Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired.
I watched the press conference the four “progressive”
Congresswomen gave yesterday. The
conference was called in response to the racist and xenophobic tweets from the
Predator in Chief, Trump, who is feeling a little trapped and uncertain about
his future. The four women Ayanna
Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were right to
point out how these vicious racist attacks on them by the most powerful leader
in the world are the sideshow, a distraction as nasty as they are. They described Trump and his psychopathic
nature to a T refusing to engage him
or dignifying this serial sexual deviant by responding to his bizarre and
hateful claims. Were the consequences of his actions and words not so
dangerous, it would be comical him telling people to go back to where they’re
from given his wife was not born here and also brought her parents here under
some family plan I assume.
Instead these four women tried to made the political issues and things they stand for the theme, and warned not to “take the bait”. Trump’s invectives have been particularly brutal for Ilhan Omar accusing her of being a terrorist and an Al Qaeda supporter. This is somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who “touched” the orb with the Saudi gang that murdered and dismembered the well-known Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi.
Trump’s racist and xenophobic attacks on these women have to be condemned by all workers as all workers are harmed by them. They weaken class unity and our organized power. His appeal to white nationalists, Nazi’s and other fascist elements do not bode well for white workers either so it’s not time for us to sit back. Fascism and war, led to the deaths of millions of white workers in Europe.
It is good to see these women stand their ground and they put the leaders of the workers organizations in the US to shame. We have no political party of our own so I am talking here about the heads of organized labor, the top dogs at the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition which I think is down to the Teamsters and the SEIU. Either way, these officials represent 14 million organized workers. California has two million workers affiliated to the AFL-CIO and the Los Angeles Labor Federation alone has over 800,000 workers affiliated to it. The Chicago Federation of Labor has some 320 unions and 500,000 workers affiliated.
I visited a couple of union websites and it is beyond a disgrace, it is simply criminal given what is happening in US society today that the leaders of 14 million organized workers have nothing to say; nothing inspiring, no explanation of events, history and especially nothing that would show any way forward at all. This serial sexual abuser in the White House is doing what he is doing and the dogs that don’t bark continue with their deafening silence. Of course, a whole bunch of them went to the White House to kiss Trumps ass after his election and Teamster leader Hoffa praised him as has the Afl-CIO head Richard Trumka. They all pretty much said they would “work” with him. They are even more scared now as the teachers/educators struggles have blown a whole in their decades old argument for doing nothing that we can’t win.
Instead these four women tried to made the political issues and things they stand for the theme, and warned not to “take the bait”. Trump’s invectives have been particularly brutal for Ilhan Omar accusing her of being a terrorist and an Al Qaeda supporter. This is somewhat hypocritical coming from someone who “touched” the orb with the Saudi gang that murdered and dismembered the well-known Saudi dissident Jamal Kashoggi.
Trump’s racist and xenophobic attacks on these women have to be condemned by all workers as all workers are harmed by them. They weaken class unity and our organized power. His appeal to white nationalists, Nazi’s and other fascist elements do not bode well for white workers either so it’s not time for us to sit back. Fascism and war, led to the deaths of millions of white workers in Europe.
It is good to see these women stand their ground and they put the leaders of the workers organizations in the US to shame. We have no political party of our own so I am talking here about the heads of organized labor, the top dogs at the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition which I think is down to the Teamsters and the SEIU. Either way, these officials represent 14 million organized workers. California has two million workers affiliated to the AFL-CIO and the Los Angeles Labor Federation alone has over 800,000 workers affiliated to it. The Chicago Federation of Labor has some 320 unions and 500,000 workers affiliated.
I visited a couple of union websites and it is beyond a disgrace, it is simply criminal given what is happening in US society today that the leaders of 14 million organized workers have nothing to say; nothing inspiring, no explanation of events, history and especially nothing that would show any way forward at all. This serial sexual abuser in the White House is doing what he is doing and the dogs that don’t bark continue with their deafening silence. Of course, a whole bunch of them went to the White House to kiss Trumps ass after his election and Teamster leader Hoffa praised him as has the Afl-CIO head Richard Trumka. They all pretty much said they would “work” with him. They are even more scared now as the teachers/educators struggles have blown a whole in their decades old argument for doing nothing that we can’t win.
I
couldn’t find much at all at the AFL-CIO site and stayed long enough before I
fell asleep but on the blog I noticed the advice about how the reader (an
unorganized worker I assume) should “Form a Union”:
Get together with your co-workers who may share a common interest in
organizing a union.
Talk to a union organizer in order
to strategize and to learn the next steps.
Talk to your co-workers to build
support for the union.
Show that support through an election or a card-check once you have a
strong majority.
It shows how cut off they are from the workplace that they
can write something like this. Might the employer retaliate? The consequences
of these activities is most often termination and asking a union organizer to
strategize and learn doesn’t impress. Union organizing hasn’t been successful
at all in increasing membership and the UAW leadership and its strategy just
lost a third organizing drive at the VW plant in Chattanooga due to the
ineptness of the UAW leadership’s strategy.
The Teamsters’ site is exciting; it mentions nothing about Trump as far as I could see, leaves these courageous women out to dry and says nothing about how racism and his viscous attacks on immigrants weakens working people, our unity and therefore our ability to fight back against this capitalist offensive. It does have a link to a survey of Teamster members to find out what questions to ask the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in 2020. Hoffa and the union hierarchy will be sure to select the least harmful questions. This is the same leadership that just tried to impose a contract on members after they voted it down using contractual language inserted just for that purpose.
The SEIU site was all about their fight for $15 campaign and the UFCW site is quite taken with its victory around cannabis trainings. UFCW makes history in California with cannabis safety trainings My former union, Afscme, has a piece from President Lee Saunders welcoming the resignation of Alex Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary, It “….was long overdue,” says Saunders, who then goes on to whine about the guy replacing Acosta, Patrick Pizzella who has a “…..long history of hostility to workers’ rights and to unions.”
Saunders is shocked, “Instead of pushing the interests of big business, workers need a labor secretary who’s focused on protecting them and ensuring they receive a fair return for the work they do.” he says. It’s almost child-like, yes, lets all be fair.
This is a leadership that has passed its shelf life.
So the women who have been savaged, attacked as terrorists, told they’re not American and hate America by the Predator in Chief get no help from the heads of organized labor with its 14 million members. They have pretty much remained silent as racist attacks and murders by state security forces and white nationalist terror groups continue to gain confidence under Trump’s lead. This week Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s former speech writer waded in and attacked AOC and Ilhan Omar in particular in her WSJ column, accusing them of extremism, disrespect, manipulating people and so on. This is the woman who described Reagan as like a “god”, the guy who fired 11,000 US workers banning them from working in their industry for life. Reagan was another anti-union moron in power.
We have pointed out in numerous articles, here and here that there is an opportunity here for the Democratic Socialists of America of which I am a member, to make a difference. DSA has some 60,000 members and has grown tenfold since 2016. It has numerous elected officials as members including two of the four women at the press conference above, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib although they rarely if ever mention this now.
The DSA has endorsed Bernie Sanders in what many members have said was a rather undemocratic, top down rush job. But more importantly, DSA has an opportunity to unify and build on the movements that have arisen over issues from environmental catastrophe to the disastrous US health care system, education, housing and so on. But none of these issues can be resolved though the Democratic Party, one of the world’s most powerful capitalist political bodies, yet DSA’s leadership and a huge section of the organization cling to the Democratic Party and refuse to offer US workers an alternative.
The DSA Congresswomen, Ocasio Cortez and Tlaib could lead the way and exit the Democratic Party trap. These two along with all the other elected officials that claim DSA membership like the five Chicago City Council members should lead a campaign within DSA to break from the Democratic Party and go about organizing and helping unite the numerous isolated social movements in to a national organization. A national united alliance or movement could coordinate the fightback on the ground with direct action and also through running candidates in the political arena. DSA claims the legacy of Eugene Debs but Debs did not support capitalist parties. There are struggles around health care, housing, racism and poison water that Americans are being forced to drink. The teacher’s protests/strikes showed that the rank and file of organized labor is beginning to stir, something that scares the labor hierarchy and many of their left wing supporters that act as a sort of left cover for them. The mood is out there.
In addition, Climate change, something that Trump and many other Republican politicians argue is a hoax, is perhaps the foremost issue on the minds of young people today. We can see that in Europe where the Green Party has made huge gains recently including winning 12% of the vote in Britain. The Greens won one in five votes in the European elections and its demographic is shifting, “They were not only the most popular among all voters under the age of 60 but for the first time among unemployed voters, too.” The NYT reported.
And a former Green Party member who worked for the party who now works for Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, makes a very important point when he tells the NYT that , “If you want to achieve an ecological society, you have to take working people with you. That new society has to be fair.”
It's worth considering that the DSA could soon have almost half the membership of Britain’s Conservative Party (Tories) whose 160,000 members are about to elect the Prime Minister of the fourth or fight largest economy in the world.
There is a huge opportunity here and DSA needs to grab it by the horns if it is not to die a slow death, and we should always remind ourselves that we are looking at a deep recession or slump in the not so distant future. I read an article today in which Bhaskar Sunkara, a co-founder of Jacobin Magazine who describes himself as a socialist waxed eloquent about Bernie Sanders, clearly supporting him and the Democratic Party as the choice for president in 2020. This is a disaster. It is best to consider more closely what the 100 million people who never participated in the 2016 election might be thinking. As we point out on this forum, the era in which the two parties of capitalism dominated US political life is having its last gasp. Yet comrade Sunkara and the strategists atop organized labor continue to offer to the US working class a political party they abandoned long ago.
Many DSA members are also members of unions. As we have pointed out on this blog, the DSA leadership has basically contracted out its union work to those whose approach in this field is best represented by Labor Notes and others and while an organization like LN can offer considerable material support to workers on strike or local unions (as I found as a local leader some years ago), the failure to take up the disastrous role of the present labor hierarchy and openly campaign against it is a serious weakness. Myself and others around this blog have made our differences clear and that any differences with regard to such important activity should be aired openly and discussed in depth throughout the organization in a comradely and non-sectarian way.*
DSA members who are also in unions should introduce resolutions to their bodies not only condemning these latest racist attacks on four women Congresspersons, but also for their local to call on DSA and its members in Congress and other political bodies to push for DSA to leave this party and take a different road.
* Some articles on differences in approach to union work
The Teamsters’ site is exciting; it mentions nothing about Trump as far as I could see, leaves these courageous women out to dry and says nothing about how racism and his viscous attacks on immigrants weakens working people, our unity and therefore our ability to fight back against this capitalist offensive. It does have a link to a survey of Teamster members to find out what questions to ask the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates in 2020. Hoffa and the union hierarchy will be sure to select the least harmful questions. This is the same leadership that just tried to impose a contract on members after they voted it down using contractual language inserted just for that purpose.
The SEIU site was all about their fight for $15 campaign and the UFCW site is quite taken with its victory around cannabis trainings. UFCW makes history in California with cannabis safety trainings My former union, Afscme, has a piece from President Lee Saunders welcoming the resignation of Alex Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary, It “….was long overdue,” says Saunders, who then goes on to whine about the guy replacing Acosta, Patrick Pizzella who has a “…..long history of hostility to workers’ rights and to unions.”
Saunders is shocked, “Instead of pushing the interests of big business, workers need a labor secretary who’s focused on protecting them and ensuring they receive a fair return for the work they do.” he says. It’s almost child-like, yes, lets all be fair.
This is a leadership that has passed its shelf life.
So the women who have been savaged, attacked as terrorists, told they’re not American and hate America by the Predator in Chief get no help from the heads of organized labor with its 14 million members. They have pretty much remained silent as racist attacks and murders by state security forces and white nationalist terror groups continue to gain confidence under Trump’s lead. This week Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s former speech writer waded in and attacked AOC and Ilhan Omar in particular in her WSJ column, accusing them of extremism, disrespect, manipulating people and so on. This is the woman who described Reagan as like a “god”, the guy who fired 11,000 US workers banning them from working in their industry for life. Reagan was another anti-union moron in power.
We have pointed out in numerous articles, here and here that there is an opportunity here for the Democratic Socialists of America of which I am a member, to make a difference. DSA has some 60,000 members and has grown tenfold since 2016. It has numerous elected officials as members including two of the four women at the press conference above, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib although they rarely if ever mention this now.
The DSA has endorsed Bernie Sanders in what many members have said was a rather undemocratic, top down rush job. But more importantly, DSA has an opportunity to unify and build on the movements that have arisen over issues from environmental catastrophe to the disastrous US health care system, education, housing and so on. But none of these issues can be resolved though the Democratic Party, one of the world’s most powerful capitalist political bodies, yet DSA’s leadership and a huge section of the organization cling to the Democratic Party and refuse to offer US workers an alternative.
The DSA Congresswomen, Ocasio Cortez and Tlaib could lead the way and exit the Democratic Party trap. These two along with all the other elected officials that claim DSA membership like the five Chicago City Council members should lead a campaign within DSA to break from the Democratic Party and go about organizing and helping unite the numerous isolated social movements in to a national organization. A national united alliance or movement could coordinate the fightback on the ground with direct action and also through running candidates in the political arena. DSA claims the legacy of Eugene Debs but Debs did not support capitalist parties. There are struggles around health care, housing, racism and poison water that Americans are being forced to drink. The teacher’s protests/strikes showed that the rank and file of organized labor is beginning to stir, something that scares the labor hierarchy and many of their left wing supporters that act as a sort of left cover for them. The mood is out there.
In addition, Climate change, something that Trump and many other Republican politicians argue is a hoax, is perhaps the foremost issue on the minds of young people today. We can see that in Europe where the Green Party has made huge gains recently including winning 12% of the vote in Britain. The Greens won one in five votes in the European elections and its demographic is shifting, “They were not only the most popular among all voters under the age of 60 but for the first time among unemployed voters, too.” The NYT reported.
And a former Green Party member who worked for the party who now works for Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, makes a very important point when he tells the NYT that , “If you want to achieve an ecological society, you have to take working people with you. That new society has to be fair.”
It's worth considering that the DSA could soon have almost half the membership of Britain’s Conservative Party (Tories) whose 160,000 members are about to elect the Prime Minister of the fourth or fight largest economy in the world.
There is a huge opportunity here and DSA needs to grab it by the horns if it is not to die a slow death, and we should always remind ourselves that we are looking at a deep recession or slump in the not so distant future. I read an article today in which Bhaskar Sunkara, a co-founder of Jacobin Magazine who describes himself as a socialist waxed eloquent about Bernie Sanders, clearly supporting him and the Democratic Party as the choice for president in 2020. This is a disaster. It is best to consider more closely what the 100 million people who never participated in the 2016 election might be thinking. As we point out on this forum, the era in which the two parties of capitalism dominated US political life is having its last gasp. Yet comrade Sunkara and the strategists atop organized labor continue to offer to the US working class a political party they abandoned long ago.
Many DSA members are also members of unions. As we have pointed out on this blog, the DSA leadership has basically contracted out its union work to those whose approach in this field is best represented by Labor Notes and others and while an organization like LN can offer considerable material support to workers on strike or local unions (as I found as a local leader some years ago), the failure to take up the disastrous role of the present labor hierarchy and openly campaign against it is a serious weakness. Myself and others around this blog have made our differences clear and that any differences with regard to such important activity should be aired openly and discussed in depth throughout the organization in a comradely and non-sectarian way.*
DSA members who are also in unions should introduce resolutions to their bodies not only condemning these latest racist attacks on four women Congresspersons, but also for their local to call on DSA and its members in Congress and other political bodies to push for DSA to leave this party and take a different road.
* Some articles on differences in approach to union work
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