Joe Allen
Template:TOCnestleft Joe Allen has been a socialist for over four decades and a member of Democratic Socialists of America since 2018. I’ve been most active in the Labor Working Group but recently joined the Environmental Justice Working Group to work on the ‘Democratize ComEd’ campaign.
My work life has largely revolved different sections of the freight and logistics including for such major employers as A.P.A Transport (Canton, Mass.), Yellow Freight (Maspeth, NY), and United Parcel Service (UPS). I worked for nearly a decade at UPS between its Watertown, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois Jefferson Street hubs. Starting out as a part-time loader I worked his way through a series of part-time sorting and driving jobs until his final year at UPS where I was a package car driver in Chicago's Loop.
My journalism and books reflect the importance I place on key issues that I believe that the socialist movement faces in the United States: U.S. imperialism, racism, political defense campaigns, reforming the Teamsters, organizing the logistics industry, and fighting the far right.[1]
Joe Allen is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service People Wasn't Made to Burn (Haymarket Books, 2011) and Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost (Haymarket Books, 2008), and has written several articles for the International Socialist Review.
Chicago DSA conference delegates
Sean Estelle August 1, 2019 ·
On our way to Atlanta for #dsacon19 🌹✨ — with Will Bloom, Joe Allen and Isabella Janusz.
DSA resolution on Red Deal
Resolution to DSA National Convention Atlanta Georgia July 2019.
Amendment #1 on Resolution #34.
“Amendment on the Red Deal and Rejecting a Green Military” by Sofia Arias (NYC), Sydney Ghazarian (Los Angeles), Brian Ward (Madison), Rory Fanning (Chicago), Spenser Rapone (NYC), Joe Allen. (Chicago), Nazir Khan (Twin Cities).
[from Resolution #34] “…Amplify the perspectives & insights of impacted communities through national media platforms…”
As part of this effort, this Convention will endorse the Red Deal, launched by comrades in The Red Nation, a radical anti-capitalist Indigenous liberation group, and its principles on the fight for non-reformist reforms. As described by The Red Nation, “The Red Deal is not a counter program of the GND. It’s a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives.” At the end of this Convention, the GNDCC will be tasked with initiating a more direct working relationship between DSA and The Red Nation. The GNDCC will make direct connection with The Red Nation, dedicate one person to serve as the main point of contact, and collaborate with the comrades on joint actions, statements and local, national and international campaigns around indigenous liberation and climate justice.
ISO
Joe Allen was a long time member of the International Socialist Organization.[2]