In Kentucky, Union Leaders Smear Activists Let Bosses Off Hook

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Gay and many other Kentucky teachers, parents, and Black Lives Matter community activists are folks I have spent a fair bit of time with these past 10 days and it has been an honor for me.  I hope to have an ongoing relationship. There are some good people fighting for all of us even though too many of us may not yet realize it.

I will give my answer to what you ask in this image here, Gay. It's not only true of you, but of anyone that threatens their leadership and most importantly the relationship they have built with the employers, the bosses', based on labor peace. I am sure some of the “rogue” groups the union leaders referred to in their little press conference are Black Lives Matter folks. Shame on them as these comrades are there defending education. The reason for this hostility, this betrayal, is not so much the perks and the obscene salaries, or that they're taking bribes or corrupt in the criminal sense, though in a corrupt society this exists and is a factor.

The main problem is that they accept capitalism as the only system of social organization. They accept the market as the answer to all things. They do not see the working class as the force in society that can change this situation and if they did, worshiping the market as they do, they have no alternative system of production to what we have now. They do not believe the working class can govern ourselves never mind society as a whole. They are like the liberals in this sense.

Democratic socialism, therefore (not the Bernie model), is not an option. The boss has the right to own the factory, the mine, the tech company, and the land. They have the right to make profit off the unpaid labor of the worker. For the labor hierarchy, racism, sexism, greed in the abstract is human nature and human nature is naturally rotten, individualistic and therefore selfish despite history proving otherwise. The best bet is to try and contain it. This is the ideology of the bourgeois that they soak up like a sponge and is the natural order of things. To mobilize the potential power of their members and the working class as a whole to change this can only lead to chaos. The anger at it must be kept under wraps and never find organizational expression----nothing good can come of it.

There is a lot happening in the US. There are movements against this capitalist offensive all across the country. There are working class people fighting against poison water in Flint Michigan, home of the great 44-day sit down strike in 1936-37 that built the UAW. The Native American people have waged a near civil war with their allies, including US vets, defending our environment and our water at Standing Rock. Where were the heads of organized Labor there? Many of them supported the state and the corporations because their members’ dues are the source of their income and power; the others did practically nothing.

Dams have burst, bridges have collapsed, forest fires have destroyed entire communities due to climate change and unregulated and unplanned development. Puerto Rico, after suffering a devastating hurricane, also due to climate change and underdevelopment of infrastructure, has faced an assault from the bankers and speculators that control the allocation of capital, that is, wealth the labor power of human beings create that is stolen from us.

State security forces have murdered unarmed black folks, black males especially and do it free from repercussions. The social conditions that envelope the poorest among us, again disproportionately communities of color, health care, education, housing, basic nutrition, add more deaths to the roster. States like West Virginia and others, that have contributed to the wealth of the Unites States as human beings clawed coal from the mountains and the pits deep underground are in severe crisis equal to any third world country, and veterans, workers that are forced, through an economic draft in the main to risk their lives for corporate America and the likes of the social parasite Dick Cheney, commit suicide at the rate of 22 a day. Military spending is not a defense but an offense expenditure. It could solve poverty globally. Instead, the US supplies the vast majority of the world’s weapons of mass destruction.

And in the midst of all of this, the original inhabitants of this continent still struggle to rise above the conditions imposed upon them by the genocidal colonial war waged against them that continues today. The emancipation of the Native People will not be brought about through the casino economy.

There is much more. But through all of this the trade union hierarchy, maintain basic silence. They are the dogs that never bark.

It is the duty of any opposition to their policies within organized labor to openly oppose their policies and point to their disastrous role. In the example of Kentucky, the trade union leadership did what it will always do if it can, suppress the movement from below. The best example of the complete bankruptcy of the present leadership can be seen in the set of picket line rules the leadership of an IUOE local issued during a strike last year. You can read about this strike and the rules here.

This will change as the crisis of capitalism intensifies and especially when the slump hits which is not far away. Given the absence of leadership it is the opinion of the founders of this blog that there will be some serious battles and periods of violence as the movement finds its feet. Organized labor will not be exempt from this turmoil and there will be huge battles there also as the old leadership is removed and a new arises. It is useful to familiarize ourselves with the rise of John L. Lewis and the CIO in the 30’s to get a grasp on what will occur ahead within organized labor. The present leadership of the trade union movement is somewhat like ripe apples on a tree; they seem secure until a strong wind comes along.

There are some cyclones ahead----- of that I’m sure.