No Money To Newsom No Politics. SEIU1000 Pres Elect Richard Brown Talks to Labor Video

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Ged Heo

5-31-21

 

Listening to Richard Lewis Brown, the president elect of SEIU 1000* in California reminds me of heated discussions I would have with some co-workers at the union hall especially during contract negotiations. When some of us stressed that the best way to avoid a strike, and the best way to achieve success is to be well prepared for one well before negotiations begin, we were often met with accusations of being strike happy but at the same time being countered by those who argued that we had to have a strike fund and build it up.

 

Brother Brown makes the same argument in the video but he goes even further. He argues that the strike is the only power we have and that winning one is dependent on having money. This country revolves around money he points out. The strike weapon is an important one indeed, but he might consider that the bosses, that capitalists, have a lot more of it than workers or unions do and we keep it in their banks.

His conclusion, and he is emphatic about it, is that unions should not be involved in politics at all. This is not an uncommon view among US workers and the middle class that is bolstered by the hundreds of millions of dollars---billions over the years--- the trade union officialdom gives to the Democratic Party in national, regional and local elections getting little in return from it other than a slower pace of cuts.

 

Brother Brown makes many comments that will get a strong echo among his members. He’s already gotten some attention in the capitalist press; here  here  here   He will be very much supported by many for criticizing the efforts by his union’s sitting president and executive board to donate $1,000,000 to defeat Republican efforts to recall California governor Gavin Newsom.  Newsom, like all of them, has attacked the unions and forced concessions from the public sector that SEIU represents. Why would we give money to people like that Brown asks.

 

Brown is not yet sworn in and believes the present SEIU president and executive board will pass the proposal beforehand knowing he opposes it and will block it once sworn, possibly by Wednesday June 2^nd. One can just imagine the meetings and panic between SEIU tops, other state labor officials and the top Democratic Party in the state over the loss of $100,000 of workers hard earned dues money and Brown's anti-political rhetoric. Imagine giving one million of our money to a party of Wall Street. There is no doubt the California State Labor Federation will be involved as well. The state’s top labor officials would be quite prepared to get rid of Richard Brown than Newsom.

 

For workers of course, it matters not whether we replace the rich kid Newsom with a Republican or Democrat, the bosses’ still get their candidate in as we have no political voice.

 

It is refreshing though to hear criticism of this deathly marriage between the heads of organized labor and the Democratic Party from a labor official and knowing nothing about him I will give him the benefit of the doubt and accept he is sincere and serious as he says in the interview. But Richard Lewis Brown’s approach is doomed to failure.

 

As I point out, we call capitalists, capitalists, because they have the capital. We cannot compete with them in this field. Our strength is our ability to shut down production and when this activity is linked with our power in our communities and with workers internationally it is an awesome power. Brother Brown is not wrong about that.

 

But beyond that his approach is extremely flawed. Laws are made by political parties. The capitalist class in the US has two parties, the Democrats being one of them. The trade union officialdom is in the main agents of this party inside our organizations, the trade unions more than the other party is. This link is important to the section of the capitalist class that the Democratic Party represents and having no political party of our own, it has been the party for some time that workers and other marginalized communities have turned to for some representation, the “lesser evil” but over time that game has been played too often and the Black population in particular has been taken for granted by the Democratic Party. For many, where else can they turn? But the era of this two-party domination over US political life is over.

 

Brother Brown should be advocating the building of an alternative working-class party in which the trade unions could play a huge part in building and spreading beyond California. He explains in the video that politics should be avoided by the union because they have many members that are Republican, Greens, Libertarian, Independent and so on, even Democrats who don’t like the party and are frustrated with it.

 

He leaves out another important section of the population, those that have given up altogether and they and workers who have turned to other parties that also do not represent our interests can be drawn to his no politics argument but they can and will also be drawn to a genuine alternative that speaks to our needs and desires and uses the power of organized labor and the mobilization of our communities to back up that power; a party that we can join, participate in. a living breathing organism. The Democratic Party is not that, it’s a voting bloc that’s all.

 

In 2016, close to 100 million in the US opted out of the national elections. They are not all apathetic, they have simply drawn the conclusion through experience that, in the main, nothing will really change the decades old erosion of living standards, that time when a truck driver could actually earn a living. The mainstream media and its backers are quite happy to ignore this group as the two parties of capital battle it out among themselves for which section of the capitalist class will govern and plunder US society (and hopefully the planet though that’s getting harder with competition) for the next four years.

 

This does not mean that there are not differences on social issues, how to respond to racism, sexism, and so on between the two parties.  But working people in marginalized communities will see no significant improvement in their lives either, where they can live, go to school and even get to school, jobs, housing and so on.

 

Brother Brown’s opposition to belonging to a national union, SEIU like all of them has a national or we call it here and international body to which it affiliates, is also a step backward in my view. We do not retreat from a fight within our own organizations either. My view is to contribute to the movement to change our unions not leave them in the hands of a leadership who consider them employment agencies with themselves as the CEO’s. Labor fakers in other words. If a split in the present structure should occur, a genuine mass uprising from below, that is a different matter.

 

Where will Richard Lewis Brown end up when the reality hits him is impossible to predict. He does suggest one option in the video and he’s not far out in doing so, he’s talking about big money here especially if his views gain traction.

There have been other demagogic attacks on the Democratic Party. Jerry Brown years ago when he was a commentator on K{PA sounded more like Lenin for a while. But public attacks on the Democratic Party and threats of refusing to fund it especially given the present climate where it will receive a friendly reception among some is almost unheard of from a president of a major union.

There is no doubt a powerful combination of the bosses’ and the heads of the organized labor will attempt to block him or will work with him, bring him in to the fold, after all, one has to be realistic. My guess it will be the latter.

*  From SEIU's Website

Local 1000 of the Service Employees International Union is a united front of 96,000 working people employed by the State of California, making Local 1000 the largest public sector union in California and one of the largest in the country.

Local 1000 represents members who contribute almost $6 billion dollars to the California economy and who work in more than 1400 worksites in California, Texas, New York, Chicago and Hawaii. We also fight to ensure that state workers…and all workers…are treated fairly and respectfully in the workplace, and are protected from unsafe work conditions.