Biden, The Most Pro-Union President Ever, Rescues the Railroad Bosses.

It's not a betrayal. It's his job to defend Big Capital's class interests. It Always was

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

11-29-22

One of the important by products of a situation when the class struggle becomes a little more acute, when a section of the organized working class is threatening profits, is that the so-called friends of labor, the big wigs in the Democratic Party reveal their true colors. They cannot pretend to be the champions of the working class, defending our interests against those nasty Republicans' efforts to drive us back in to the dark ages.

That's what we are witnessing with Biden's (the most pro-union US president ever) appeal to Congress to impose a contract on the railroad workers that they voted against and who are threatening a strike. Now the octogenarian Pelosi has joined the chorus. She is the most powerful women in US politics we are told.

Pelosi says it's to avoid job losses. This is a lie. The politicians of both parties say the same when it comes to raising wages, or ask for too much of a pay raise, that it will mean a loss of jobs. This is to appeal to our self interest but it is a smoke screen to obscure the real reason, the protection of profits.

“A call to Congress to act immediately to pass legislation that adopts tentative agreements that exclude paid sick leave ignores the railroad workers’ concerns.” a statement from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division reads.  Why does he expect otherwise? He's been around a while I would assume.

There's no call for Congress to impose sick leave on the rail bosses to settle the contract. And forget the wage increase as it's no increase at all. 24% over four years is a pay cut. The capitalist media normally leaves that out and just announces it as a 24% pay increase.

But the union leadership at the helm of the national unions and the AFL-CIO is hugely responsible for this crisis. They have continued to support this treacherous Wall Street party giving millions of dollars to Democrats in election cycles, billions over decades.

They have continued to give their members’ hard earned dues money to a party that most workers and union members abandoned long ago drawing the correct conclusion that, on the most important issues of all, food, shelter, jobs, medical care, financial security in old age, nothing will significantly change.

We have suffered losses and declining living standards under both Democratic and Republican administrations alike. In some regards, they play the good cop bad cop game. One gives you a cigarette and a coffee, the other smacks you around, but they are both after the same things. This is one of the reasons many workers voted for the degenerate Trump. Workers are disgusted with both capitalist parties.

With its resources and structure, thousands of locals and 1000 or so Central Labor bodies, and 14 million members, the trade union leadership could have long ago provided an alternative party for workers and the middle class. Such a party, not socialist but inevitably reformist, would change the balance of class forces because each in election cycle the US ruling class, the billionaires and big capitalists represented by the Democratic and Republican parties, would have to ask themselves what they should do if they (workers) all voted for the labor or workers’ party. As it is, their man or woman always gets in.

 

This is the trap he lesser of two evils sets for us.

 

As is usually the case, I reject the argument of those who claim it is corruption in the form of criminal behavior or bribery that lies behind the refusal of the trade union hierarchy to take this step. Yes, their perks and obscene salaries and privileges are a part of it, but a result not a cause.

They are incapable of leading such a front, and providing that alternative would not be difficult with their resources as I say. But a serious effort to offer an alternative with a program that responded to workers’ needs, sick leave and health care are just a couple……I’m not calling for an overthrow of the government here though that is desirable…..it would mean they would face  immense pressure from the ranks to produce the goods. But their view of the world, their worship of the market and capitalism, prevents them from producing these needs because it would hurt profits and profits are sacrosanct. That is what is at stake here for Pelosi, Biden and the US Congress, not jobs or workers’ needs.

And I’ll say it again, with their world view, the first thing the trade union hierarchy does when capitalism faces a crisis (which means profits might be hurt) is move to bail it out and that means at the expense of workers and their own members living standards. If----and I think it most likely will be the case….. Biden and the Congress impose this contract on the railroad workers, it is not simply a defeat for organized labor; it’s a defeat for the entire working class.

There was a period like the post World War Two era  when the labor bureaucracy did produce significant gains, certainly for a section of the organized working class, in particular white workers but not exclusively.  I recall that a slogan of some trade union leaders in the trades with regards to the rank and file was pay the dues and “leave it to us boys” and that worked a bit. But the conditions that were the basis for that are now confined to the history books.

I am not confident the trade union leadership will do much in this case but blame Democrats. But we should expect nothing from the Democratic Party; it is a trap. Given that, I think with regards to an alternative political voice for the workers of the US, it will most likely be born outside of organized labor, in our communities and among the unorganized and even initially one candidate or a few at a time in isolated cases. But we are in extremely volatile times and anything is possible. Either way, any advance on the political front will engulf organized labor and we should not underestimate the potential power that these 14 million members have.

Let’s learn these damn lessons here. Don’t abandon your union. They took heroic sacrifice to build. It wasn’t the mafia that built them like Hollywood would have us believe. They were built by ordinary workers, and yes, their history with regards to racial and sexual inclusion is marred, but it’s a different era.