Green Party and UK Elections. Polanski: the Next Left Smear Campaign

Reprinted from the UK Socialist website Left Horizons

Polanski: the next left smear campaign

May 12 2026

By Joe Langabeer

A quote attributed to Mark Twain reads: “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”. Well, in this case, history is repeating itself when it comes to Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, with him being characterised as ‘antisemitic’ in a smear campaign by the press and right-wing politicians.

It was noticeable – and it astonished a number of Jewish people present – that when the Jewish establishment organised a ‘march against antisemitism’ last weekend, Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, was not invited, while the leader of Reform UK was invited and was represented by his deputy to spoke to cheers from those present. One antisemitism campaigner, Ruvi Ziegler, told the Financial Times,  “We cannot fight racism alongside racists. Inviting Reform UK to speak in such a rally is objectionable, inconsistent given the exclusion of the Greens and highly damaging.”

The defenders of the establishment are replicating material almost from the exact same playbook as they used when they went after Jeremy Corbyn during his period as Labour leader from 2015-2019. Ultimately, it is because the right-wing are starting to panic that Polanski and the Greens could gain significant power by the time of the next general election. So they are already preparing the ground for a campaign against Polanski, ranging from the ridiculous to the outright sinister. The latest ‘scandal’ is his failure to pay the proper council tax on a house-boat!

Whilst there have been rumblings from the press for a while that the Green Party are beginning to accept ‘antisemites’, due to Polanski’s criticisms of Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the door was burst wide open when Polanski retweeted someone who criticised the  heavy-handed police approach in taking a man who had targetted and attacked Jews in Golders Green, north London. It has been reported that the attacker was mentally unwell, which was also used as criticism in the post that Polanski retweeted.

The press were already on the march, alongside right-wing Labour MPs calling Polanski an antisemite and suggesting that “he was unfit for office”. The attacks on him escalated further when the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, wrote a letter to Polanski suggesting that he was attempting to “undermine the police” by retweeting the photo.

Polanski did apologise for that retweet, but has since rightly come out to criticiseRowley for “interfering with the local elections” by attempting to whip up a negative perception of Polanski and the Greens before the elections had even taken place. Not that it had much effect on the Green vote, which surged, largely at Labour’s expense.

The hypocrisy of Trevor Phillps

The press and media have since been on a relentless campaign to label Polanski as antisemitic, claiming that he does not care about the Jewish community and that he should resign as leader. In a woeful interview on Sky News, presenter Trevor Phillips attempted a hit job on Polanski. Phillips presented a series of hypotheticals that no one would reasonably be able to answer, alongside constant aggressive interruption.

Even when Polanski attempted to bring up the conflation between antisemitism and Zionism – an association encouraged by Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu – Phillips was condescending towards him and dismissed his argument, even though Polanski’s argument is central to much of the discussion and mislabelling of antisemitism that we see today.

Phillips will not admit his bias when it comes to this issue, but during the 2019 general election he was one of the public figures who wrote a letter to The Guardian claiming that he would refuse to vote for Corbyn on the grounds of the latter’s alleged antisemitism. The following year, however, Phillips himself was suspended from the Labour Party for making racist tropes about Muslims, saying that he was worried about the number of Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children, and criticising Muslims for not wearing poppies on Remembrance Day.

That suspension was handed down by the then Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby, an ally of Corbyn, but when Keir Starmer and the right-wing regained power in the party they reinstated Phillips’ membership.

Racist Enablers

Immediately after that interview, a panel of guests discussed various actions being taken on antisemitism. The panel involved former General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, Mick Lynch, The Times columnist Melanie Phillips, (more on which below) and former special adviser to the Liberal Democrats, Polly Mackenzie.

The discussion centred around the banning of pro-Palestinian marches. Lynch gave a fairly reasonable response, arguing that banning these marches would not change someone’s opinion on whether they were antisemitic or not.

But Melanie Phillips argued that these protests should be banned, with comments suggesting that people are fabricating stories about atrocities by Israel in Gaza. She claimed that people were making up accusations that “Israel were killing babies in Gaza”.

She didn’t mention that the charity Save the Children estimated that 20,000 children have been killed since Israel began its assault on Gaza, one child every hour. In a report from Al Jazeera earlier this year, Israeli forces reportedly killed a Palestinian child in northern Gaza, despite the supposed “ceasefire” that came into force last October. Such reports are emerging constantly, but Melanie Phillips either does not read them, or actively ignores them in order to fuel a narrative in defence of Israel.

Because she is a staunch Islamophobe, she has written for countless right-wing newspapers, including The Spectator, where she falsely accused the president of the British Muslim Initiative, Muhammad Sawalha, of being antisemitic — an allegation for which both she and The Spectator later had to print an apology.

She has also used her platform to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, including an article in the Daily Mail in 2007 where she used the term “cultural Marxism” to explain why she believed the UK had become so accepting of gay civil partnerships.

The term “cultural Marxism” has historically been used by the far-right. It comes from the idea that progressives and people who considered themselves Marxist, many of whom happened to be Jewish, have infiltrated institutions with causes on social justice and were manipulating children and young people in the process.

There was a campaign akin to this in Germany prior to 1933, where the Nazis used the terms “cultural Bolshevism” and “Jewish Bolshevism”, claiming that Jewish people were spreading causes (and revolutionary politics), particularly on issues related to sex, gender and identity, throughout the Weimar Republic. [There is a very good breakdown of the definition of “cultural Marxism” written by the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which you can read here.]

Melanie Phillips has also written books that spread her Islamophobic propaganda. One example is Londonistan, published in 2006, which has since been co-opted by the far-right to claim that London, and indeed the United Kingdom as a whole, has become dominated by Islamism.

It is disgraceful, given her track record, that she should be allowed on a panel discussing antisemitism. Yet Trevor Phillips makes no attempt to reveal her background, so that an unsuspecting Sky TV audience might assume she has some authority, because she is “a Times columnist”.

The Times well represented

This was the nature of the supposed “interview”, in reality a hit-job, done on Polanski by Trevor Phillips. What was not disclosed during the programme is that both Trevor and Melanie Phillips write for The Times.

We can expect a lot more of this in the future

All of this is important because, since that interview was aired, both Trevor and his namesake Melanie have used their platforms as commentators to write pieces attacking Polanski, and The Times itself has been incessantly attempting to discredit him.

Yet there was one attack that will leave Times readers questioning whether the paper is itself contributing to the rise of antisemitism. The paper printed a cartoon of Polanski kicking a police officer whilst they were tasering the Golders Green attacker. There is very little wit or satire in the drawing, qualities for which political cartoons were once respected, but when you look more closely at Polanski’s face, he has been drawn with a visibly crooked nose, what appears to be a classic antisemitic image.

Owen Jones reported in his blog Battlelines that the Green Party submitted a complaint to The Times, with a statement criticising the hypocrisy of the paper for attacking Polanski over alleged antisemitism, whilst itself producing antisemitic depictions of Jewish people in its cartoon. As the statement also noted, Polanski, who is Jewish, faces antisemitism on a daily basis and, as he stated both in the interview and elsewhere, two people have already been arrested for antisemitic actions directed against him.

Has The Times retracted the cartoon and apologised to Polanski? Have both of the Phillipses — who have since written columns claiming that “Jewish people must be protected” — criticised the newspaper for its racist stereotyping in the depiction of Jewish people? The answer to both questions is a resounding NO.

Instead, The Times has simply moved on to attacking Polanski in increasingly ridiculous ways, including reports that the British Red Cross denied that Polanski was a spokesperson for them, although Polanski said as much during his leadership campaign. Polanski has since clarified that he misspoke when describing himself as a “spokesperson”, but made it clear that he had campaigned and carried out work for that organisation.

Does any of this actually matter? Of course it does not. But much like during Corbyn’s time in Labour, the press will stop at nothing to discredit the left in the most shallow and incredulous ways possible and nowadays, the Green Party is a part of the left, infused not only with Polanski’s radicalism, but with the support of many former Labour members.

I will always remember the run-up to the 2017 general election, when the Daily Mailran a 13-page attack on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour, repeatedly describing him as a “terrorist” throughout much of the coverage. The reality, both then and now, is that the right are becoming increasingly worried about the prospect of the Greens gaining significant power.

Polanski has seen a surge in popularity because of his shift towards more left-wing ideas and policies, and that terrifies the establishment, which is why attacks are now being directed against him.

Polanski’s Test

But these predictable attacks by the pro-capitalist media, most of it owned by billionaires, there are serious issues that Polanski needs to address. He will need to learn from the mistakes of Jeremy Corbyn and not bend to the pressure of the media. The media, weakness will only invite more attacks. Polanski needs to take the fight directly to the press and the establishment and for him it will be a real test, one of many he will face before the next general election.

This is an important issue because it may have had some effect, notably within the ‘old guard’ of the Green Party, those who dominated the party before its new leader was elected and before its surge of mostly radical members. Former leader, Caroline Lucas, for example, who is nowhere near as radical as Polanski, has criticised the supposed antisemitism within the party. We have seen this before, during the Corbyn period. Polanski should push back against such accusations because ultimately they only seek to undermine him.

In my opinion, Polanski missed a trick when criticising the Metropolitan Police over their handling of the Golders Green attack, and it is a scandal that no newspaper appears to have done its due diligence in scrutinising the response of the Met when the attack took place.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the attacker, Essa Suleiman, had apparently assaulted another man earlier that same day. Scotland Yard carried out searches but were unable to find him. Also, he had reportedly been referred to Prevent six years earlier as a potential danger, but, as reported by The Guardian, the case was closed within six weeks because authorities concluded that he was not dangerous.

In the footage of the arrest the police response does appear to be unnecessarily aggressive and violent. But that should not have been where the criticism ended. Instead, some focus should have been on why the police were involved in such a confrontation in the first place, when there had been multiple opportunities to stop this man before the attack ever happened.

We can expect a crescendo of criticism directed at Polanski in the coming months. Even the Guardian has been splashing Polanski “scandals” across its pages. We have been here before with Jeremy Corbyn, and we will continue to see these kinds of smears whenever a left-wing alternative to the Conservatives, Reform UK, or the right of Labour begins to emerge.

So far, the Green Party and Polanski have been better than Corbyn at levelling criticism against establishment figures like Sir Mark Rowley, The Times and when there have been smear attempts. But Polanski must also ensure that he is not undermined from within the Greens themselves. The Greens and Polanski must hold their nerve and when there are attacks on them – and there will be – they need to bring the discussion back to policy, the area where the establishment and the right-wing have nothing to offer. 

Trade Union Leaders Appear to Offer the Same Old Recipe to Trump's War at Home

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED

 

The image above is screenshot from Facebook. The texts says:

End workplace ICE raids, drop charges against David Huerta, and vote against funding the deportation machine. Stand peacefully against military force in our communities."

Here's the problem and why the labor hierarchy, including those at SEIU, are an obstacle to change and one of the reasons the right wing has gained ground and Trump is where he is. It’s in bold.

Huerta has been released which is good, and obviously who could oppose the statements the SEIU leadership makes in this posting about ICE and the general opposition to the militarization of our communities except racists, xenophobes and labor haters.

But there’s another side to it. The SEIU leadership is well aware that the Democratic Party is not seen as a viable alternative to the capitalist offensive by millions of workers and trade union members; the reality is, it is seen as part of the problem as well. It is actually a dishonest, sneaky way of arguing for a return to the status quo that brought us to this point.

 

Living standards and working conditions have been savaged no matter which of the two capitalist parties is in power. Conditions have gotten to the point that the leadership atop SEIU, and indeed the entire leadership of organized labor, can't call for a vote for this party by name so they leave the "Democratic Party" out of it and the worker is left with, just “vote” for change basically. 

 

The entire leadership of organized labor in the US is politically bankrupt and without the rise of a rank and file movement from below, armed with a program that responds to our most important needs for living a decent life, there will likely be further defeats down the road as the capitalist system of production is experiencing a global crisis of historic proportions and workers will be asked to pay the price.

 

The leadership of a major trade union like SEIU calling for the election of Democrats (that’s what it is) and simply calling for a vote for the “other” capitalist party with its dismal record is at this point a sick joke and an insult to workers. It’s not a serious alternative at all.

 

The U.S. Congress is a gathering of representatives of U.S. capital, among them, racists, Zionists, white Nationalists and other antisocial elements who are supporting a genocide. They are not the friends, or representatives, of working class men and women a they do not fear the heads of organized labor; they consider them allies of a sort, maintaining order among a vital sector of the working class in this country. There needs to be a recognition of this and a serious response to it. The Democratic Party cannot provide this response which makes the building of an independent workers' party based on our organizations and communities a vital issue.

 

Trump and his menagerie’s assault on immigrant workers, undocumented or not, is a conscious diversion from the real causes of our decades old decline in rights and living standards. It is necessary to not simply oppose the raids on working class communities and immigrant families, but to seriously organize against them. 

 

I was told today that working class immigrant communities are beginning to build community defense organizations to confront the raids. This is a critical move and should be broadened to include workplace defense committees and so on. In addition, it is crucial in situations like these to have a conscious strategy of appealing to the troops on a class basis, with leaflets and discussions where that is possible. As socialists put it, the military brass is from the ruling classes, but the troops are workers in uniform.

 

The mass media in the U.S. is very powerful and tightly controlled, but as we are witnessing with the Gaza Genocide, social media is more difficult to censor. The Internet is vital to market activity so shutting it down completely is more complicated. Plus, it is my view that the more aggressive the regime in Washington gets, the more anger it will generate. It is impossible to determine what the mood within the U.S. military is, not simply regarding these events domestically, but internationally as well. 

 

About 19% or 65 million people in the U.S. identify as Latino and the U.S. military has about the same percentage of Latino’s as members. Many of the people being victimized and arrested will have relatives in the military and many Latino’s will not take kindly to the rounding up of people overwhelmingly from this group.  It cannot be ruled out that behind the scenes, many U.S. military personnel will be discussing this situation among themselves and are questioning its validity. If the present situation is not stabilized we could well see some splits developing within the military itself. 

 

Now, I stress the SEIU leadership in these remarks and most of my writing, not because I have a fetish of attacking the trade union hierarchy as one leading member of one of the self -styled socialist grouplets claimed. I point them out because, unlike the writers at Labor Notes, or former Labor Notes writers like Chris Brooks for example, I am well aware it is not the dues paying members of the union that determine policy and strategy in these cases and during organizing drives or strikes; it is the leadership. So I don’t simply refer to “the Union” in these instances.

 

So, we should not let the heads of organized labor, a national organization with some 14 to15 million people in it, off the hook.  Workers in all major industries in the U.S. are organized. This potential power is kept in check by the labor hierarchy in league with the Democratic Party. This marriage of opportunity, or opportunism might be more accurate, has to be annulled.

Owen Jones is Right. Blame The Democratic Party Machine, Not the Voter

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired. HEO/GED

Absolutely spot on assessment from Owen Jones. There is a deep political crisis in the United States as the two established capitalist parties come to the end of their more than century and a half of domination  over US political and economic life. 

This has been a long time coming. I have written of it in the past. How the trade union bureaucracy for example, the agents of the Democratic Party within organised labor have failed not only their members but the US working class as a whole. They are equally responsible for the present situation as they continue to push the Democratic Party on their members despite their members abandoning it a long time ago. 

The heads of organised labor see themselves as the CEO's of employment agencies basically, as labor brokers. They too are responsible for Trump and the shift to the right of sections of the working-class. 

And Democratic Party hacks like Robert Reich are still rather widely and contemptuously calling on the US electorate to get them back in power. But he's dishonest about it and will inflame most workers further as he announces that, “We’ll respond in the 2026 mid-terms and 2008 Presidential Election by electing true leaders who care about working people and the common good”. Yes it is comical in a way. But it reflects the utter contempt the strategists of the other capitalist party has for working people. Workers know the we in Reich's world is Democrats and they are not impressed. We do learn lessons you know.

The trade union officialdom uses the same language as I have pointed out many times in the past. They too can no longer point to the Democratic Party as the alternative.  When I first came to the US 51 years ago I even saw headlines in a labor paper calling on us to "vote labor" meaning Democratic.

Where did this advice get us? (image left)  This publication is from my national union, Afscme. Afscme People was the union's political action arm basically for funding money to the Democratic Party and its candidates. The guy with Feinstein in the picture was our legislative representative at the state level, I can't remember his official title but, just like our national conventions that are modelled on the conventions the two capitalist parties have, our political representatives function the same way in the legislature without the power the two parties have. They are lobbyists begging for some crumbs from the candidates of Wall Street. "please be a little less aggressive."

Many labor officials of one sort or another make their way in to state or national politics through the Democratic Party. The head of the San Francisco Labor Council (SFLC) when I was active, a guy named Tim Paulson was also on the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party. Shamefully, one of the leading figures of one of the self styled socialist organisations who was a delegate to the SFLC and his son who has found a comfortable niche for himself writing for Jacobin I last saw, acted as covers for Paulson, and the labor officialdom.  This is not uncommon among some so-called revolutionary organisations as they are drawn to the slightest left shift among the labor hierarchy. Many of them, are tolerated in union bodies like District Council or AFL-CIO labor councils as long as they do not challenge the class collaborationist policies of the leadership. They enter the movement in the wrong way, Bill Fletcher is another one. The union hierarchy uses them as they are generally more skilled and come out of the universities. I am not saying we don't work with the labor officialdom, I was a delegate in the Alameda Labor Council for 12 years and when they take forward steps we support that and when they don't we don't and explain why. With no open platform geared to fighting the bosses' offensive and a real foothold in the rank and file, one is pretty powerless.

Someone mentioned to me a couple of days ago that maybe Trump will force people to act. I think that this chaotic regime will definitely force people to act. The points Owen Jones makes though are valid and the supporters of Biden are in a dilemma if you're going to attack those that voted for Trump. And Jones is correct to point to the Democratic Party establishment not the voter. As far as Sanders goes, he is also guilty. Much of his program is supported by the US voter. Many young people looked to him as an alternative. Over the past period the percentage of workers and youth identifying as socialists has been as high as 36%. Social Democracy I would say is a more accurate description but there is no doubt millions of US workers are for a national health care system available at point of use. They support a woman's right to abortion, They opposed Biden's genocide and were disgusted that no Palestinian was allowed on the stage at the Democratic Convention. We want our education system fixed, our transportation system improved and we relish our environment. I worked with many men, and some women, who hunted game and they were very strong conservationists, most of them ate what they shot. We're not all fascists here  no matter what the mass media says.

There will be a pushback but we certainly can't rely on the Democratic Party for that. It will come and it will be wrought with some contradictions and some confusion. It is a reality that class consciousness has been driven backward and that the scourge of identity politics has been a major strategy in that regard.

It is a mass movement that will stop Trump, who is by the way a symptom of the decay not a cause, and such a movement will be in the workplaces, streets schools and communities where workers spend our lives. It will be internationalist, and this is something socialists and certainly I have neglected in the past, the indigenous people's of the world will play a crucial leadership role in it. I am convinced a movement will arise and such organisation will inevitably seek political expression and, from this writer's point of view the transformation of society and the economy along socialist lines is the most likely and necessary outcome if we are to survive on this beautiful planet. There are no guarantees in this world but we fight on.

Trump Threatens Tariffs on US Business if They don’t produce in the US.

Trump and Elise Stefanik

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/GED
1-23-25

 

I am writing this very quickly so I apologize if it’s a bit scattered but I needed to say something.

 

The headline is just another example of the madness we are entering under Trump. He threatens US business leaders with Tariffs if they don't make products in the US. There are a couple of problems with this. To make such a demand (and it's more likely one of his distractions) violates the right of the capitalist class in a bourgeois (capitalist) democracy to do what they want, where they want with "their" capital. It’s a violation of their rights and the language of a military dictatorship. 

In addition, if US manufacturers were to attempt this, they would have to pay US workers closer to the level of Cambodian or Chinese workers in order to compete in the global market place and no matter all the talk about isolationism, we live in a global economy. 

 

If it were to occur and I don’t believe it will, it would bring US capital in to a major conflict with the US working class including many blue collar workers that may have voted for Trump. One way or another it is a mess and a recipe for disaster. 

I was about to try write some commentary on my blog regarding the developments ahead and have been too occupied with other stuff. But one thing that has to be mentioned is the complete bankruptcy of the heads of organised labor in the US. I went to the AFL-CIO and UAW webpage and not a word. Here we are in a very rare situation and amid a genocide of unprecedented scale that the Biden Administration and the US ruling class has supported and armed and the labor bureaucracy is nowhere to be found.

 

Here is a glimpse from the AFL-CIO website, front page. 

The UAW is just as bad.

 Prior to the election, Shawn Fain, president of the UAW was appealing to members to vote for Kamala Harris as the election is a battle between “the interests of the working class and billionaires.”

 

Fain went on:

“The Democratic party is interested in working-class people and what they have to say and they want to be in our coalition. On the other side, we have the Republicans who, on a national level in particular, have embraced the billionaire class. They embraced their billionaire candidate.”

 

Seeing Bezos, Zuckerberg and Onan Musk sitting in the front at Trump’s Inauguration and the numerous billionaires and millionaires that have ingratiated themselves with Trump is evidence pure and simple that the billionaires have two parties, two capitalist parties. The Democrats have their billionaires too; and they switch from one to the other when needed.

 

Along with Shawn Fain, Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a favorite of the liberals, came out for kamala Harris prior to the election: “Trump wants to fire striking workers, and Biden and Harris have upheld our right to strike.” She says completely ignoring Biden and Pelosi’s legislation adopted almost overnight denying rail workers the right to strike. Both Republicans and Democrats have no problem “reaching across the isle” when workers’ lives and living conditions are at stake.

 

I will state again that the era of the domination of the two capitalist parties over US economic and political life is over. The trade union leadership, basically agents of the Democratic Party within the organized labor movement, have little credibility when it comes to announcing their recommendations at election time. They have given billions of their union members’ hard earned dues money to the Democratic Party and its politicians over the years. 

 

Aside from money, the labor hierarchy has provided staffers that man phones, walk precincts and get rank and file workers to join them. Afscme, my union, provided 40,000 volunteers for Walter Mondale back in the 1980’s, a period when some union in the private sector were waging a real struggle against the neo-liberal offensive under Reagan.

 

That figure alone is a base for an alternative political party, a labor or workers’ party based on our organizations and communities. After all, the vast majority of us are workers and the obsession with identity politics is an attempt to obscure that and undermine class consciousness. It has us all in little groups trying to defeat the offensive independently.

 

The Service Employees International Union announced earlier this month that it is re-joining the AFL-CIO. This is a positive step but it comes with a warning. The SEIU and AFL-CIO leadership say that:

 “At a critical moment when everything is on the line for the nation’s working people, the labor movement is uniting to challenge the status quo and build a movement of workers who will fight—on the job, in the streets, at the ballot box, in our communities—for higher pay, expanded benefits and new rules that empower them to join together in unions and organize across industries.”

 

Comrades Sisters and Brothers, we have heard this all before. When Sweeney became the head of the AFL-CIO in the early part of the century he talked about blocking bridges citing the methods of Martin Luther King. Sweeney, with Trumka went quite rapidly from blocking bridges to building them, and not with their members but with the employers.

 

When the AFL-CIO split in 2005 there was jubilation among many on the left. But this split was not about anything substantial. It was not about ditching the Team Concept, the philosophy that workers and bosses have the same interests, it was over organizing and increasing membership in order to get more Democrats elected. Plus, more members is more dues money. 

 

Look at the statement above on the re-joining of the SEIU to the AFL-CIO. No mention of strikes. And it’s clear that the move comes about because of the democratic Party’s crushing defeat in the election. It’s the same old failed recipe.

 

The election of Trump and the situation we are facing at the moment has been a long time coming. Working people are not stupid. There are some nasty right wing fascists elements that voted for Trump but there are millions of workers that did too. Black workers have been taken advantage of and abused by the Democratic Party for decades. As one commentator put it, the Democrats know that most black folks won’t vote for the “White man’s party”. Well a significant number did. 

 

But it’s important to remember that only one in four voted for Trump and 90 million never voted at all. 

 

It is a dilemma. The trade union leaders have the resources to offer an alternative electorally and, despite the low union density, the organized working class has the ability to bring the US economy to a halt and draw the millions of unorganized to our ranks. But this is exactly what the trade union leadership is afraid of. They see no alternative. They do not believe workers can govern society That workers can lead. They see no alternative to the market and capitalism and, as I have written a million times, whenever the system goes in to crisis as it always does and always will before it kills us all; they move to bail it out.  That is the cause of the decades of concessions.

 

The delay of a mass movement and an independent political party of the working class means that the coming period will be extremely volatile and at times quite violent. Trump has over the past 10 years emboldened the racists, fascists, Christian nationalists and white supremacists. He has fostered the fear among white Americans that their very identity is at stake. It is a common strategy when dealing with settler populations, Ireland and Israel are prime examples of this. 

 

Let’s not kid ourselves. It will not simply be immigrants that are target for removal or worse. Socialist and communists will be dealt with, Trump has said as much.  And for many of these right wingers, union members are communist as are liberals. It’s not just gays, transgender men and woman or anyone that doesn’t fit the mould that will be targeted. 

 

There may well be a honeymoon period here but it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that with a body politic dominated by the likes of Onan Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg and many more, working people are about to have their pants taken down. That includes those that voted for him. And let us not leave out the climate catastrophe and the threat (though In think unlikely) of a global war. 

 

Sometimes it takes the whip of the counterrevolution force working people to take action even without much of a plan which is worked out through the struggle. Had Harris and the Democrats won, it would have merely delayed these developments. This is the party of war and now of genocide. Harris, Biden and Blinken should be in jail. 

 

We rarely choose the circumstances in which we find ourselves and we don’t choose this. But in the era of capitalist decline we are looking at deepening crises and further attacks on our material well-being. 

 

In my view better to face the music than delay it.

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           

Which Side Would You Have Been on in Your Union?

A little local union history. What Side Would You Have Been on in Your Union?

The union local to which I belonged, Afscme Local 444, was a rank and file controlled, historically democratic local. Myself and others, particularly my good friend and brother, Roger Martinez, always fought to keep it that way. I was going through some old union papers and fliers and thought some folks who have spent their lives in union activity at this level, might find this short clip from a statement I put out on a motion that passed interesting. I posted it widely as at this point in time, myself, Cheryl Zuur and Roger had relinquished the leadership of the local (he might have been finishing up his term I can’t remember) and a more conservative group was at the helm; some of them opportunistically looking for a role in management. 

 

The motion that passed would have “prevented anyone on a supervisors list from being on the negotiating committee” as it says below. The leadership wanted to increase the number of attendees that made a quorum so the union could conduct business. They tried to use the argument that too few members came to meetings and that it was more democratic. Really! The motion was in response to this. After it passed, he leadership, or a section of it, resigned. It’s a no brainer in my view and many members saw it as an undemocratic attempt to undermine rank and file power. 

 

I am interested what position other union activists or former or retired activists like myself would have taken or any comments they want to share. Was I right to explain my support this way? Also, some of my co-workers and former members might be interested in this little bit of history. I will cover the names mentioned herein but I really would prefer not to as we took a fair bit of abuse from these folks especially the one who eventually did join management’s ranks. I am grateful for my retirement but damn I miss the union stuff. This was my response to their resignation.

 

Why they resigned

I was not at the meeting where the motion was made that prevented anyone on a supervisors list from being on the negotiating committee. But I would have voted for it had I been there. (my faction took a day off). Does the dues paying member honestly believe that someone who is aggressively pursuing a supervisory position and actually serving in that capacity is a good candidate to fight for their interests at the negotiating table? I do not. 

 

The three officers that resigned are pursuing careers in management and for them to have taken positions as such while they were in the union roles they were is a conflict of interest. This is why the members never saw any literature from the local aggressively confronting management's attacks, our top leaders were pursuing careers that they thought would be adversely affected by such an approach. Psychologically it is also a victory for management because it gives credibility to their argument that union leaders or workers representatives always betray their constituency, always sell out. 

 

Naturally everyone has a right to promote, they just shouldn't use the union as a stepping stone. These brothers also treated the union disrespectfully resigning the way they did. (after they signed their checks of course). I also understand the union member that made the motion received his fair share of abusive e mails from JH and MS. So much for a member's right to express themselves without being humiliated and abused. RL knows about this but chooses to keep it under his hat.

The Quorum

In the almost 25 years that I have been active in the local, attendance has been something everyone wants to improve. We do not live in a totalitarian society, members are not threatened with death if they attend union meetings. As unions go we have been one of the more active. Traditionally not much more than 10% of members attend their meetings. What RL is proposing, sounds super democratic but is in fact a remedy for strengthening the tendency toward bureaucracy in the local and removing the decision making process even further form the membership. This is a trend that has permeated the present leadership.

 

For our local to make any decision under R’s plan, we would need 60 or 70 members at a meeting. It is hard to get that many even for a seemingly non-political issue but one that has dire consequences on people's lives. Only 20 or 25 people decided on the plumber 4 issue though many hate it. So 50 people at a meeting, a good attendance figure, would not be able to make any decision for the local. What happens then? What happens then is that the executive board makes those decisions. So instead of 15, 20, 35 members making decisions form the local, you now have the same regular 13 executive board members. The higher union officials like this as it keeps members away, but it is bad policy; as is the case in many unions across the country, membership meetings disappear and only the "leaders" meet and make decisions. It institutionalizes bureaucracy.

 

Because of space limitations I will add only one more brief comment. RL obviously believes politics has a place in the union movement. He supports the present political position of the labor hierarchy which is to give our money to that ever shrinking liberal wing of the Democratic Party. I agree with R that we should participate in politics, but independently. Throwing our hard earned money at these people, lobbying (bribing) them in Sacramento, has not prevented the defeats that U.S. labor has suffered over the last 25 years. Both RL and RM* see joining the "friends of labor" and getting themselves elected to local office with these "friends" as strengthening the labor movement; I do not, these people aren't our friends and I think history is one my side. Labor should run candidates opposed to and independent of the two corporate parties. **

 

Richard Mellor 9/12/02

**In the organized labor movement there is a tendency of individuals or groups that form in to caucuses with the goal of challenging the present pro-management, business union oriented leadership, to call their caucus or state their main aim to be union democracy. Members for a Democratic Union for example. I formed a caucus in Afscme and we called it Afscme Member for a Stronger Union and we had a platform other than just saying we stood for democracy. There is nothing wrong with fighting for or defending democratic rights and rank and file power in your local union. It’s a safe bet you won’t offend the leadership you want to replace by making “Democracy” the only issue. They support it too. When I used to attend the Afscme national conventions, they were pretty democratic. The problem was the leadership had all the votes. 

What I have found though, is that simply saying your caucus stands for union democracy, TDU is a good example, doesn’t say much. What it does, and often this is intentional for groups like TDU, is avoid raising demands, or issues that will bring them in to conflict with the established bureaucracy. They also fear raising expectations among the membership when they have no program or strategy for winning it. And It is impossible to draw the average worker in to activity on the basis of the need democracy alone. Most local unions to be honest are pretty democratic compared to other institutions in society. We have to have a program, something we are fighting for and a plan for winning it.