Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
Note: I found the original and published this July 6th 1996.
A little bit of my personal labor history here that I rediscovered and that I think offers up some useful lessons just as relevant today. I was a member of the socialist organization Labor Militant from 1984 until I was expelled along with the entire Oakland California branch, and John Throne (Sean O’ Torain) from the Chicago branch. I was expelled for violating Democratic Centralism, more details on that in the text below. It was a crushing blow at first but in the long run it was a good thing; as another comrade, Martin Legassic described it with his exit from this organization, it unshackled my mind. There’s a nice obituary for Martin Legassick here.
My main contention was that this decision, taken by a clique in London and their collaborators here in the US, was that it was a betrayal to my union, Afscme Local 444, that had supported the publication of the opposition newsletter and endorsed it, as well as to my co-workers and fellow members that were supportive of me. In general, it sabotaged an important development, the building of a broad left front in one of the largest unions in the US placing placing the interests of a small socialist organization ahead of the interests of the working class as a whole.
A lesson for socialists in how not to function in the workers’ organizations.
The final break with the organization came over a union opposition magazine called the AFSCME Activist. Richard Mellor was a relatively well-known opposition figure within AFSCME and had built a strong base in his own Local, AFSCME 444. He attended most of the international conventions of AFSCME and I had suggested we test the waters with an opposition newsletter. We agreed to this with the hope that we might be able to reach out to any activists or layer of activists that were angry at the Union leaderships’ failure to fight back and wanted to fight the employers or were looking for a vehicle to do so. The intention was to connect with those workers that weren’t necessarily socialists, were not ready to join a socialist organization, but were willing to unite around a broader anti-big business program. With this method, a united front approach, we believed we would eventually win some of the best fighters to socialism and our organization; there was no open disagreement with this approach within the organization.
It was after the AFSCME convention in 1994 that the AFSCME Activist really began to grow through subscriptions from individuals and some unions. Richard, John Reimann who was also on the West Coast and not an AFSCME member, did the bulk of the work including contacts, sales and putting out the newsletter. We had a difficult time getting other areas, notably New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and to a lesser extent Chicago where we had a comrade, to take up the work to build the newsletter aggressively enough. New York and Philadelphia had the two largest councils in AFSCME but comrades in these areas did not take advantage of this situation. The AFSCME comrades there openly opposed the united front approach as the majority faction guided by the IS began to take the position that the AFSCME Activist was a Labor Militant publication not a united front newsletter; the case for expulsion was being crafted.
This came to a head when, at the AFSCME convention in Chicago in 1996, we called together many of the supporters from other unions in order to form an elected editorial board in an effort to draw these genuine rank and file fighters into playing a more leadership role. The publication was a publication of AFSCME Members For a Stronger Union, and the rank and file workers that supported it and helped it grow from Wisconsin to Hawaii saw themselves as part of AMSU. It was not a magazine of our organization but of those who supported its basic demands which were related to the union and working conditions for those who were members of that union.
This was the embryo of a real caucus developing in one of the fastest growing and most influential unions in the AFL-CIO. At the time AFCME Activist collapsed we had about nine locals subscribing to 50 or 100 copies and about 250 individual subscribers. We had taken a chance and organized an AMSU caucus meeting at the convention and, after electing an editorial board and hopefully more growth, we could run a candidate(s) at the next convention in 1998. At the AMSU caucus meeting we had two speakers from other locals, one was active in Local 444 and had joined LMV and the other was a supporter, a black woman from a small local in North Carolina.
Richard Mellor and Steve Edwards a comrade from Chicago who was also an AFSCME member were delegates from their locals and another comrade, Tom Trottier, an AFSCME member from NYC, was an alternate. These two comrades were hostile to the formation of an editorial board and took the position that the AFSCME Activist was a Labor Militant publication, not a broad front publication; they tried privately to get Richard Mellor to abandon the idea of an editorial board and demanded that the caucus meeting should not have speakers who were not LMV members, that AMSU was a “Labor Militant thing.” On the speakers, Richard refused, reminding the comrades that this position was contrary to the whole intention of the Activist and AMSU which was an effort to build a broader opposition grouping. Richard reminded Edwards that we would lose many of the people who had supported the AA and helped build it if they perceived that LM was using it as a Labor Militant front.
The meeting to elect the editorial board took place in comrade Richard’s hotel room the night before the AFSCME convention began. Comrades Edwards and Trottier arrived late to the meeting and attempted to persuade Mellor to call the meeting off. Edwards warned him that to form an editorial board was a decision that had to be made by Labor Militant not these workers. Some of the workers there clearly saw that there was some tension in the air. This became clear when the Trottier and Edwards were the only votes against forming an editorial board although their reasons were not clear and not those argued in private. After voting no, Tom Trottier asked to have his name removed.
Both these comrades refused to sell or distribute the AFSCME Activist at the conference although Steve Edwards, despite opposing non Labor Militant members speaking at the AMSU meeting was willing to speak himself.
These comrades behaved in a sectarian and dishonest way with regards to the AFSCME Activist and we refused to participate in trying to take control in a dishonest way of what was a broad united front newsletter that was on the verge of becoming a real functioning caucus, AFSCME Members For a Stronger Union. Their behavior at the meeting to elect an editorial board was dishonest as they never told the truth and explained that their “no” vote was due to them believing the AFSCME Activist should be controlled by Labor Militant. The Activists at this meeting saw that all was not above board and it was the beginning of the end of this great opportunity.
After the convention, those activists that were closest to us and were the most active in helping build and raise the profile of the Activist within AFSCME asked what was wrong and why our own comrades voted against forming an editorial board. We told them the truth, that there was an attempt by a section of the organization we were in to take control of the newsletter and its publication as they believed it was a Labor Militant organ. We explained that the Activist was not started as a Labor Militant publication and our opinion was that it was the publication of AMSU and those of them that considered themselves part of that had as much right to determine its fate as LMV members. We had urged the two LMV members who opposed the editorial board to participate but their objectives were clear.
Desperate to expel us, the majority faction in the US advised by the majority of the IS back in Britain, decided to make an official demand for us to hand over all the names and addresses of the locals and individuals that subscribed to the newsletter. Richard Mellor refused. Our position was that these were not Richard’s to give. We maintained the position the organization had all along; the AFSCME Activist was a united front publication of AFSCME Members For a Stronger Union and the names and addresses of subscribers were not ours to give.
Refusing to hand over the AFSCME Activist subscription list was the “official” reason for Richard’s expulsion. He was accused of violating democratic centralism by collaborating “…in the dishonest maneuvers to remove AFSCME Activist from the control of LMV” * That the organization, with no open opposition, had from the beginning said the AA was a united front organization mattered not a bit. The organization had such a dishonest corrupt internal life that it put its own sectarian interests and its determination to expel us above a step forward for the working class.
Not one comrade opposed these statements at the May 1995 National Conference over a year earlier:
John Throne:
AFSCME Activist is not a Militant front. We are building a genuine united front type broad left organization. We have to stress this. Anyone who agrees with the program has full and equal membership. Hopefully we will elect a national board for AFSCME Activist and Labor Militant will not necessarily be a majority on this and we won’t be the slightest bit worried that we won’t be a majority.
Richard Mellor:
“We are the leadership of AFSCME Activist. It is a broad based organization we lead at the present time. We are trying to formulate a real national caucus.
Rob Rooke
“We are in the process of building a broad left in AFSCME.”
The importance of the AFSCME Activist cannot be underestimated. The sectarian approach of the CWI leadership and the majority faction in the US put an end to what was on the way to becoming a genuine fighting caucus in one of the most important unions in the US. Not long after their activity wrecked the Activist, AFSCME became engulfed in a series of crises including decertification’s and trusteeships culminating in the financial scandals and ballot stuffing for a yes vote on a concessionary contract at its largest council, DC 37 in New York City. It is a lesson for socialists in how not to function in the workers’ organizations.
* Resolution on Expulsions passed at the Philadelphia Branch of Labor's Militant Voice 1-9-97
No comments:
Post a Comment