Afscme 444, Tony Mazzochi and the Labor Party

Labor Party Convention Button 1996

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

9-21-21

 

From the early 1980s to the late 1990’s I was deeply involved in the struggles to build a Labor Party based on the trade unions in the United States. When I first came to the US, I wasn’t particularly political, certainly not actively, but I knew what a labor party was, it was not the Tory or Conservative Party that represented the rich; it was supposed to be a party representing people like me and the unions were a big part of it.

 

It wasn’t until I got hired at a local water company as a utility laborer, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), a job that changed my life for the better being in the public sector and having a union, that I become involved in a union.

 

My local union as anyone that reads this blog knows, was Local 444 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) affiliated to the national AFL-CIO. I learned so much from union activity. And when I learned that ED Nixon learned a lot that way too, I was proud of myself.

 

I naturally became more political and thought about how the union activity fit in to the big picture. The National union had mandated that all locals affiliate to Afscme’s District Council 57, an intermediary body between the locals and the national union that numerous locals in the area were in. I was part of a younger crowd and the old guard still had very strong influence and they vigorously opposed being told what to do by the national union and opposed paying the affiliation fees. They wanted to remain unaffiliated.

 

The younger activists supported affiliation though and we had quite a battle with the old guard. It was clearly the end of an era for them and the beginning of one for us as Reagan, the hater of working people had just got elected and proceeded to smash the Professional Air Traffic Controllers union, PATCO. Nevertheless, these old buggers knew how to fight and for a while they could muster the numbers, certainly at an executive board meeting, to prevent us from paying the bills. The old guard were united across racial and gender lines although most of our members were men.

 

The young Turks prevailed and we moved on. I was encouraged to get and stay active by a female president we had at the time. She was a tough character, she had to be back then. She was also a lesbian so it wasn’t easy for her and that’s putting it mildly. I had tremendous respect for Kate and over time she earned the respect of most of the men. At one point I wanted to quit and she sent me a personal note urging me to continue. She obviously had a university background and I know now she was probably around the Maoist current. She signed that note “In Struggle” No one ever signed a letter to me in that way but it really moved me and I stayed on. I was battling drug addiction in that period as well.

 

­I also got involved in the wider labor movement something that was also encouraged by a socialist organization I joined in 1984-85. In my ventures in to the wider labor/political movement I came across many Trotskyist groups all claiming they were socialist (I was never attracted to Soviet Stalinism). I remember one of them whose paper had a headline Build a Labor Party or something similar which I thought was good but on closer investigation, they meant build a labor party with them as the leadership, build it outside the traditional organizations.

This didn’t make sense to me as I thought almost unconsciously that a party of this type would arise out of the trade unions,* would not be a socialist but a reformist party, and would be led by the leadership as it was at the time. This seemed as natural as breathing to me.  The socialist organization I did join was affiliated to the Committee For a Workers International or CWI in London and they had the same view. We grew here in the US and eventually called ourselves Labor Militant and published a newspaper of the same name. I was eventually expelled from that organization thankfully despite the help it gave me in the beginning and its US section today is called Socialist Alternative. Basically, there was no other so-called social group I would take in to my workplace. Even today, the vast majority of them are completely disconnected and therefore isolated from the working class.  

I began introducing resolutions at membership meetings on the need for a labor party. They would usually be directed at AFSCME’s national leadership and the Alameda Labor Council. They initially didn’t go very far but it gave me the opportunity to explain what it was and why it would be advantageous for as our public utility had an elected board and the local generally supported the Democrat on it. After some years I had success and at one point no Democrat could get an endorsement or money from Local 444.

 

I was elected as a delegate from local 444 to the Alameda Central Labor Council which is the county arm of the national AFL-CIO to which all AFL-CIO unions need to be affiliated if they want to get assistance when they are forced out on strike. If they are not, their strike will not be “sanctioned” by the Labor Council and members of affiliated unions would not be required to honor your picket lines.

 

I also attended Labor Notes conferences is the 1980’s and it was at one of the LN conference myself and the other Local 444 delegate Roger Martinez, met Tony Mazzochi, an official of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers’ Union. I had planned on approaching him as he was traveling the country calling on the need for a Labor Party. They have two parties he would say, and workers have not one. John Throne, one of the founders of this blog had met with him in New York City along with other Labor Militant comrades and we had talked of the possibility of a meeting.

 

So Roger and I asked him if he would speak at a meeting in Oakland if we organized one. He was favorable to the idea but stressed that he would only do it if he was invited by a trade union. We agreed and returned to Oakland and got local 444 to invite Mazzochi as the main speaker at a meeting on the need for a Labor Party in the US. There is a video of the October 1989 meeting here. Like many of us when we see ourselves on film (narcissists excepted) I am a little embarrassed by myself here. I think John Throne's (Sean O' Torain) comments toward the end of the film are spot on and he was very sick at the time.

 

It was a very successful meeting with not only leftists and others socialists (always ready to explain why they have the right program and you don’t) but also some rank and file workers, particularly form my own local. At our union dinner, there were Labor Party fliers at every table.

 

The meeting took place in 1989 at the AFL-CIO building in Oakland as local 444 had our offices there. That was not popular and I was not popular with the officialdom at the Alameda Labor Council for doing it, but unlike many of the delegates, including the socialists and communist delegates who had a principle of not criticizing in any way the leadership, I was an elected delegate not appointed or a union staffer, and I wasn’t looking for a job. The meeting was chaired by my friend and then president of Local 444, Marvin Cain

 

I picked Brother Mazzochi up at the airport and he stayed the first night at my house but I think the hood worried him a little and he headed up to Kensington after that. I took him to my workplace and also got him to speak at the labor council I got a number of unions to endorse Local 444’s meeting.

 

After that meeting I was working on organizing another meeting with Bernie Sanders, Mazzochi and Jack Stump speaking at it. Sanders had just been elected to Congress as a self-described socialist and Jack Stump ran for office as a write in candidate around the Pittston strike I think, I have all this on files but not all well organized so there might be some minor discrepancies of time and date.

 

Sometime later Mazzochi said that he formed Labor Party Advocates due to the success of that meeting.

 

There is much more to say about this but this is enough for now. I have a lot to say about why the Labor Part was not to be and also what forces undermined it but that's for another time. I am trying to organize 30 years of files and papers and found some of the stuff included here. I am not sure I have the time left on this earth to do it all but I can’t throw working class history away. I am very proud of my activity and my local as it was one of the most militant, left locals in that period.

 

I hope some young workers and trade union activists find some use in reading this history but I have to be honest that I want to get some of it written down and it’s for my own satisfaction as well, memories I don’t want to forget. There were a lot of dedicated rank and file union brothers and sisters that made this happen.

 

* I should add that my views on this and how an independent party of the working class will arise has changed. What hasn’t changed is that I believe organized labor will be a part of it, will be convulsed by events and a political clash with the present leadership is inevitable. Most importantly is, being outside the so-called revolutionary organization, I can admit that I don’t know everything so I don’t have to have an answer for everything. It’s OK to say you don’t know.