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| FBI and IRS raids UAW Presidents home. Source: Detroit Free Press |
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
The FBI, the investigative arm of a corrupt and degenerate state, has stepped up its investigation in to corruption in the leadership of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) and searched the homes of current president Gary Jones and former president Dennis Williams. The Northern Michigan Conference Center has also been searched by the FBI.
These activities are part of an investigation that has led to convictions of 8 individuals already, including a labor relations officer working for Fiat/Chrysler. The investigations, according to reports, are in response to allegations of corruption, bribery and taking kickbacks.
The UAW leadership is presently in negotiations with the Detroit auto companies preparing to give more concessions to the auto bosses which is not a crime under US law fortunately for them and their colleagues at the helm of organized labor in the US.
Kristin Dziczek, a labor expert at the Center for Automotive Research says that this investigation, “….is a big heavy storm cloud hanging over them,” at negotiation time and is concerned that the scenario will erode “trust” among workers who are already on edge due to factory closures.
It’s worth letting an expert like Ms. Dziczek know that union members’ “trust” in the leaders at the helm of organized labor has not simply been eroded but almost erased after decades of falling living standards, forced relocations, and shuttered plants. The majority of the leadership of organized labor in the US has failed miserably when it comes to defending the interests of the union rank and file and of the working class as a whole. They have no answer to technological innovation that has cost jobs as well as the offshoring and export of production to countries where unions are weaker or non existent often taking a protectionists position rather than an internationalist one, building international solidarity against global capitalism.
As working class families find it harder and harder to make ends meet, are forced to go in to more debt to survive, and the power of the landlords and other sections of the capitalist class strengthened, failed organizing drives and strike strategies that are designed simply to let off steam rather than actions that are designed to stop production and hurt the employer financially have added to workers’ wariness about going on strike. A result of the present leadership’s failed policies is that millions of workers have drawn the conclusion that we cannot win, that concessions are our only alternative.
The UAW leadership in particular has bent over backwards to help out the auto bosses at their members’ expense crushing any resistance from below that threatened their relationship with the employers based on the Team Concept and labor peace. The more they gave, (of their members wages, rights and benefits) the more aggressive the bosses’ become and this is the case with the majority of the leadership of organized labor in the US. The same pattern, the refusal of the labor leadership to seriously confront capitalism, is true internationally with a few exceptions like NUMSA in South Africa.
These investigations have picked up apace after Norwood Jewell, a UAW official who led bargaining for the UAW at Chysler/Fiat was sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison for violating the Labor Management Relations Act. He was accused earlier this year of using a Fiat Chrysler-funded credit card to pay for a $7,570 dinner at a steakhouse in Palm Springs, Calif. and a $1,268 bill at a golf resort. Perhaps he was playing with the Predator in Chief, he’s not known for footing the bill.
The Assistant US Attorney General accused Jewell of undermining public confidence in the “country’s collective bargaining system”, according to reports in the media. This is not because collective bargaining is such an advantage to workers; it is the bosses’ way of derailing workers collective power. We should remind ourselves that it was mass direct action, strikes, occupations, etc. that built the workers organizations and it was this same mass action that resulted in the collective bargaining process to derail mass action. It introduces this idea of two equal sides coming to a gentleman's agreement. The Assistant Attorney General is afraid that undermining confidence in the collective bargaining system will speed up the inevitable return to workers relying on our own strength and returning to the methods that built the unions in the first place.
As it is presently, without pressure from below, collective bargaining has been an opportunity for these very same union officials to offer up their members’ hard won gains at the bargaining table at contract time.
These activities, officials taking bribes, are no shock to workers although it is not bribes that are at the root of the betrayals and pro-management policies of the leadership at the top of the union movement. The problem is that they have no alternative to capitalism and when the system enters in to crisis they move to bail it out which means their members’ living standards must suffer. This world-view prevents them seeing their members and the working class as a whole as the force that can transform the balance of class forces and build a new society. As we have seen with the issue of offshoring, the only serious solution from the present labor hierarchy is to defend US capitalism in its struggle with foreign rivals pitting workers in different countries against one another.
With this ideological anchor, mobilizing their members (and the rest of the working class) whose unique position in the process of production has the potential to halt all economic activity, can only lead to chaos. In the workplace and society as a whole, there are only two sources of power. One is the organized working class, unified against racism sexism nationalism and all forms of division, and conscious of itself as a class with its own interests. The other is the capitalist class. It is to the capitalist class the heads of organized labor look for answers. And it is this that leads to the criminal activity we read about here which is small potatoes compared to the crimes of the business world and global capitalism.
The disastrous policies, the defeats, concessions that have set us back decades, the combination of bosses and union heads in undermining militancy and at times cooperating in firing union activists, are all a product of this world view.
Oppose Government Interference in the Trade Unions
No doubt there will be workers and rank and file union members that will get some satisfaction knowing that those they consider sellouts and crooks will be getting their just rewards. I understand this to an extent but it is a mistake to welcome this interference on the part of the capitalist state and its agencies in organizations the US working class built through a century or more of heroic struggle. The FBI historically as been no friend to workers, minorities or the trade union movement from the Palmer Raids on; beatings, incarceration, deportations, defending the interests of the riling class, the 1%, this is the legacy of the FBI.
These raids and interference in trade union affairs must be seen in context. The capitalist offensive has continued with help from the heads of organized labor. When workers have taken the first step in resisting concessions, voting down concessionary contracts, the officialdom uses every trick in the book to wear them down. The rank and file at Chrysler rejected a tentative agreement in 2015, showing, “…a great deal of spunkiness that forced the negotiating team back to the table resulting on an improved deal”, says Frank Hammer, a former UAW president and chairman of UAW Local 909 in Warren MI. Facts For Working People commented on this.
The teachers and educators have opened up a new era for organized labor that neither the labor hierarchy nor its left apologists make prominent. Most importantly, this movement that produced the highest number of strikes in a year in thirty years, was in conservative states with right to work laws and was rank and file led against the initial opposition from established leaders who followed the movement---- never initiated it. And we can be sure that the more astute sections of the US ruling class (not the Predator in Chief) are concerned that the US working class will at some point explode on to the scene in the US in a major way. History teaches us that, and to confound all the experts, none of them thought that West Virginia and other states, never mind teachers and others in public education would do what they did.
It is the rank and file of organized labor that can and must move to transform our unions, change the present leadership and our relationship with the bosses and capitalism, and to do that we have to build fighting rank and file caucuses in the workplace and the union halls that can build a generalized movement and openly challenge the present leadership and its policies. Such independent rank and file organizations are what should be investigating these activities.
The FBI, the investigative arm of a corrupt and degenerate state, has stepped up its investigation in to corruption in the leadership of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) and searched the homes of current president Gary Jones and former president Dennis Williams. The Northern Michigan Conference Center has also been searched by the FBI.
These activities are part of an investigation that has led to convictions of 8 individuals already, including a labor relations officer working for Fiat/Chrysler. The investigations, according to reports, are in response to allegations of corruption, bribery and taking kickbacks.
The UAW leadership is presently in negotiations with the Detroit auto companies preparing to give more concessions to the auto bosses which is not a crime under US law fortunately for them and their colleagues at the helm of organized labor in the US.
Kristin Dziczek, a labor expert at the Center for Automotive Research says that this investigation, “….is a big heavy storm cloud hanging over them,” at negotiation time and is concerned that the scenario will erode “trust” among workers who are already on edge due to factory closures.
It’s worth letting an expert like Ms. Dziczek know that union members’ “trust” in the leaders at the helm of organized labor has not simply been eroded but almost erased after decades of falling living standards, forced relocations, and shuttered plants. The majority of the leadership of organized labor in the US has failed miserably when it comes to defending the interests of the union rank and file and of the working class as a whole. They have no answer to technological innovation that has cost jobs as well as the offshoring and export of production to countries where unions are weaker or non existent often taking a protectionists position rather than an internationalist one, building international solidarity against global capitalism.
As working class families find it harder and harder to make ends meet, are forced to go in to more debt to survive, and the power of the landlords and other sections of the capitalist class strengthened, failed organizing drives and strike strategies that are designed simply to let off steam rather than actions that are designed to stop production and hurt the employer financially have added to workers’ wariness about going on strike. A result of the present leadership’s failed policies is that millions of workers have drawn the conclusion that we cannot win, that concessions are our only alternative.
The UAW leadership in particular has bent over backwards to help out the auto bosses at their members’ expense crushing any resistance from below that threatened their relationship with the employers based on the Team Concept and labor peace. The more they gave, (of their members wages, rights and benefits) the more aggressive the bosses’ become and this is the case with the majority of the leadership of organized labor in the US. The same pattern, the refusal of the labor leadership to seriously confront capitalism, is true internationally with a few exceptions like NUMSA in South Africa.
These investigations have picked up apace after Norwood Jewell, a UAW official who led bargaining for the UAW at Chysler/Fiat was sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison for violating the Labor Management Relations Act. He was accused earlier this year of using a Fiat Chrysler-funded credit card to pay for a $7,570 dinner at a steakhouse in Palm Springs, Calif. and a $1,268 bill at a golf resort. Perhaps he was playing with the Predator in Chief, he’s not known for footing the bill.
The Assistant US Attorney General accused Jewell of undermining public confidence in the “country’s collective bargaining system”, according to reports in the media. This is not because collective bargaining is such an advantage to workers; it is the bosses’ way of derailing workers collective power. We should remind ourselves that it was mass direct action, strikes, occupations, etc. that built the workers organizations and it was this same mass action that resulted in the collective bargaining process to derail mass action. It introduces this idea of two equal sides coming to a gentleman's agreement. The Assistant Attorney General is afraid that undermining confidence in the collective bargaining system will speed up the inevitable return to workers relying on our own strength and returning to the methods that built the unions in the first place.
As it is presently, without pressure from below, collective bargaining has been an opportunity for these very same union officials to offer up their members’ hard won gains at the bargaining table at contract time.
These activities, officials taking bribes, are no shock to workers although it is not bribes that are at the root of the betrayals and pro-management policies of the leadership at the top of the union movement. The problem is that they have no alternative to capitalism and when the system enters in to crisis they move to bail it out which means their members’ living standards must suffer. This world-view prevents them seeing their members and the working class as a whole as the force that can transform the balance of class forces and build a new society. As we have seen with the issue of offshoring, the only serious solution from the present labor hierarchy is to defend US capitalism in its struggle with foreign rivals pitting workers in different countries against one another.
With this ideological anchor, mobilizing their members (and the rest of the working class) whose unique position in the process of production has the potential to halt all economic activity, can only lead to chaos. In the workplace and society as a whole, there are only two sources of power. One is the organized working class, unified against racism sexism nationalism and all forms of division, and conscious of itself as a class with its own interests. The other is the capitalist class. It is to the capitalist class the heads of organized labor look for answers. And it is this that leads to the criminal activity we read about here which is small potatoes compared to the crimes of the business world and global capitalism.
The disastrous policies, the defeats, concessions that have set us back decades, the combination of bosses and union heads in undermining militancy and at times cooperating in firing union activists, are all a product of this world view.
Oppose Government Interference in the Trade Unions
No doubt there will be workers and rank and file union members that will get some satisfaction knowing that those they consider sellouts and crooks will be getting their just rewards. I understand this to an extent but it is a mistake to welcome this interference on the part of the capitalist state and its agencies in organizations the US working class built through a century or more of heroic struggle. The FBI historically as been no friend to workers, minorities or the trade union movement from the Palmer Raids on; beatings, incarceration, deportations, defending the interests of the riling class, the 1%, this is the legacy of the FBI.
These raids and interference in trade union affairs must be seen in context. The capitalist offensive has continued with help from the heads of organized labor. When workers have taken the first step in resisting concessions, voting down concessionary contracts, the officialdom uses every trick in the book to wear them down. The rank and file at Chrysler rejected a tentative agreement in 2015, showing, “…a great deal of spunkiness that forced the negotiating team back to the table resulting on an improved deal”, says Frank Hammer, a former UAW president and chairman of UAW Local 909 in Warren MI. Facts For Working People commented on this.
The teachers and educators have opened up a new era for organized labor that neither the labor hierarchy nor its left apologists make prominent. Most importantly, this movement that produced the highest number of strikes in a year in thirty years, was in conservative states with right to work laws and was rank and file led against the initial opposition from established leaders who followed the movement---- never initiated it. And we can be sure that the more astute sections of the US ruling class (not the Predator in Chief) are concerned that the US working class will at some point explode on to the scene in the US in a major way. History teaches us that, and to confound all the experts, none of them thought that West Virginia and other states, never mind teachers and others in public education would do what they did.
It is the rank and file of organized labor that can and must move to transform our unions, change the present leadership and our relationship with the bosses and capitalism, and to do that we have to build fighting rank and file caucuses in the workplace and the union halls that can build a generalized movement and openly challenge the present leadership and its policies. Such independent rank and file organizations are what should be investigating these activities.
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