How long is the US working class going to put up with this abuse?

Chicago McDonald's Workers join thousands of others in 10 US cities this week

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

How long is the US working class going to put up with this abuse?

 

In the early days of the Biden presidency, a fair bit of time in our Facts For Working People’s weekly Zoom meetings included figuring out how long the Biden honeymoon would last. We pretty much settled on six months. Many of those that voted for Biden simply wanted to save the nation from another four years of madness with the degenerate, Trump. Well, they got their way and for some of them, not all, they have retreated back to pretty much ignoring politics altogether.

 

The question posed in the title of this commentary I have asked of myself many times. I have asked it in relation to the assault of the “woke” people and culture police on free speech and democratic rights, the assault on labor, poor national health care, housing, police brutality, paying for wars that US workers have absolutely no interest in, you name it. And to pour more salt on the wound there’s the debacle going on in Congress right now.

 

How can anyone think we live in a democracy given that two politicians, both of them in the political party that claims to be a friend of labor and working people, can block a proposed $3.2 stimulus program that would have provided much needed dental assistance and vision care as well as improvements in Medicare and Medicaid and other social needs. So far, what has been called Biden’s New Deal has been whittled down to between $1.2 and $2 trillion.

 

Manchin and Sinema are considered “Centrists” which makes one wonder what the right wing of the Democratic Party is like. Nevertheless, it is these two that are determining much of what our lives will be like for the next period. Working people are at the mercy of politicians, representatives of capital in the two most powerful capitalist parties on the planet. What we can be sure of is that the Democratic Party will protect its base, the Wall Street financiers, hedge fund managers, billionaires and other parasitical characters.

 

So far, the high hopes of the early days have been shattered. Gone, from what has been called by some, Biden’s New Deal, is paid leave for workers, a norm in most industrial democracies. It was whittled down to four weeks from 12 and today it entered the history books. It looks like dental and vision provisions will suffer the same fate.

 

The US spends more on medical care than any other advanced capitalist economy and we get less for it. Drugs, dental care and vision care are very important to senior citizens. I am over 70 now and my teeth, and the rest of my body is, for a want of a better term, decaying. I get $1000 a year dental insurance which would pay for three fillings. My last major visit, a couple of years ago cost $6000. I’m looking at another $6000 down the road.

 

Joe Munchin, the Senator from West Virginia, one of the most depressed and poorest states in the Union, is a business man and from a middle class family, (in the classical sense in that his parents and grandparents were small capitalists) and is also very much involved in real the estate business. When he left university he went to work in the family firm and I’m sure he had to work real hard to get ahead with all the competition there. Manchin’s political activity is also funded by the oil and gas industry receiving more than any other Senator in the year May 2020 to May 2021.

Sinema is a lawyer like most of the members of the US body politic. It’s a handy profession when you want to work as a lobbyist after you retire from Congress. She is an opportunist, who started her political career in the Green party and moved on from there.

 

So Joe Manchin, a guy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and has never really struggled like millions of workers, tells us he is opposed to the proposals in the original bill and supports means testing, as he, “…cannot accept our economy, or basically our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality. That you're entitled. I'm more of a rewarding, because I can help those that really need help."

 

Most US bankruptcies have for a long time been a product of health bills as in the US, the richest country in human history, citizens are not “entitled” to decent health care.  As a Senator, where his job is to ensure that legislation is passed that protects the interests of Wall Street and the billionaires, Munchkin will be earning upwards of $175,000 a year, not bad when we include the $1.6 million he received from fossil fuel PAC’s over the past year or so. This is a guy who opposed a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.

 

Yes, Joe Manchin knows what entitlement is. He is not opposed to it for himself, just for working people. And entitlement is a not a bad word. Workers are entitled to the wealth our collective labor power created being returned to us in the form of social services and investing in the country’s infrastructure and job creation. Manchin, comes from the same background as Margaret Thatcher who has fortunately exited this world. They called her the grocer’s daughter. The world view both her and Manchin share is the class perspective of the small capitalist in general and success in the political sphere can bring great financial gains and opportunity on top of it. They are the epitome of entitlement.

 

Sinema opposes taxing the wealthy altogether and Manchin, the more insidious and dangerous of the two, is throwing up obstacles, he’s a Democrat after all, and much more politically savvy than Sinema, so he has to pretend he’s concerned about the welfare of others. The trouble is we’re passed that point where this strategy works, most workers are on to it and this nonsense is a major reason millions of workers have abandoned electoral politics altogether and also why many voted for Trump. They’re all dirty you see.

 

Look at Manchin’s statement about taxing billionaires:  “I believe everyone’s going to pay. I believe we will end up where everyone must participate.” “everyone’s going to pay?” There’s not a US worker that doesn’t know what that means when it comes out of the mouth of a multi-millionaire.

 

“Worker Joe” Biden claims be a friend of the working man and woman. The trade union hierarchy says he is as well. The folks atop the AFL-CIO, the national organization representing 14 million workers, have stated that we have a friend in the White House now. They said the same about Obama, Clinton, Carter, and challengers like Dukakis Mondale and many more. Their record is pretty poor when it comes to defending their members material interests.

 

During a CNN Town Hall last Thursday Biden told his audience that the tuition free community college plan was gone as was any likelihood of a hearing plan (they just love old folks don’t they), but as he made these points he reiterated that his “goal” was to, “build the middle class and the working class.”, (a rare use of the term “working class” for politicians or labor officials. Biden has stated, according to the Wall Street Journal, that Munchin and Sinema are the problem and in addition, Sinema opposes raising taxes on the wealthy and Munchin’s opposition to a “clean energy program” will scrap that deal. The latter is no surprise given that he’s backed by the fossil fuel companies.

 

Biden could, if he were a political representative of working people, call for all of us to walk off the job for 24 hours to pressure these big business politicians to back down. A pro-labor president would do that, or could do that.

 

In the Wall Street Journal article, where some of the information in this commentary is to be found, the headline reads, Biden Pares Back policy Goals as Party Edges Closer to a Deal Now “deal” is the operative word here because Biden and any other Democrat blaming Republicans or Sinema and Manchin for the present situation holds no water, especially for Biden and others like him that boast about working across the aisle and being dealmakers. The only deal here is the deal between representatives in two capitalist parties coming to an agreement on issues that do not affect them personally. The outcome of the deal is one that will have a negative impact on workers and the poor and a positive one on the hedge fund managers, billionaires and Wall Street investors that fund both parties. Their job is to deliver the goods.

 

Workers Have No Voice

It is this situation that has led to the withdrawal of millions of US voters from the political process. People have opted out, like the 95 million or so that did in 2016, not because they are apathetic or don’t care about the world around them, they have simply drawn the conclusion that when it comes to life’s basics, both parties are not that much different. We head down the same slope albeit at different speeds.

 

The cause of this is not that the politicians are corrupt and rotten which most of them are. It is important to recognize that political parties have class content, they represent the economic interests of certain groups in society. The ruling class, the capitalists that actually govern US society, have two parties and workers have not one. The billionaires as we call them can’t lose, one of their guys will always get in. There is never any fear from either of these two parties that if they don’t produce the goods, the workers might vote for the candidate from the labor or workers party. If such a party existed, it could transform the balance of class forces in the political arena and raise political consciousness. This is an important and crucial development that has to take place, the creation of a genuine, working class political party based on workers organizations in the workplaces, the communities and so on.

 

In my view, this is an objective development that will at some point arise as movements on the ground have to eventually seek political expression. We are witnessing a post pandemic upsurge in the class struggle in the US, both inside and outside the organized labor movement. It is a good beginning but many of the self-styled socialist groups will claim we are heading for a general strike, there is certainly no indication of that at this point in time and if we are to be honest, milllions upon millions of workers have no idea who they are as their influence in the workers movement is negligible.

 

The labor hierarchy that sits atop organized labor could change the situation, they could change the balance of class forces in US society. But they are wedded to the Team Concept; to the idea that workers and capitalists have the same interests.

 

Good things are happening here in the US and, despite racism, sexism, craft union mentality and xenophobia, the bosses’ strategies for undermining working class solidarity, we have a rich, militant, labor history here and it is, albeit it slowly, raising its head today.

 

A final statement on this is that while I believe that the movement ahead will have to find political expression in the form of a political party (an objective development), it will be a political party that aims to make capitalism nice, to reform it. I do not believe that this is a possibility and that this economic system of production has to be overthrown and replaced with an economic system that produces for human need not profit; the entire political superstucture is designed to protect capital not the worker. Going through this period of trying to reform the system is inevitable and an important learning experience. It can be a relatively short period but I feel is inescapable.

 

The future, and the united workers movement that will arise from the inevitable resistance to the capitalist offensive will not be pretty. But, in the course of the

Struggle great lessons will be learned, our history will re-emerge and it will terrify capital of that I am sure.