I ended up in a managerial position at my company somewhat against my wishes due to various circumstances and I don't know how to reconcile this with my leftist beliefs. I do what I can to give my team raises whenever possible, and encourage everyone to take as much time off as possible, but I can't help but feel like a traitor to the cause. I have a mortgage and a kid on the way so leaving this job isn't really an option, but how else can I be a ally to the worker movement?
I've had one boss who was basically a coworker. He looked out for his team (us), kept on some people that any "competent" manager would have fired as dead weight because he didn't want them going without a paycheck, and would give us inside information on whenever any kind of layoffs or fires were coming up (along with letting us know how he'd kept us off the cutting block). He would "reject" PTO requests from people who were sick and then tell them to take the time off, just off the books so it didn't cut into their vacations or whatever.
That dude was great, just be like that. With the exception of the HR aspects (handling promotions and staffing issues), managers would still be necessary in even the most utopian visions of society.