down the gauntlet before a movement that has massive strength in some sectors and industries, is building in areas like hospitality and care, but is still weak in other parts of the economy, especially where workers are most marginalised.

As Foyer argues, unity across and among workers is central to any movement that can defeat the far right in a perilous moment for our political culture. The Scottish Labour leader’s recent emulation of Trump signals a chilling rightwards turn that will be tested in the forthcoming byelection triggered by the sad passing of Christina McKelvie, where the SNP might again use Hamilton to defy those who predict their time is limited. Yet with neither SNP nor any established party offering a working class left position as the 2026 Scottish Parliamentary elections approach, an assemblage of left activists and agitators have asked us to publish their alternative strategy. Meanwhile, Ewan Kerr urges the left to learn lessons from its kneejerk response to the pandemic crisis. We hope these pieces help stimulate the debate about Scottish Left strategy that is long overdue.

Strategic manoeuvres and realignments raise deeper questions about the kind of economic theory that can give credibility to a reviving Scottish Left, and here there is also work to do. William Thompson explains the flawed economic premises underlying fiscal rules, while Maggie Chapman and Peter McColl show how the monetary focus that Thompson prescribes can be part of broad movement for a democratic economy.

And more important even than unity on economic ideas is the connecting thread from which our collective life is made. The final section celebrates two living revolutionary movements whose cultures sustain this common vision, this unity of marginals and masses. Coll McCail interviews the singer Calum Baird about how Cuban cultural life thrives despite every shock and shudder of its decades-long imperial siege. And Nirad Abrol reports on the pedagogical work that is spinning new threads between Scotland, England, the USA, and the pioneers of a revolutionary new society in Burkina Faso.