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When times were better, the trade union movement was how many workers fought to achieve the American Dream, but now unions are increasingly necessary just to survive in the new economy. And even a union contract no longer guarantees families a secure future if they belong to the new social class that is rapidly becoming dispossessed of secure employment, housing or healthcare.
Today’s high-tech global capitalism is dispossessing millions worldwide as a relative few “make it.” Workers young and old are now pushed toward low-paid service work, or temporary gig jobs, or even onto the streets. It’s renewing efforts to organize unions, but that’s made more difficult by anti-union policies imposed in the political arena, both through federal and regional laws, especially in the South.
Meanwhile, Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United,have greatly increased the power of capitalist donors to control the political process with their money. Unionists understand they need to get involved with legislation, which means participating in the 2024 election process. That requires dealing with issues like immigration and the Gaza genocide, which can affect the labor movement.
UNIONS CONFRONT POLITICAL ISSUES
Job insecurity is being manipulated to turn many workers against migrants, and draw them towards “new fascist” politicians and policies. Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan told a July 8 conservative conference “They ain’t seen shit yet. Wait until 2025,” because if Donald is re-elected “I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.” Meanwhile, the Heritage Foundation is promoting Project 2025, its plan for a fascist re-shaping of the government that includes forbidding even legalized immigrants from using federal housing assistance and other benefits if some family members are undocumented.
Trump and the Heritage Foundation avoid mentioning that their anti-migrant policies are also aimed at crippling trade unions. Immigrant workers are playing major roles in building unions that represent workers at hotels, restaurants, and in janitorial and construction jobs. Intimidating them, or their family members without documents, weakens their ability to stand up for their workplace rights alongside other union members.
Unions are also confronting our government’s support of the war on Gaza. Last October, UFCW Local 3000 and UE called on President Biden to pressure Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire, and stop using billions of tax dollars for arming the Zionist Israeli government. Their letter was supported by 248 labor organization representing 9 million members, who helped form the National Labor Network For Ceasefire.
American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein told the press: “Working people and our unions are horrified that our tax dollars are financing this ongoing tragedy. We need a ceasefire now, and the best way to secure that is to shut off U.S. military aid to Israel.” Over a thousand workers representing 375 groups signed up for the Network’s July 9 webinar which he facilitated, featuring presentations by several Palestinian trade unionists.
DIFFERING TYPES OF LEADERSHIP
Union organizing campaigns, including strikes, have increased across America, including in the strategically important South. That region’s white supremacist legislation and open racist terror had historically undermined worker unity, producing non-union, low-wage conditions that national corporations could use as an anchor to limit the gains of unionized workers in other regions. But the new economy is forcing Southern workers to launch new fights for unions.
In May, almost 200 workers attended a Southern Workers School in Charlotte, North Carolina, representing UAW, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment (CAUSE), Truckers Movement for Justice, El Futuro Es Nuestro, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Nurses United and others. “When the working people in the South rise up and we come together on a common cause,” said Jamie Muhammad, Vice President of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1414 in Savannah, Georgia, “we can lead the rest of the nation where it needs to go.”
Others are leading in a very different direction. Teamster president Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention on July 15, claiming it served his members to call for bipartisan cooperation on labor law reform legislation. Though he criticized corporations because “their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price, at the expense of the American worker”,
he neglected to defend the thousands of immigrant Teamsters and their families, even after Convention leaders had prepared signs that called for “Mass Deportations Now!” His silence on the human rights of migrants in such a moment of crisis for both only serves the elite strategy of offering some employed workers benefits if they abandon those being dispossessed by capitalism.
In contrast, on July 23, delegates to the convention of the American Federation of Teachers passed a resolution that really would advance the practical unity of workers by setting May 1, 2028 as the expiration date for all AFT contracts, raising the possibility of a simultaneous strike by all teachers union locals. The Chicago Teachers Union had raised the idea of a common May 1, 2028 expiration, not only to strengthen the union’s bargaining position but also to strengthen its political unity in defending public education. CTU vice president Jackson Potter called it a means of developing the strength to win “more for working people in bargaining, at the statehouse, and all the way up to the White House.”
The United Auto Workers had already adopted this plan, and the day after the AFT vote UAW president Shawn Fain told the convention “We want to create a mass movement – a general strike if we have to.” A union strategy in the interests of the whole working class, including its dispossessed section, is starting to gel. During 2024, activists must organize new unions and strengthen existing ones. Meanwhile, they will use the current election process to defend the most vulnerable sections of society from fascists like Trump and the leaders of Project 2025, while supporting representatives who unite with them.
After the elections, May 1, 2028 offers a rallying point for building to an intensification of the workers’ struggle. Though it can’t return the past era of more plentiful jobs, that struggle can be the foundation for erecting a new understanding of the class struggle, and a revolutionary vision for achieving a society without capitalists.After the elections, May 1, 2028 offers a rallying point for building to an intensification of the workers’ struggle. Though it can’t return the past era of more plentiful jobs, that struggle can be the foundation for erecting a new understanding of the class struggle, and a revolutionary vision for achieving a society without capitalists.
Published on July 25, 2024
This article originated in Rally!
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