California AFSCME Locals Stage Unfair Labor Practice Strikes

Screenshot from article: Source

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

2-28-25

 

A quick few words. I found this video  and the article that accompanies the image above after the chat with a friend in the UK who was asking me about the unions here. The video above is from last year. The video in the link loses the sound for me so while there was talk of the need to fight which is quite common on these pep rallies, the strategy of the fight, what the demands are and how they can be won, is never mentioned.

I did look around and from what I can gather the dominant issue given for the strike, or walk out, is that the employer is not being nice, which means it's an unfair labor practice walkout. The union is not being respected at the negotiating table. This was the major issue years ago when thousands, upward of 100,000, mostly Afscme members surrounded the Capital Rotunda in Madison Wisconsin tor days to demand the employers bargain in good faith. The right to negotiate or bargain is important without a doubt, but what is being negotiated and what the demands of the workers are and how they can be one is crucial. For the trade union leadership, this is the most important demand as they would have no role to play, no job if the boss denied them a seat at the table.

 

I only read two or three pieces about this so I could be wrong, but it seems just like the usual hot air.

 

Walking out, and (even then in a way that won’t really shut down the workplace) is a safer bet if it’s about an unfair labor practice on the part of the employer. It’s a sort of defence of pro-union laws I suppose. 

 

The speaker talks of the LA Labor Federation which represents some 800,000 workers last time I looked. You can bet that the vast majority of the workers at the rally will not know that or even what the LA Labor Federation is. The California Labor Federation, the state arm of the AFL-CIO has some 3 million workers’ affiliated to it. 

 

Almost 15 years ago we had a similar situation involving many of the same unions up here at Cal Berkeley and throughout the state eventually. I remember being at a rally and the excitement was electric. They brought out a leader from the Alameda County Labor Council to speak to the young crowd of workers and students. This person spoke; here’s how these speeches go. “I bring the voice of 160,000 workers represented by the labor council and let you know we’re here to support you.”

 

I turned to a young student, he thought himself a bit of a Marxist back then, (for a minute or two) and pointed out that not only is this speaker not going to bring the power of these workers to these gates, 99% of the workers he claims to be speaking for don't even know he’s here and he won’t be telling them, or more accurately, mobilising them in support.

 

I am sure the same game plan is being repeated.

 

I would like to think differently but there is at this point no indication of it. I think we will see some serious battles up ahead here as Trump and his menagerie are pushing our backs against the wall. But the pro-market, pro-business trade union hierarchy will not in any way mobilize the immense potential power organized labor has as it would threaten their very existence and challenge their view of the world and how it should work. 

 

Go read what Afscme head Lee Saunders says or any other trade union leader. The new chair of the DNC has appealed to them to help in the face of Trump and co and, barring any serious movement from below, they will comply and try to get the Dems back in the driver’s seat, at least with enough in there to stop the most blatant abuses that should be introduced over time so as not to provoke a workers’ movement on the ground or toward an independent political voice. They like to grandfather the changes in and direct the worst at the future hires, preferably aimed at the youth and our children

 

This will just slow down the assault a bit (maybe). 

 

We are in a different era, a changing world situation. The two capitalist parties have worn out their welcome as shown by the millions of people that don’t bother. I spoke to a very decent person I know this morning, he admitted to me that he voted for Trump hoping some things will change. Another close friend a union guy I stood with in many battles against the bosses in the past. He said he did too. “Let them get a little taste of this Mofo.”, he said. Maybe that’ll get them off their asses. I am not advocating for these two points of view just that it’s complicated and reflects the horrible choices, or lack of them when it comes to the electoral process in this country. Biden after all is a supporter and orchestrator of a genocide.

 

Please read some labor and working class history in the US. We have never had a party of our own. We were never able in the course of the class struggle to shift from the industrial plane and battles on the picket lines to the electoral plane and the ballot box.

 

We have won what we have from the founding of the country as a modern nation state through sheer physical struggles in the streets and workplaces of America. From the battle to unionize to the civil rights movement that followed the founding of the CIO.

 

We are early in this new period. I am convinced the US working class, millions of human beings from every corner of the world (including those whose home it has always been) brought here with the expansion of the capitalist mode of production globally, will rise to the occasion. What else can I think? There’s no guarantees in life but history teaches me I’m right I reckon.

 

I’m not saying it will be pretty.