Former Labor Notes and UAW Staffer Chris Brooks at Jacobin. Union Members Are Better Off Without Him.

Source: Chattanooga Times

Richard Mellor

Affscme Local 444 retired
HEO/GED

2-12-26

I’m reading an article in Jacobin by Chris Brooks, the former Labor Notes Staffer who made it to where he wanted to be, a mover and shaker in the UAW before he was fired. Brooks and other former so-called labor experts like Jane MacAlvey have nothing but contempt for working people. Jacobin is full of experts on unions and workers struggles that have never spent more than a day or two on the job fighting in the workplace. There’s a few more of them. They have no shame at all these people as so many of us witnessed them kissing up to the union hierarchy in an effort to work their way in to the labor bureaucracy.

 

Brooks Jacobin article is titled: Unions Are Going to Die Unless Something Big Changes Soon. This is the title from a desperate aspiring bureaucrat who has no understanding about how workers or union members think and why we act in ways that we do.

This depressing article is enough to put you off your supper and shows how ignorant Brooks is about history and how little he understands working people. After all, he’s not now or never has been one. 

Brooks writes:
"Unfortunately, the vast majority of the 115.5 million nonunion private sector workers out there have little to no idea what the NLRB is, what their rights are, or the extreme hostility they will face from their employer once they start talking to their coworkers about why unionizing makes sense. "

This is standard arrogant garbage from people like Brooks and other Labor Notes types who think they were born to lead the working class as we are too stupid to recognize we’re opressed. Workers might not know what the NLRB is or their union leadership, but why would they? Neither produces the goods so they appear to play no role in the workplace or in members’ lives. Wages and benefits decline and union dues rise, go figure.

 

But we know very well how "hostile" the boss can be as we are in the workplace every day. That statement just confirms my point that people like Brooks have no right to lecture workers about any aspect of the workplace, him and others like him have been part of the problem; an obstacle to organising because to change the nature of our unions we will have to have an open confrontation with the present leadership and from Brooks et al, that has to be avoided at all costs; you might not get a staffers job.

 

I remember someone making the point about how workers just didn’t get it when they voted the union down at the Amazon factory in Bessemer Alabama twice. “What’s the matter with them” this very trendy lefty said to me. Well, those workers that don’t know how hostile the boss can be knew how hostile the boss can be. They knew very well that if they voted “yes” to unionization the boss would go on the offensive. They also had a good idea what the union leadership’s response would be; a letter writing campaign perhaps, or have an informational picket line or have Bernie Sanders stop by the town for a public photo op and they knew the boss, in this case Jeff Bezos, would not find that threatening at all. So they played safe. The worker knows that if you want us to stand up in the workplace, put our job and families welfare on the line, you better shut this bastard down. You’d better bring some real power to the table.

 

I am writing this very quickly as I have little time. But there is one other very important point to mention about Brook’s Jacobin article and I have made this point many times in general when Brooks was writing about the UAW organizing drive at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee. As far as I can see in the Jacobin article, Brooks never mentioned the labor leadership, leaders, or the word “leadership” with regards to the hierarchy and the policies of the organization. Brookes refers only to “the union” when he tells us how desperate and weak the union is and why union density is so low.  

 

This is not an accident. It is a deliberate tactic to avoid the inevitable conflict that will arise if he places the blame for the failure to organize more members and win major material gains where it belongs, the group that develops these policies, the trade union leadership.

 

I took this up with him a long time ago in a previous piece on the trade unions and groups like DSA and Labor Notes. One explained my view on  why the present leadership refuses to fight and that a new militant leadership will not be built by Labor Notes or DSA and their staffers or the academics that claim to be labor experts and are regularly sought out by the mass media during labor disputes.  

 

In response to Brooks explanation for why the “unions” organizing drive at the UAW plant failed I wrote:

“…in this latest report Brother brooks again, when raising failed tactics and strategies, refers to the UAW as opposed to the UAW leadership. But the tactics are not developed by the UAW; they are determined by the leadership of the UAW. The only way the unions will be made into democratic fighting organizations and the unorganized will be organized, is if we look at the policies of the union leadership as distinct from what is in the interests of the union membership.”

Jane McAlvey has the same approach when she mentions the VW defeat writing that in “…. Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the United Auto Workers were out-organized in 2014 during the Volkswagen campaign…”

 

I have the same response to this, “Again, the “workers” in the UAW, the rank and file of the UAW, were not “out-organized”. It was the leadership of the UAW that developed the disastrous strategy that led to three defeats at the Chattanooga plant, the UAW leadership is responsible for that defeat, not the membership.

 

To point to the real cause of the defeats and the present state of the unions would ruin any chance of these characters from making any headway at all in the ranks of the labor hierarchy which is their goal. So they blame the “union” which means the members and the real culprits are off the hot seat. They are a left cover for a right wing class collaborationist bureaucracy to which they all aspire to penetrate.

 

Brooks is a labor faker and unfortunately the left, in many of its forms is full of them

 

Here’s a couple of pieces relating to this subject.

A Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists

14 million Union Members: Why Their Leadership Won't Fight

A Payday Report article about Brooks firing at the UAW 

Payday Report: UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks Forced Out Amid Corruption Charges

Reprinted from Payday Report at PaydayReport.com

UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks Forced Out Amid Corruption Charges

 Mike Elk  Dec 18, 2025  0 Comments

Payday Report has learned that UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks has been forced out of the union amid a major corruption scandal. Multiple UAW staffers informed Payday Report that Brooks’ office at UAW’s Solidarity House had been cleared out and staff had been informed that he had left the union. 

The departure of Brooks came as UAW President Shawn Fain was preparing to face re-election next year, and the scandals involving Brooks were seen by many as a liability for Fain’s re-election prospects. It also comes just days before UAW Federal Monitor Neil Barofsky is expected to release a new report into a series of troubling purges of dissident union leaders. 

In addition to the removal of Brooks, Payday Report has learned that Fain has reinstated Rich Boyers as UAW Vice President for Stellantis. 

Brooks’ push to remove Boyers as UAW Vice President and the demotion of UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock precipitated a massive scandal that led the UAW’s federal monitor to accuse the union of breaking the law. 

Brooks had been a rising star within the labor movement, coming to prominence as a staffer for the Brooklyn-based publication Labor Notes. As a staffer at Labor Notes, Brook was a leading player in helping to elect Fain as president of the UAW in 2023. 

Purges of Dissident Union Staffers Backfire

After Fain took office, Brooks became Fain’s right-hand man and drew criticism from staff for instituting a series of controversial, loyalty purges. 

“ID those we can work with, move the program, ID those who need to be purged,”Brooks wrote in an email obtained by the Detroit Free Press in 2023. 

In the union, Brooks gained a reputation for ruthlessly purging anyone seen as dissenting from Fain’s agenda. A court-ordered, confidential survey of several hundred UAW staffers in November showed that 51% of UAW staffers feared retaliation if they spoke about problems within the UAW.

In April, UAW’s Assistant Director of Communications Rachel Gumpert, a well-known communications professional, resigned from the union, citing a culture of top-down retaliation within the UAW. 

“I cannot lose my integrity by continuing to work in a place where dissent is a termination worthy event,” wrote Gumpert in a facebook post published in late April. 

Gumpert went on to denounce UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks and UAW Communications Director Jonah Furman. Prior to their appointments to UAW top positions, neither of them had held any top leadership positions in any union. (See Payday’s 2023 piece “UAW Challenger Fain Purges Top Allies in Favor of Brooklyn Consultants”)

Brooks and Furman have become larger-than-life influencers in the labor media world due to their connections, made while working at the Brooklyn-based Labor Notes. (In a sign of their influence, even The Wall Street Journal did a profile of the duo and their close associate, labor lawyer Benjamin Dictor, titled “Three Young Activists Who Never Worked in an Auto Factory Helped Deliver Huge Win for the UAW”)

“There are 2 primary sycophants - outsiders there for 2 years, who never were members and never held leadership roles at any union in their lives prior - who have taken the keys to the car from the elected President and hijacked this amazing union for personal gain, attention and ego,” wrote Gumpert about Brooks and Furman. “Now, they’ve driven it straight off a cliff.” 

“The reason is inexperience, lack of intelligence, arrogance, and hubris,” wrote Gumpert. “It’s heartbreaking to see a righteous union with 100 years of righteous struggle be co-opted by two egomaniacs, who aren’t from it and have no real relationship to it or its membership.” 

Brooks also engineered the demotion of UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock after she raised questions about a $500,000 no-bid contract being given to a DC firm with little experience in union campaigns. 

However, her delays angered Furman and UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks, a native of Chattanooga, who had taken a lead role on the Volkswagen Campaign. 

Brooks, who made $187,000-a-year as the UAW’s Chief of Staff according to federal records, had been angered that Mock refused to reimburse him for purchasing pizzas for Volkswagen workers since Brooks could not present a receipt. 

Brooks was also upset that he was not approved by Mock for an enhanced corporate credit card that would have allowed him to charge up to $12,000 a month without union pre-approval. However, Brook’s position was not listed in federal guidelines as one of the positions eligible for the enhanced corporate credit card. 

Both Brooks and Furman had garnered a reputation as “hatchet men” in the labor movement, willing to smear union dissidents. Court documents filed in Pittsburgh revealed that Brooks had been involved in an attempt to smear sexual assault whistleblowers while employed by the NewsGuild in 2020. 

Emails, text messages, and sworn statements obtained by the federal monitor show that Furman and Brooks took a lead role in drafting the Special Compliance Report to oust Mock, who is Black. However, given the controversial nature of both Brooks and Furman, who are white, Fain got Region 1A Director Laura Dickerson, a Black woman, to present the report at the International Executive Board meeting as if it was an investigation that she personally undertook. 

The UAW’s federal monitor, Neil Barofsky, found that the UAW President, Shawn Fain, intentionally misled the UAW’s rank-and-file about who authored the report. 

“As further evidence of retaliatory intent, Fain made statements to the Monitor that confirmed his intent to deliberately conceal his commanding role in the effort to remove Mock’s departmental responsibilities,” wrote UAW’s federal monitor Neil Barofsky in court documents filed in federal court in Michigan yesterday. 

Further attempting to conceal what occurred, the UAW refused to release the minutes of the executive board meeting to the rank-and-file as required by the UAW’s constitution. 

In addition, for more than a year, the UAW refused to release documents to the federal monitor relating to Mock’s dismissal. After finally winning a court battle for more documents, Barofsky ordered the union to reinstate Mock with full responsibility for the departments that she previously oversaw. 

In a report expected to be released tomorrow, Barofsky is also expected to order the UAW to reinstate Vice President for Stellantis RIch Boyers. 

Following the release of documents that raised questions about the demotion of Mock in September, Marni Schrader resigned as UAW Compliance Director. The resignation came after UAW Federal Monitor Neil Barofsky accused Schrader of propping up false charges in retaliation against UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock in a successful effort to demote her. 

Now, Brooks is the second top UAW staffer to take the fall for purges and punishment of dissidents within the UAW. 

The moves to reinstate Boyers as UAW VP and dismiss Brooks as UAW Chief of Staff come as Fain prepares to run for re-election. The scandals around the demotion of Mock in her role as Secretary-Treasurer and removal of Boyer had hurt Fain. 

Brooks has also overseen a series of dramatic and unexpected defeats of the organizing department of the UAW. 

Two years ago, the UAW announced a massive effort to unionize non-union employers following the publicity it generated during the “Stand Up Strike.” So far, though, the UAW has failed to come up with much tanticipated victories after winning at Chattanooga Volkswagen in 2024, with 72% of workers voting in favor of the union. 

In May of 2024, after filing for a union election with more than 70% of workers signed up at Mercedes in Alabama, the UAW lost the election by a margin of 44%-56%. In August, the UAW won a narrow vote at BlueOval Kentucky by a margin of 526-515, with 41 ballots still currently being challenged, a margin that many union organizers said was too narrow at a time when other unions are winning at similar manufacturing plants by much larger margins. 

The recent lopsided, more than 2-1, defeat of the UAW at a Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, an employer where two other unions won easily earlier in the year, raises troubling questions about what is happening inside the UAW. The union has faced massive turmoil and infighting, leading many veteran organizers to leave, to be replaced by much younger, inexperienced organizers. 

“They value loyalty above all else, and that’s why they are losing,” one UAW organizer told Payday Report.  

With the dismissal of Brooks as UAW Chief of Staff, Fain can claim that he’s heard the complaints of UAW staffers and members and changed things. 

“Brooks was a liability for Fain,” one long-time UAW staffer told Payday Report on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “Now, Fain can go out and pick someone as Chief of Staff, who’s more politically popular and can help with his re-election bid. Brooks thought he could purge everyone, but, in the end, he got purged himself.” 

Photo Credit: UAW Chief of Staff Chris Brooks (Chattanooga Times-Free Press) 

Labor History: Afscme Local 444, Labor Notes, Mazzochi and the Labor Party

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 4, retired

HEO/GED

I found this old report myself and Roger Martinez wrote after a Labor Notes Conference in 1989. Both of us  had changed somewhat in our political views over the thirty years since we wrote it as objective conditions have changes also. But it was very important as we met with Anthony Mazzochi of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers there who was a labor official raising the need for a Labor Party. Sean O' Torain (John Throne) had met with Mazzochi in NYC and suggested we see if we could get him to agree to a meeting in California. We did as explained below. This ultimately led to the meeting you see in the flier the success of which, Mazzini admitted, led him to form Labour Party Advocates. Roger and I were local 444 delegates to Labor Notes and to the Labor Party Conference in Cleveland in the mid nineties.

Roger  and Afscme local 444 were influential in getting the Afscme Rank and File opposition newsletter off the ground and we had a caucus meeting at the Afscme Convention in 1996 with 100 or more rank and file in attendance, not the usual sectarians from the self styled revolutionary groups; Earl Silbar , a militant oppositionist in Afscme was also an important figure in making this a success. This caucus and ultimately the opposition newsletter was wrecked by the socialist organisation, the US section of the CWI,  I was a member of that wanted to gain control of it claiming it was the newsletter of that organisation. This was a lie. It was begun as an organ of a broad front of rank and file Afscme members, my own local supported it and donated a little money to help get it out to other unions. You can read more about this here.

I was expelled from the CWI for not handing over the names, addresses and union locals that subscribed to  the newsletter and  I am grateful for that. I have further thoughts on the LPA and how the so called revolutionary left contributed negatively to that movement but not today

Report from Labor Notes Conference 1989

June 13, 1989

 

Over 100 trade unionists attended the 1989 Labor Notes Conference representing 37 states, 3 Canadian provinces, 65 different unions and some half dozen countries.The conference theme was the direction the labor movement will take in the coming period. The two principle speakers were Jerry Tucker from the UAW and Anthony Mazzochi. From OCAW (Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers).

 

Tucker represents a growing division among the top leadership of the UAW whose members have lost jobs and taken huge concessions in wages and other benefits in the last few years. This, despite huge profits being made by the auto manufacturers; Tucker himself admitted that it was developments from the rank and file that aroused his interest and he has become the expression for the rising anger and frustration among auto workers.

 

His recent electoral success and the development of the New Directions movement are a glimpse of what is to come in the U.S. trade Union movement. Local 444 delegates talked with a number of auto workers who were previously inactive, but had become involved with their union due to the emergence of the New Directions Movement. Although Tucker put forward no real alternative to the policies of the established leadership, calling simply for Democracy, solidarity and accountability, this shows that seemingly apathetic and passive layers of union members will become more active and are prepared to fight if they see the slightest inkling of a lead.

 

Also, Glen Barrien, the National President of the Mailhandler’s Union spoke. He talked of the long battle he has had with the laborer’s union, with whom they were affiliated in 1968. His union had been put in trusteeship by the Laborers International and the Mailhandler’s candidates for office had been ignored. Finally, after years of fighting, Brother Barrien is now National President of the Mailhandlers and his members have won the right to vote on their own contracts and for the election of their own leaders. Brother Barrien was only 33 years old.

 

Anthony Mazzochi of OCAW spoke on the question of a labor party in the U.S. The question of a labor party in the U.S, was much more prevalent at this conference than the previous one in 1986. Brother Mazzochi was asked by Afscme local 444 delegates if he would attend and speak at a public forum on the question of a labor party. We told him that local 444 was willing to sponsor and endorse such a meeting. He informed us that he would indeed be willing to come and would pay his own expenses.

 

Local 444 representatives also attended workshops on political action, public service employment, racism and leadership accountability. We found it distressing that issues such as racism, were split up in to single issue items. Men were allowed to attend the Women’s Caucus for example but weren’t allowed to speak. One woman did get up in the women’s caucus and in response to the introduction stated, “We all have something in common” referring to sexual gender and said that she had something in common with working class women but not all women. The problems with racism were also dealt with along these lines.

 

We met with a number of delegates from other Afscme unions, as far apart as Wisconsin and Maine. There was a general similarity in all our situations. All over the country we are facing attacks on our unions. Contracting out, removing of people from bargaining units by all sorts of methods is common to us all. The use of temporary and LTC workers is everywhere increasing. Most of the AFSCME members all wanted to move toward building links between different locals, corresponding with each other and possibly receiving each other’s newsletters. At our last Executive Board meeting, this was discussed and hopefully with the re-emergence of Local 444’s newsletter, publications or articles from other locals nationwide could be published.

 

Conclusion

Perhaps the most significant lessons we learned from attending this conference was that all is far from quiet in the trade union movement. It is clear that people out there who are dissatisfied with the way things are and are looking for direction. There were a number of people present who had not previously been active in their unions.

 

Unfortunately, there was also some things lacking from the conference in general. There was no discussion allowed outside of the workshops. There was a demonstration by the supporters of the established UA leadership and we were told to ignore it. Instead, they should have been invited in and the various ideas and policies should have been debated.

 

The was also no mention whatsoever of the economy. Here we are on the verge of a recession, inflation is on the rise, international trade war is developing and the US or world economy was left out. On the whole though, the experience was good and necessary and we thank the local for sending us and allowing us to represent it.

 

Submitted

Roger Martinez

Richard Mellor

1-15-89

Opeiu-3-afl-cio (254) bjd

444 Mellor 6-15-89           

Teamster Election. O'Brien, TDU, and Rank and File Apathy

 

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 44, retired
GED/HEO

I haven't seen this video above before but it is interesting.  Three years after this video, Sean O'Brien was elected  Teamster president in November 2021 as part of a coalition opposing the James Hoffa backed Steve Vairma.  Teamsters For a Democratic Union (TDU) refers to this new leadership as "militant" and praised the result as a "landslide"  Labor Notes, an organization with very similar politics to TDU, was also ecstatic.

Now TDU is not a militant organization by any means but certainly the assault on it by O'Brien in the video above has to be condemned. It shows how concerned sections of the labor bureaucracy are that O'Brien launches this attack, even encourages Trumplike threats. TDU is simply not that much of a threat as far as I can see, or have ever been.

Below is a short video I made in April when I read that TDU was announcing the new leadership of the Teamsters as "militant".  After this election I asked as many Teamsters rank and file members I came across, many of them UPS drivers, what they thought of the new leadership. Overwhelmingly, the response was similar, no confidence at all that it would make any difference. A significant number were not even aware the leadership had changed.  Now the members can be blamed to a certain extent for not taking the time and effort to keep track of things, but years of betrayals, concessions, bureaucratic manoeuvring have led to this situation. And it's not just the Teamsters.

The turn out was extremely low and can hardly be called a landslide. As this excellent article in Tempest points out:

However wide a margin of victory, when 86% of the membership don’t turn in a ballot, the leadership’s mandate is left wanting.

Things are changing. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we are witnessing an upsurge in strike activity as the ranks of organized labor are forced to push back. There was no way after spending a couple of years telling workers how important we are and many having to work through the pandemic with great risk to themselves and their families, that this genie could be put back in the bottle. The present economic situation and increased inflationary pressure is also a contributor and this comes after decades of concessionary contracts. In addition, unorganized workers in the low waged industries from Starbucks to Amazon as well as some in the tech industry are confronting their bosses.

As for Labor Notes and TDU, I have had experiences alongside individuals from these organizations in the labor movement and have found a lot wanting there as well. Many of Labor Notes leadership were former union staffers or are among the lower ranks of the hierarchy. There is no doubt LN has the ability to pull together significant numbers of rank and file workers but my experience with them in the labor movement was that they would avoid a confrontation with the present right wing leadership. Many of the articles they publish are often simply reporting events rather than than pointing out the failures of the leadership calling them and their policies to account and offering a different approach. It has changed a bit but not much as far as I can see.

Here is the short video and comments I made in April this year about the O'Brien election and TDU's over the top praise for it. After that are a couple of links to earlier articles about DSA and Labor Notes and differences in approach that I have with these groups.

DSA Labor Notes and the Trade Unions

A Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists

Interview: Teamster President Sean O'Brien's "Militant" Strategy Explained.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

3-30-22

Here is a December 2021 interview with Sean O’ Brien, the new president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) after defeating Jimmy Hoffa and his slate in the national election in October. The Hoffa regime ran the union for 23 years. Hoffa is the son of Jimmy Hoffa who was killed and his body never found. He is a lawyer by trade.

 

While it is positive that there has been a change in leadership at one of the largest and most important unions in the US. It is important not to get carried away here. In fact, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the vast majority of Teamster members never bothered to vote, the turnout was a mere 14%.  After decades of sell outs, concessionary contracts, and top officials lining their own pockets, the rank and file of the Teamsters, and of organized labor in general are clearly not convinced that much if anything will change.

 

Teamsters For a Democratic Union, the reform group in the union is very supportive and also in coalition with the Obrien team known as the OZ slate or Teamsters United.  A major battle for Teamsters United will be the United Parcel Contract (UPS) coming up in 2023 and also organizing Amazon workers.

 

It is not insignificant that this election victory has taken place in the midst of the pandemic which has revealed who are important or “essential” workers in society and this has given workers increased confidence. This praising of the worker in the mass media will make it difficult to put that genie back in the bottle.

 

There has been an uptick in strike activity within organized labor and among the unorganized seeking to unionize so it’s not inconceivable that an aggressive strategy in disputes could win some temporary reforms from the bosses; workers are angry. The same is true of the unorganized as there have been increased walk-outs and protests as some of the most exploited workers try to join or form unions.

 

But a major obstacle in the way of a rank and file revolt within organized labor has been the labor officialdom itself, and Sean O’ Brien is part of that historical blockage. I don’t have to go in to detail again here, but it is my view that what lies behind the betrayals and outright class collaboration of labor’s leadership at the highest levels is not simply corruption or their obscene salaries, but their view of the world; the former are secondary features and consequences not causes. They believe the market is the answer to all things and that there is no alternative to capitalism, so when capitalism enters a profitability crisis, the union bureaucracy’s first move is to bail it out. This view is enshrined in the Team Concept, called labor/ management cooperation, Quality of Life Circles, Total Quality Management (TQM), Employee Empowerment, Employee Participation and more. It’s been a disaster for us and any union opposition has little credibility if it doesn’t openly campaign against it.

 

It is important not to dismiss why workers don’t vote in national elections for capitalist parties and their representatives, or why only 14% of those eligible voted in the Teamsters election. In both cases, voting is not an exercise in civics, it is in order to improve our material conditions. If that doesn’t work, people withdraw. Why pay union dues when dues go up and wages and benefits go down.

 

If you listen to Sean O’ Brien in the interview above one has to gasp at Sean Orr, the chair of DSA’s Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) reference to the new Teamster leadership as, “the militant O'Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United Slate” (my added emphasis) as there is little evidence that the term “militant” would apply here. This is the result of DSA’s inexperience in the labor movement and its very middle-class composition. As I wrote in a previous commentary, this political current, isolated in the main from the rank and file of organized labor as most of the self-styled socialist organizations are, and who don’t really orient to the rank and file union worker, see in the slightest leftward shift (primarily in rhetoric) in the entrenched bureaucracy as a revolutionary upsurge.

 

Sean O’ Brien says nothing about the Team Concept at all other than to confirm that he will continue to practice it in politics continuing his relationship with the Democratic Party. He will “energize politicians” “influence” them and local government (Democrats). He even flew in the same plane with Biden’s Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, the Democratic mayor of Boston and former top union official. “Marty comes to this with a closeness to the president-elect and an ability to get things done,” says American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. Talk to some genuinely “militant” teachers about Randi Weingarten. Obrien refers to yet another Democratic Party administration and its president as pro-union despite knowing that under Democrat and Republican alike US workers and our unions have been driven backwards. Carter used the Taft Hartley against the mineworkers, Clinton threw people off welfare in to union jobs without the same pay and benefits. In California we are in a one party state the Democrats have such power, yet we have the same problems that plague the rest of the country.

 

Only 6% of the private sector is unionized which is one of the reasons why unions like the Teamsters and the UAW are orienting more to the public sector which has around a 35% unionization rate and is considered easier to organize. The union density is why the public sector is under such a savage assault. I should add this as well, it is the decline of the public sector that contributes immensely to the poverty and declining living standards of all workers and even more so, the lack of opportunity in communities of color. See Tauré Reeds book, Toward Freedom, The Case Against Race Reductionism for more on this.

 

The main point is this interview with O’Brien is that there is nothing new in it. He wants to change the law to make organizing easier he says.  In other words, get democrats elected. Obama betrayed the union hierarchy not passing EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act. They were hanging their hat on his producing this as it meant less work for them as getting out there and organizing workers using the real power of workers on the ground could be avoided, and it would bring in more revenue for the business. They see the unions as employment agencies with themselves as the CEO’s.

 

O’brien prioritizes rebuilding the middle class (there’s no working class in the US apparently). Organizing the unorganized. Negotiating great contracts, educating workers; all the usual platitudes.

 

I want to clarify. I do not say there is no difference at all between Democrats and Republicans. But on the main points they both will defend the interests of capital and not labor. If O’Brien was anything of a militant he would be raising the issue of the dire need for an independent political party of the working class and threatening to campaign and build for it among his members and the wider movement. Organized labor has the structure, resources and money. There is no way forward for workers through the Democratic Party.

 

I think he mentions the word strike once in this interview.

 

I am not saying that some reforms might be wrested from Biden, or a Republican administration given the present climate and a little more aggression than usual from the labor bureaucracy. Let us not forget that in 2018, rank and file teachers/educators in West Virginia won a 5% raise against opposition from the legislature, struck in a right to work state against their own leadership’s recommendations and won a 5% increase for every state worker involved in the strike or not. This and the fairly successful actions in education that followed, mostly in Republican states, was not taken up and built on by the trade union hierarchy for reasons I have outlined here, and in the past, or by the Labor Notes organization and DSA that have some significant resources but are both reluctant to openly confront the existing leadership or in some cases occupy the lower ranks of it. In the case of DSA, my experience has been that DSA acts as cheerleaders.

 

As for the Teamsters, I hope this change in leadership will play a role in not only transforming this union but in transforming organized labor as a whole and the balance of forces between labor and capital in US society.

More On The Teamster Election (Post 2)

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO
3-29-22

I added this video of the debate between the two candidates for the Teamster presidency from September 2021 to my previous commentary on the Teamster election but this contribution is long enough that I have decided to post a follow up and include the video of the debate here but the reader might want to read the first part. I am 22 minutes in to the video so far and have to say something. Like politics in US society as a whole, these union leaders are united on one thing, Identity Politics.  And the center of that that is “diversity”. They boast about how diverse their executive boards are. This obsession with identity politics is what dominates politics in general in US society and emanates from academia and the petit bourgeois elements as a means of obscuring the class question and talking about class issues and what they will actually fight for. Apparently, there is no working class in the US, we are all middle class barring the rich and the poor.

 

Steve Vairma, candidate of the Hoffa Teamster Power slate says in answer to a question about organizing Amazon which both think is crucial, that what they would do different to the failed organizing drive at Amazon last year is that it’s important when organizing Amazon to have diversity and organizers that “…look like the people you are organizing.”  Obrien didn’t say anything really contradicting him because diversity, gender, color, race, religious views, etc. is the crucial issue remember. Obrien did add that what is different between him and his opponent is that the Teamsters needs to “negotiate strong contracts” with people they already represent. Not “concessionary contracts” he says because “why would people want to join” a union like that?” The scene on the news of tired negotiators, disheveled, sleepy eyed coming out of marathon negotiations at 2 am is crucial to convincing workers that their power is having the right talker, the right lawyer speaking for them. I have been through three grueling sets of contract negotiations and I can assure you that our rights, benefits and material well-being is not won at the negotiating table, but they can be given away there.

 

As I say, I was 22 minutes in to the video and that’s enough for now, but I will return after I’ve had a few words with St. Jude the Patron Saint of lost causes.

 

As I mention in the original posting, at the slightest inkling of a shift to the left (normally just electioneering) in the ranks of the right wing -bureaucracy at the helm of organized labor, some self-professed leftists and left organizations become overwhelmed with joy as they grasp for the slightest branch in the swamp in which this bureaucracy dwells.

 

Teamsters For a Democratic Union and Labor Notes, perhaps the most well known have both endorsed O’Brien and the “reform” slate as far as I can tell. I am not sure what TDU is but a fighting, militant rank and file opposition in the Teamsters’ union it is not. And while it is one thing to recommend to members that if these are the two choices, one might be a slight improvement than the other, it is also imperative to warn the membership to be cautious and point out why it’s just as likely things will stay the same without pressure from below and that building a genuine fighting rank and file opposition from the shop floor around a series of demands reflecting what workers need, and a strategy for winning them, is what is needed.

 

I was astounded to read this from DSA today:

“Decades of rank-and-file reform organizing by Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), including members of DSA, paid off last week when the militant O'Brien-Zuckerman Teamsters United Slate took charge of the 1.3 million-member Teamsters union. The historic election is the beginning of a new chapter for Teamsters who work at every choke point in the logistics supply chain: trucking, rail, airline, ports, warehousing, and more. In organizing meetings across the country, TDU members and other rank-and file activists are making plans to build on the momentum from the election and seize the opportunities ahead of us.”

 

I have to say, the Democratic Socialists of America leadership that has selected leading figures from academia, Labor Notes/TDU, former officials of the AFL-CIO and trade union bureaucracy and former left group gurus, to lead its trade union work, continues the role of cheerleaders and helping hands to the very same leadership that has brought organized labor to where we are today.  

 

One recent challenge to that entrenched leadership arose where none of us would have predicted in a million years and that is the teachers/educators  strikes and protests of 2018-19 that took place in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and other states, mostly Republican strongholds with right to work legislation. In my view, the reason this occurred was that the trade union bureaucracy in these states was weak or non-existent and they were overwhelmingly rank and file led.  Had this movement arisen in states where the Democrats held sway, the union bureaucracy would have been able to crush them.

 

If you do a search on this blog under the teachers, education, strikes or public education labels you will find a lot of information on these developments as well as the massive teacher battles in Puerto Rico. The organizations swooning over the defeat of the Hoffa regime had the opportunity, given their resources to intervene in those teachers strikes, link the movement together and expand it.

In Kentucky in particular, a huge opportunity was lost as teachers, parents and allies fought hard against a right-wing pro-Trump state government. At one point the teachers’ union leadership called a press conference attended by leaders of Afscme, the Teamsters and SEIU and attacked the most militant forces in that battle. The teachers’ union leadership also failed to link the battle for their livelihoods and pensions with the communities of color, particularly in Louisville, and their efforts to stave off a gang ordinance that gave the police more power over the right to stop and frisk the youth in these communities. This weakened the teacher’s efforts as well by abandoning a potentially powerful ally.

 

On receiving the statement from DSA I thought it was a satirical piece but alas. It’s real.

 

UAW Members at Volvo Plant Reject Contract a Second Time. What's Next?

UAW Local 2019 members strike Volvo's Dublin Virginia Plant

 

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

6-11-21

 

Reading the article in Labor Notes on the ongoing struggle of workers at the Volvo plant in Virginia brings back memories of similar battles union members have been fighting for years.

 

The Volvo workers, members of the United Auto Workers Union, have voted a concessionary contract down twice. It’s very much the same old story. In so many contract disputes where the membership pushes back against the concessionary approach of their own leaders, the power of the union hierarchy mobilizes against them.

 

There are so many examples of this like the rejection of a UAW leadership proposed contract by the workers at the Chrysler plant in Kokomo some years ago. We had the same here in the Bay Area when public sector workers in SEIU working for the city rejected a contract the leadership was forcing on them. Rather than build on the contract rejection, top Union officials attacked their members for voting down the contract claiming they were “confused” and ensured the bosses that they would “take another package of concessions to their members for a vote…”

 

The Boeing workers suffered the same fate in November 2013 overwhelmingly rejecting their contract by a 67% to 33% margin only to pass it two months later. Threats by Boeing bosses, union officials and their allies in the Democratic Party that the company would leave Seattle if the workers didn’t accept concessions, played a role but the main reason was the intervention of the National Association of Machinists International (IAM) leadership that fraudulently forced it on the members on behalf of the employers.

 

As far as the UAW is concerned, I was involved some years ago with the Cleveland Five, members of the bargaining committee of a UAW local at a Freightliner plant in  Cleveland North Carolina who fought back aggressively for their members and ended up going on strike.  The UAW hierarchy collaborated with the employers in undermining these five members of the local. There have been other sellouts by the UAW top leadership including in 1998 at Accuride, a supplier of steel wheels in Kentucky.

 

What is happening at Volvo in Virginia has been going on for a long time. The reader can get the details of the issues at stake from the Labor Notes article and will see that its nothing new. The UAW is also not the only national leadership of a major union that plays this role, the entire leadership of organized labor in the US, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win Coalition play the same role. The most important aspect of this treachery is to understand why.

 

Anyone that follows Facts For Working People blog is aware that I do not claim that it is simply corruption, and by that I mean corruption in the sense of criminal behavior such as we have witnessed atop the UAW of late; nor is it the excessive perks and obscene salaries the labor hierarchy receives although they are connected but they are secondary features in my opinion.

 

The primary reason for this treachery, or more accurately, class collaboration, is that the labor bureaucracy has the same world view as the employers. They support the so-called free market, see it as the answer to all things and they see no alternative to capitalism; if only Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their colleagues could just be a little less aggressive, not so greedy. With this view, whenever the system goes in to crisis, whenever profits are threatened, the labor leadership moves to bail it out and restore profitability and that means suppressing any rank and file movement of workers that threatens this view. It is encapsulated in the Team Concept that workers and capitalists have the same interests.

 

This powerful combination of corporate America-------the investors, hedge fund managers, speculators and other parasites that actually determine social and economic policy in our society-------and their allies within organized labor and specifically those at the helm, will wear down resistance such as we have seen time and time again. Workers cannot be on picket lines forever they have mortgages and they will face the moneylender who will send the sheriffs to remove them from their homes if they fall short. We also get our medical care from our jobs. The first thing my employer did during our strike was to send us a letter reminding us that our medical benefits ended at the end of the month

 

For the labor officials trying to sell a bad deal, it's different. They don’t lose out when workers stand on picket lines for weeks on end. They leave locals isolated, standing alone against a global corporation backed by Wall Street, the media, the judicial system, the police and the National Guard along withthe two big business parties.

 

What’s The Alternative?

 

A short distance from where these brothers and sisters are leading an heroic battle against a global corporation (Volvo is the world’s second largest producer of heavy duty trucks) we saw a huge union struggle that took place in a right to work state, I am referring to the teachers/educators strike in West Virginia in 2018. This clash with the state, as teachers are public sector employees, was opposed by the official trade union leadership. The West Virginia strikes and protests and those that followed in other Red States, were rank and file led, generally opposed by the official trade union leadership and were organized completely differently from the narrow, isolated and passive approach of the union hierarchy that has failed us for decades.

 

In Kentucky, where teachers and parents shut down schools and also fought for the Kentucky Education Association, affiliated with the country’s largest union, the NEA, to include social issues like police violence and gang ordinances that overwhelmingly affect communities of color in their demands, were not only opposed by leaders of the teachers union but also by other union officials from  Afscme, the Teamsters and SEIU.  A press conference was called where these officials publicly attacked the most militant sections of the teacher and parents around Jefferson County and Louisville. You can watch this disgraceful assault on teachers and parents by union officials here.  Scroll down a little.

 

In Arizona, Oklahoma and other areas there were educators strikes and mass protests that took place. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for 2018 recorded the highest percentage of work stoppages in three decades. This caused concern among the top echelons of organized labor as they are terrified of victories that would inspire millions of workers and encourage other union rank and file to take action. In the Red states, the official leadership was too weak or non-existent in these areas to hold back this militancy. Had the reverse been true they would have crushed it as they are attempting to do with the workers at the Volvo plant. Read more about this significant labor uprising here  here and read an excellent account of how the strikes and protests were organized here.  I should also add that teachers/educators in Puerto Rico have also played a huge role in the struggle against capital and the efforts to destroy public education.

 

During these events, Fact For Working People suggested that a conference be called, perhaps in Kentucky at that time, or somewhere similar where labor was on the move. Such a conference could unite all the struggles in education as well as invite rank and file and shop floor representatives from other industries and unions. In this way, a permanent structure could be built, learning the lessons of these victorious teachers battles and building a national movement against the disastrous Team Concept and for a fighting trade union offensive.

 

A similar effort along these lines occurred during the Hormel strike in 1985-86. As Peter Rachleff puts it in his excellent account of the Hormel Strike, Hard Pressed in the Heartland, “Between June and December 1985, union activists from around the country who shared a commitment to local P9, came together to organize “National Rank and File Against Concessions”. More than 600 delegates attended that conference and I was one of them. It gave me great hope for the future but was unfortunately undermined through the intervention of sectarian left organizations that place recruitment and building their own groups ahead of helping to build a mass movement of working people directed at the offensive of capital. I was not aware of why the NRFAC disappeared until I read Peter Rachleff’s account which is unfortunately an all too common occurrence when the self-styled socialist groups, enter the workers’ movement.

 

The Volvo workers are fighting an heroic battle, but they are against a formidable foe in the form of their own leadership. To prevail in this most difficult of all struggles, the internal one, what I suggest is the road they have to take, I can’t see any other alternative. In the strike in my own workplace in 1985 we stressed the same points, we cannot win alone, no local can, no union can. There was clearly an upsurge in class and union consciousness in West Virginia in 2018. While the hierarchy has managed to ensure that movement never spread causing a retreat for now, it is indisputable that lessons have not been learned and the bosses will not stop, so the retreat is temporary. 

 

Labor Notes and DSA

It would be important to reach out to these workers or any other workers that have been in struggle in the area in the past period. It is patently obvious that the UAW leadership will not do this, will not reach out to labor both organized and unorganized to help win a victory at Volvo not just for those involved but for all workers, union or non-union. The labor hierarchy didn’t refuse to build on the teachers’ movement in 2018 and it is their hope that the Volvo bosses, with their help, will wear down the Volvo strikers.  Victories terrify the labor hierarchy because they inspire labors the rank and file, the folks that pay the dues.

 

It seems an impossible task but it could be made a lot easier with the help of organizations like Labor Notes and the Democratic Socialists of America. My difference with Labor Notes’ approach in the labor movement is well documented on Facts For Working People Blog, but LN built a caucus after the teachers strikes. I attended one of its zoom meetings led by a LN Staffer. It was dismally depressing to be honest and I can’t image a worker not coming away from that caucus meeting extremely depressed and disillusioned, but Labor Notes has a certain respectability and resources and could play a different role. Labor Notes' article on the Volvo strike is useful and informative. But it simply reports on events. That is not in itself harmful but is not very inspiring from an organization whose movers and shakers claim to be socialists. Labor Notes’ approach consciously avoids a clash with the present pro-management leadership of organized labor that cannot be avoided for any group or individual that claims to offer union members an alternative to the present concessionary clique.

 

But Labor Notes has the capacity to, and has organized, very successful large meetings and gatherings with many rank and file workers in attendance. DSA on the other hand has some 60,000 members and also has resources. Combined, these two groups could organize what I suggest here. DSA is overwhelmingly middle class it appears to me and inexperienced in struggles on the job and union work. Consequently the leadership of DSA has contracted out its union work to Labor Notes and other left types, many former members of the union bureaucracy themselves like Jane McAlvey and others. DSA has done some good work around housing struggles and rent issues from what I understand which is applaudable, but I am sharing my differences here with LN and DSA on working in the unions primarily.

 

I would like to think that given the wealth of the Volvo corporation and the economic growth of late that that workers on strike at the plant will achieve some if not all of their gains. I’m keeping my fingers crossed but that might not be enough.

 

More reading on the labor movement:

DSA, Labor Notes and the Trade Unions    (Labor Day 2018)

A Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists