Changing the Unions: Where Do We Start?

 

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Editor, Facts For Working People

Any group of rank and file workers who set out to transform our unions, which means putting themselves forward as an alternative to the present pro-management pro-business leadership, must openly and with conviction, openly proclaim what they plan to do different. Otherwise, why should a rank and file union worker vote for them, join their caucus.

 

They must first and foremost condemn and abandon the Team Concept which is the ideology that the entire leadership of organized labor subscribes to that says the employers and workers have the same interests. It is the basis for their betrayals and has been a catastrophe for union members and the working class as a whole.

 

We cannot change the present concessionary direction of our unions without coming in to conflict with the present hierarchy whose policies they are. They will simply not allow it. Certain leftists and socialists unfortunately argue that the heads of organized labor are weak, cannot do anything and worse, will not do anything. So they refuse to challenge them. This is an excuse. They argue that they are building a “revolutionary party” this is the excuse for doing nothing.

 

As anyone who has led or participated in a rank and file movement knows. The leadership will mobilize to defend their concessionary policies and the relationship they have built with the employers based on labor peace if threatened. This video is about that.