Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
11-20-25
I just paid a visit to the AFL-CIO website not expecting to see much that would inspire me and, sure enough, my expectations were realized. As the capitalist offensive has reached Defcon 4 under the sexual deviant Trump, the first headline that stands out is a call to “Get it Done For American Workers.” The headline refers to the Protect American Workers’ Act which is in Congress and, according to the AFL-CIO leadership, will, “…restore collective bargaining rights to more than one million federal workers.” after Trump’s Executive Order took them away.
The AFL-CIO leadership, those folks that have given billions of dollars of their member’s money to Democratic Party candidates over the years, along with resources like precinct walkers and staffers for phone banks, managed to get 218 legislators, Democrats and Republicans, to sign a petition that will require Congress to vote on the Act.
Workers’ living standards and rights are being savaged on a daily basis, and in response, the action the heads of an organization with 14 million people affiliated to it and whose member have their hands on the levers of society, recommends that we call our representatives and pressure them to vote for the Protect American Workers’ Act. They graciously provide the number and a form we can fill out that will make it easier. They are truly in another world.
Collective bargaining rights are important. The right to a union and to have our representatives meet with the employers on our behalf was a huge step for working class people that arose during the rise of industrial unionism and the formation of the CIO in the 1930’s. There were three general strikes in 1934 and the mass sit downs culminating in the 44-day occupation of the GM plant in Flint Michigan, thousands joined the communist party and much of the legislation that followed was the politicians simply codifying what US workers had already won in the streets, workplaces and communities of America.
When you force your oppressor to yield a little, you recognize it and build upon your own strength, you don’t don’t thank them for their kindness. But crediting politicians and the so-called democratic process for the gains of the 1930’s is the necessary alternative to the truth, that workers’ power, us relying on our own strength and the willingness to challenge laws that restrict workers’ rights is what led to the New Deal. Roosevelt saved capitalism from itself.
The excitement about a piece of legislation that may or may not be passed is the labor hierarchy hoping for a respite, pleading with the bosses’ and their political parties to be a little less aggressive. And bargaining rights, which gives the labor officialdom a seat at the table, has for years meant them bargaining away our rights and material wellbeing. When the system goes in to crisis as it always does, the trade union hierarchy sees it as their role to bail it out. And it is to their members and the working class as a whole that they turn.
In the Wisconsin events 0f 2011 when 100,000 surrounded and occupied the state capital, the two main demands from the labor bureaucracy’s point of view were bargaining rights, without which they wouldn’t have a job, and dues checkoff where the employers collect union dues through payroll. This saves the union officials’ work or having to interact with their members in a serious way and the employer can drop it any time they like depriving the union of funds.
Despite this history, according to the AFL-CIO’s own figures, more than 70% of Americans support the right to join a union.
I’ll add this, if the unions were winning serious material gains, or even fighting for them utilizing the potential power of the organized working class to punish profit taking, millions would be drawn to the labor movement. Mamdani’s election shows what talking about issues that really affect people actually does. When the AFL-CIO leadership’s support for Starbucks means nothing but the well-worn statement “We stand in solidarity with..” and a Democrat joins the picket line for a photo op, or we are given the phone number of a legislator, no one takes them seriously.
In addition, organized labor has the resources and social power to run our own candidates. I read yesterday that the tech billionaire, Democrat Tom Steyer is running for governor of California. He’s going to make sure the corporations pay their fair share, break up the monopoly of the power utilities and ensure, “California remains the place people come to start businesses…..” because that’s why people come here. He will also launch the largest home building program in the history of California and make California a top ten state for public education.
I will say with conviction that no worker with a brain in their head will believe this for one minute; you can’t do both. It is nothing new. Promises like this from rich people and in this case a billionaire, and what is just political chicanery, is one of the primary reasons for the rise of Trump. More importantly, it is the primary reason some 100 million people don’t bother to vote in national elections.
Only one in four registered voters voted for Trump. It is not stupidity, apathy or ignorance that stops people from participating in the electoral process. Voting is not an excersize in civics, if our material conditions continue to decline no matter which party is in power; why vote. The same applies to union membership. If dues go up and wages down, why pay them?
The reality we are facing is that more than a century of the domination of the two capitalist parties over US political and economic life is over.
In my view though, the US population is not as right wing as the mass media would have us believe. A poll by Gallup in 2023 found that, 63% of US adults agreed that “the Republican and Democratic parties do ‘such a poor job’ of representing the American people that a third major party is needed.”
A Pew poll in 2021found that 87% of Americans believed that the government should play a role in ensuring clean air and water; 64% said it should ensure health insurance for everyone and 43% said it should provide high speed Internet access.
WSJ 8-13-14-22
As opportunity knocks once again for working people and in particularly organized labor, we can bet that if Steyer is the Democratic Party’s choice, the labor officialdom will support him. Three million workers are affiliated to the California Labor Federation AFL-CIO, almost 800,000 to the LA Labor Federation and that’s the best we can do; a billionaire savior.
I was a delegate to the California State Labor Federation’s biennial conference in 1994 and, as I often did, introduced a resolution on the need for a Labor Party from my local. Executive Secretary John Henning, an excellent speaker criticised the Democratic Party in his introductory remarks, but opposed the resolution. Here is what he said:
"The two party system can't give relief because capitalism in large finances both parties. In one way or another. We may say it finances the Republican Party more. But have you ever known Democrats en masse to turn down the enticements of capitalism?....... We were never meant to be beggars at the table of wealth. We were never meant to be the apostles of labor cannibalism on the world stage. We were meant for a higher destiny. We were never meant to be the lieutenants of capitalism. We were never meant to be the pall bearers of the workers of the world."
Politically, the trade union officialdom functions as the representatives of the Democratic Party inside the workers’ organizations.
I am an optimist as I believe that as a result of the clashes between capital and labor in wider society that are ahead, organized labor will also find itself engulfed in internal struggles of its own and new, likely younger leaders will emerge out of these battles.
The capitulation of the present union hierarchy who are the beggars at the table of wealth to use Henning’s words, has set us back years and ensured that the coming battles will be quite unpleasant to say the least. But history shows us that the working class will not go meekly to the gallows.
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