Ex-UAW President Ray Curry calls on Reuther Administration

   Shawn Fain and the guy that broke a rail strike

Comrades, I am posting this from my phone which I’ve never done before but I don’t have access to the computer at the moment. When I get back I would like to comment on this more but I do want to say this. This situation and the fractious developments in the United Workers For Democracy Caucus that backed Shawn should come as no surprise. I have on more than one occasion shared my views on opposition caucuses within the trade union movement that focus on union democracy as the core demand of the caucus. This does not mean the caucuse’s  victory in winning one person one vote was a bad thing. 

Firstly, unions tend to be among the more democratic institutions in society, but more importantly, a caucus has to have a program and slogans around that program other that democracy in the abstract I call it. Who can oppose the call for democracy? The bureaucracy believes in democracy too. They just have all the votes. The program is what unites us and must speak to more than simply higher wages and the obvious—opposition to racism, sexism discrimination in all its forms. Example:

Oppose the team concept in all its forms 

A shorter workweek to create jobs

Organize the unnorganized

On site childcare

All paid union staff and leaders to be paid no more than the average wage of the workers they represent. 

No support for either big business party; build a working class alternative.

In the case of major industries like transportation of which auto production is a part, we demand the public ownership and a retooling of this industry for the production of mass transit, wean ourselves from fossil fuels that are the cause of the  lunar crisis that threatens human life on this planet. 

A strong united opposition caucus cannot be built around the call for democracy. You’d have to be a Nazi to oppose it. Thanks to Teri Crial Norris for sharing the article RM

Ex-UAW President Ray Curry calls on Reuther Administration Caucus, criticizes current leaders

Breana Noble

Robert Snell

The Detroit News

Former United Auto Workers President Ray Curry accused the current union's leadership of "fear, intimidation and retaliation" in a letter sent to retired officers and regional directors seeking interest in a video call on the future of the Reuther Administration Caucus a year out from the next Constitutional Convention.

The letter obtained by The Detroit News is another sign of a potential challenge to UAW President Shawn Fain, who already has shared his intentions to run for reelection. Fain won attention during the Detroit-based union's "Stand Up" strike in the fall of 2023, propelling the union into national discourse, negotiating record contracts with the Detroit Three automakers and successfully organizing Volkswagen AG autoworkers in Tennessee.

Former United Auto Workers President Ray Curry in a letter to former UAW officers and regional directors criticized the union's current leadership and called for plans ahead of the next officer election in 2026.

But commitments around transparency and ridding the union of corruption have come under scrutiny amid investigations by the union's court-appointed monitor, including one that concluded Fain retaliated against second-in-charge Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock. The watchdog was installed by a first-in-UAW-history consent decree to oversee the union in 2021 for at least six years following a years-long corruption scandal that entangled former UAW presidents Dennis Williams and Gary Jones and several others in criminal charges.

Fain in 2023 beat Curry by 483 votes — 50.2% to 49.8% — in a narrow run-off election in the union's first directly elected vote for its top officers. Fain was the first UAW president not to be backed by the Reuther Caucus, later called the Administration Caucus, since Walter Reuther was elected president in 1946. Fain, Mock and others were backed by the Unite All Workers for Democracy Caucus, which started from a movement within the union led by frustrated members wanting to see reforms. UAWD in April dissolved over "ongoing disagreements," according to a statement on its website.

Curry said in a phone interview with The News that the letter was sent in mid-June following discussions with former UAW presidents Rory Gamble and Ron Gettelfinger and former Region 2B Director Ken Lortz, in recognition that the 39th Constitutional Convention where candidates for the International Executive Board, including president, will be nominated by delegates is less than a year away on June 15-18, 2026.

"Our Membership, Staff, IEB members and all of us personally have benefited tremendously from the (Reuther Administration) Caucus over the years and it's important to hear your thoughts as we move forward," Curry wrote. "It is imperative that we be prepared and have a plan to support the election process that follows" the convention.

As a retired UAW member, Curry said he isn't eligible to run for an IEB position under the rules in the UAW constitution. Members, however, could seek to change those rules by submitting a resolution for the convention, or a delegate can raise one from the floor of the convention.

"That's not anything I’m seeking or asking," said Curry, who said he's been enjoying retirement after returning to the South from Michigan, including volunteering and helping members when they reach out.

Curry deferred questions regarding UAW leaders and the state of the union to his comments in the letter. It said "outsiders" who supported Fain's campaign are in leadership positions without having worked in a UAW facility or paid dues.

"Their leadership style is based on fear, intimidation and retaliation," Curry wrote.

A request for comment with Fain's staff didn't receive immediate response.

Curry noted after 10 international staff terminations over the past two years, they are "employees-at-will subject to termination without explanation and without recourse." Curry also criticized Fain — without ever naming him explicitly — for having "resisted compliance and withheld documentation from investigations" by the monitor — who previously had complained of delays in response to document requests when Curry was in charge as well.

Curry also noted 24-hour security protection for Fain, including at his home which received a "$30,000 + security system."

"Spending is out of control and infighting with his UAWD board members is beyond belief," Curry wrote.

Curry also wrote that the Detroit Three contracts left money on the table, noting General Motors Co. announced stock buybacks following the talks; Chrysler parent Stellantis NV eliminated temporary employee positions instead of converting them; and Ford Motor Co. planned to expand Super Duty pickup production to Canada. He added that other sectors of the union are being ignored.

Curry in the letter described the situation of Reuther Administration members as "fluid" with Laura Dickerson taking over Chuck Browning's vice president role at the start of July following his retirement.

"It would be nice to be able to sit back and ignore what is happening," Curry said, "but I am always reminded of our constitutional oath which is the key (tenet) to support our UAW."

Curry wrote he would send a follow-up invitation to the former union leaders with information for a Zoom video call. He declined to specify whether that has been held.

"There’s been a lot of response," Curry told The News. "That’s where we are with it. I think there could be some future conversations that we have about this."

The letter appears to be an effort by the former upper echelon of the union to explore their options and to see if there is a viable candidate to run, said Marick Masters, professor emeritus of business at Wayne State University.

"They've got baggage, but I think it's important to remember the people involved in the wrongdoing have been identified and punished and purged from the union," Masters said. "A lot of people came from the ranks of the administrative caucus. That's probably where there's still a lot of talent."

The 12th report from Neil Barofsky, the union's monitor, filed last month in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Michigan painted Fain, the UAW president, as a retaliatory, foul-mouthed labor leader who coordinated with underlings to remove Mock in February 2024 from oversight of 11 union departments and two external board positions. Barofsky recommended that Mock be returned to her leadership roles, to which the union has responded in court by accusing Barofsky of overstepping his role.

The monitor stopped short of filing any charges against Fain amid ongoing investigations focused on "allegations concerning a retaliatory pattern of conduct" involving the union president. Barofsky's investigation into Fain doesn't appear to involve criminal allegations. However, Barofsky can try to discipline, remove, suspend, expel and fine UAW officers and members.

Mock in an interview with The News didn't specify if she will run for reelection or a different role next year, only that she must be nominated at the Constitutional Convention to run for any role.

"A lot of it depends on what can happen with respect to Shawn Fain in regard to what the monitor does in his investigation, which will determine the viability of his candidacy," Masters said. "If as a result of that investigation, he becomes a less-viable candidate, and the dissident faction may want to continue leading, then they'll have to find another candidate. It's setting itself up to be a confused-looking situation going forward.

"It's unclear whether the faction that really led the opposition to the Reuther Caucus has any legs to stand on at the current time beyond the current appointees on staff." 

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2025/07/21/uaw-ray-curry-reuther-administration-caucus-shawn-fain/85311754007/

AFSCME DC 33 Strike: Media Brings in Academia to Convince Workers The Deal is Best They can Get

Richard Mellor

AFSCME Local 444, retired
HEO/GED

July 18, 2022

"It will be a hard pill for many Americans to swallow--the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more...Nothing that this nation, or any other nation, has done in modern economic history compares with the selling job that must be done to make people accept this reality" (Business Week 10-12-74). Written at the very same time the conditions that led to the post-WW2 economic boom came to an end.

 

I posted an earlier commentary on the strike of municipal workers in Philadelphia, PA that ended ten days ago when the leadership of AFSCME District Council 33 reached a tentative agreement with the city.

 

There was considerable displeasure with the contract, even from the president of DC 33 Greg Boulware himself. DC33 represents numerous public sector workers including 911 dispatchers, sanitation workers, and medical examiners. But, as I wrote earlier, it is the sanitation workers that are key given their crucial role in keeping the city free of trash.

 

According to reports, the voting began on Monday of this week and lasts until the 20^th. I visited DC33’s website just now and can’t find any information about the ratification vote or the strike at all. As I pointed out in the earlier posting, suggestions by the president and the mass media that the workers could vote against the contract and be back on strike by the weekend, cannot be taken seriously. It’s very difficult to get workers back out once we’ve been led back in without seeing what was agreed to. A strike is a serious event and always a sacrifice for those that engage in it.

In addition, what motive is there if the leadership doesn’t present an alternative with a strategy and tactics for winning a better deal?  To be honest, there is no information on DC33’s website and certainly nothing about the possibility of going back on strike because the leadership has no plan if it’s voted down. Going back in is similar to these cooling off periods they use to head off steam and end strikes that the leadership know they have no real strategy for winning.

 

But what I want to point out here, is the role of the academic in the video above. The big business media, the role of which is to propagate pro-market, anti-union propaganda, drags in this academic to legitimize the capitulation of the union leadership and portray the deal as a victory. 

 

The academic, a Professor Francis Ryan, is a labor historian from Rutgers University and he thinks the contract is a good deal. He’s been “…..researching Philadelphia unions for years.” the news anchor tells us. One would think the professor would learn something that would help him lead to more accurate conclusions than he expresses here.

 

He can’t though because he won’t be invited again. This entire segment of local news is directed at any of the workers that might be tuning in. The esteemed management spokesperson, I mean professor, makes it clear, and it must be clear as he’s a professor of labor history at Rutgers: “I think that overall it is a good deal it is something that in today's political climate there is no money coming from Harrisburg, no money certainly coming from Washington, DC.”

 

How many times, my brothers and sisters out there on the picket lines and in the workplaces of America, have we heard that now is not the time, that the climate is not right, there is no money. The professor is just another mouthpiece for the big capitalists and the rotten clique that occupy the U.S. Congress. He’s not the only academic I have had to listen to in this mold; Harley Shaiken, a UC Berkeley professor, is another one.  There are alternatives in academia that would have a completely different analysis but CBS won’t seek them out.

 

The professor is there to put a lid on any ideas the workers have about escalating the conflict. And he is right that it is all they can get. It is all they can get if the leadership----and leaders do have responsibility-----continues to use tactics and an approach that has failed time and time again. They do not fight to win. 

Individual locals are left to fight global capitalism alone and none have that power. Behind the scenes it is the billionaire investors in real estate, technology, shipping, and other major industries along with their representatives in the two capitalist parties that control municipal bodies like Philadelphia City Council, not the voter.

 

On DC33’s website it boasts being affiliated with AFSCME International, my former union, with 1.6 million, members.  AFSCME is the union that “offers solidarity without conformity”, the site says, an obscure statement surely. Aside from the affiliation with a 1.6 million member organization, there are some 666,000 union members in Pennsylvania according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Where does solidarity begin and end? It has to be national and international if we want to drive back the capitalist offensive.

 

From the get go, the city used the courts to undermine union power and worker solidarity through injunctions, and the police, to enforce them. The union leadership whines about this and calls it unfair pleading with the bosses to be less aggressive and so on. Did they forget what Biden did to the rail workers? Or, what the bosses have done to us since the building of the first workers’ organization? Unions weren’t built by lawyers or filing lawsuits. Unions were illegal and they were built by challenging anti-worker laws on a mass scale, not meekly obeying them.

 

There are some 14 million workers in the U.S. who are organized in unions. This includes major industries and a public sector workforce that is close to 35% organized. Both political parties have been undermining that potential power and Trump will continue down that road apace.

 

The DC 33 strike had a lot of public support. On the Council’s website it points out that there is growing support for unions. But here’s the problem. The present leadership of organized labor is not prepared to mobilize the potential power of their members to actually win a strike, one that would win major concessions from the bosses in general.

 

The professor is right that there is no money coming from the state capital or the federal government. But that does not mean there is no money. The U.S. taxpayer has been fleeced of hundreds of billions of dollars in the market driven conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine alone. Never mind the trillions spent in the disastrous defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. is awash with cash. Forbes points out that the 400 richest people in the US are “……worth a record $5.4 trillion, up nearly $1 trillion from last year.”  

 

U.S. military spending represents about 12 percent of the US federal budget for fiscal year 2025. And from 2020 to 2024, the last five-year period for which full statistics are available, private firms have received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon.That's approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4 trillion. The military offense contractors are raking in the profits. Even Elon Musk, the world's richest man, gets rich through taxpayer money and federal contracts.

 

Now, the reporter in the above video says that her full interview with the professor is at CBSPhiladelphia.com, but I didn’t find it. So maybe he points out what I do here, that there’s no shortage of money. It's simply spent elsewhere like never ending predatory wars, or in the bank accounts of the parasites in finance that do no work, but I doubt it. I am not a professor and I have no degrees, but like most workers we are well aware that if we stick together, if we unite, we can win. However, in this class struggle, we face a war on two fronts: one is against the bosses and their efforts to profit at our expense and the other is against the pro-market policies of the present union leadership. 

 

Because they worship the market and consider profit sacrosanct, the strategists of organized labor are incapable of mobilizing the potential power of their members and the working class as a whole in defense of our material well being. The danger of such a development getting out of their control is terrifying to them. At best, they view the unions as employment agencies with themselves as the CEO’s. They will, and they have, used the army of staff at their disposal to suppress any movement from below that threatens this relationship they’ve built with the bosses based on labor peace and teamwork.

 

Instead of organizing our power that is based in the workplace and our ability to bring the U.S. economy to a halt, the labor officialdom boasts of the growth and the millions of members they have merely as a source of revenue which contributes to their salaries, but also as a voting bloc. Their relationship with the Democratic Party is based on being able to turn out votes at election time and organized labor has donated billions to this party over the years and provides the ground forces for precinct walking and phone banking. AFSCME provided some 40,000 troops for Walter Mondale's failed presidential bid back in the 1980’s.

 

Organized labor has the resources to run our own candidates, to have our own party. A Pew poll in 2021 found that 87% of Americans believed that the government should play a role in ensuring clean air and water; 64% said it should ensure health insurance for everyone, and 43% said it should provide high-speed Internet access (WSJ 8-13/14-22). And the millions that have opted out of the electoral process altogether is a reflection of the disgust workers have with the two parties of Wall Street. Voting for the lesser evil, in any situation, is not inspiring to say the least. 

Meanwhile, let’s see what the DC33 workers' response to the tentative agreement is in a day or so. 

And I’ll end this commentary with a statement from some US workers 180 years ago:

"Brethren we conjure you...not to believe a word of what is being said about your interests and those of your employers being the same. Your interests and theirs are in a nature of things, hostile and irreconcilable.  Then do not look to them for relief...Our salvation must, through the blessing of God, come from ourselves.  It is useless to expect it from those whom our labors enrich."

 

-1840's appeal from New England laborers. Philip Foner History of the Labor Movement Vol. 1 p192

Ten Years Later Boeing Workers Faced With Same Battles. A Different Approach is Needed.

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

9-12-24

 

In November 2013 Boeing workers’, members of IAM District Lodge 751 AFL-CIO, rejected a contract with deep concessions by a 67% to 33% margin.  One of the main reasons for this rejection was Boeing’s efforts to freeze pensions as the company moved from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution savings plan.

 

This was a bold move by the Boeing workers and I wrote at the time:

“By rejecting that contract, IAM members were standing in the forefront of the struggle not only to defend their benefits and jobs, but the future for all workers, particularly young workers entering or new to the workforce.”

 

Yet a month later, January the third 2014, these same workers voted to accept these drastic concessions by a 1% margin.  What happened in just over a month?

 

What happened was Boeing bosses went on the offensive with a campaign of terror aimed at forcing Boeing workers to back off. They threatened to move production to non-union plants in the US South and openly submitted bids to other states. This, despite Boeing already receiving $9 billion in subsidies from Washington taxpayers. The big business media added its efforts to the terror campaign.

 

Throughout the month all the politicians in one-way or another pressured the workers and claimed the state’s future is doomed if they didn’t take concessions. Jay Inslee, the lawyer and Washington State’s Democratic governor hailed the acceptance of the January deal along with Boeing execs.

 

Tom Buffenbarger, the IAM, International President at the time and other national officials forced this vote over the objections of the local leadership. As staunch defenders of profits and the market, they took up the baton under what were really conditions of warfare, and, forced the January vote on a contract that had already been rejected and that the local leadership opposed. The month-long war of terror inflicted on the Boeing workers took its toll and they got their “yes” vote, but only barely. "We missed it by one per cent because people were confused and worried about their jobs,” one worker said, “I’m still just numb,” said another.

 

Here we are a decade later and Boeing workers, the same members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751, will be voting on a new contract today, September 12^th 2024. If they reject the contract 33,000 of them could be off the job by midnight.

 

Boeing, and no doubt the leaders of the IAM who are supporting the contract (they never have to work under them), are hoping a 25% wage increase over four years (workers want 40%) will sway the vote in the company’s favor. I am pretty sure that Boeing’s “commitment” to future investment in the Puget Sound region won’t hold much water. We know that market forces and profits trump any commitment big business gives to working people. Biden forced railway workers to accept a contract they had already declined by getting emergency legislation through Congress that took the right to strike away from them in order to protect the railroad bosses’ profits.

 

But the big issue is the pension that was lost previously is not returned in this contract; it is this that might bring a “no” vote.

 

"We recommended acceptance because we can't guarantee we can achieve more in a strike," John Holden, IAM president says. Naturally, nothing can be guaranteed but success or failure is dependent on what strategy and tactics Holden, the leadership of the IAM and the leadership of the AFL-CIO, particularly in the Seattle area and Washington State, intend to bring to the game.

 

Holden went on to say, to his members, "But that is your decision to make and is a decision that we will protect and support, no matter what."  This is standard procedure from the labor hierarchy and a bit of a trick.

 

Holden would support the decision, that’s what democracy is all about. So if the workers’ reject the contract, vote to strike and fail to attain their goals, it’s down to them. Holden and the leadership are supporting the members’ right to vote on the strike. If it fails, it’s not on the leadership’s head. They warned them. They said they should accept the offer that doesn’t restore the pension. Holden is coming from a position of weakness and the bosses know it.

 

This is standard fare and I have had many conflicts with the way Labor Notes and other labor publications and groups, (DSA for example) that report on these labor disputes, or class battles to be more accurate.  Chris Brooks, who writes or wrote for Labor Notes, reported on organizing campaigns by the UAW in the South and referred to the “union’s” failed strategy or tactics. But tactics are not developed by the “the Union” they are developed by the leadership of the union and in this case we are referring to the IAM.

 

Holden and the national union leadership do not have a winning strategy. They have at best an organized retreat strategy. In addition, every top union official from Liz Schuler on down supports the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses have the same interests, are on the same team. This has been a disaster for workers and at the heart of the leadership’s class collaboration.

 

The Team Concept is being played here as the new CEO of Boeing, Kelly Ortbeg’s letter to workers yesterday shows. "A strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together," he wrote. “Ortberg and Boeing Commercial Airplanes boss Stephanie Pope hit the floor at the company's jet assembly plants in Everett and Renton this week to talk with workers about the proposed deal.” Reuters reported. They’re worried.

 

“Our shared recovery”? That’s a good one. It reminds me of the old Lone Ranger joke, “What do you mean we white man”. The situation is very similar. Tonto said that to the Lone Ranger when they were surrounded by “hostile Indians” the Boeing workers are surrounded by hostile bosses, their mass media, their courts, their police and a leadership that wants us all to just get along.  A workers future and the CEO or investors future have nothing in common, we do not travel along the same road.

 

Boeing over the years has spent millions bribing politicians in Congress as well as influencing politicians and US diplomats. It’s estimated the company has earned $50 billion to $100 billion in revenue from sales to Israel.

 

On top of it all, the Boeing management as we know, has been mired in corruption and graft. The biggest example is the 737 Max airplane, two of which crashed killing hundreds of people. Boeing has been forced to dole out over $4 billion in fines and penalties. Boeing workers had no role in this. The CEO before Ortbeg who took the job last month, was Dave Calhoun who received $22.5 million compensation in 2022 and $15 million in shares in 2023 despite the state of the company.

 

A Strategy That Can Win

As we saw with Biden’s breaking of the railroad strike, the Boeing workers are up against it; a leadership that has no real plan for winning the fight and all the forces of big business including the Democrats against them. But objectively we have the power, but in today’s climate no individual unions, even powerful ones in major industries can defeat the combined forces of big business.

 

Any strike must appeal openly to other unions to join in with actions of some kind. Working class communities must be drawn in to the struggle much like in the Hormel strike back in the 1980’s. We all have the same desires and demands.; our families are dependent on our conditions at work. We have to make these battles more openly class battles. The employers don’t hesitate to do that. We have to appeal to the unemployed and under employed through calling for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay to create jobs.

 

Over the past decades we have seen working class people being priced out of a university education and public education is in an extreme crisis and teachers under assault from all directions. Educators in 2018 and 2019 showed us we can violate the anti-union laws and win. They showed what has to be done to counter the capitalist offensive and we must build on that. Unions and all workers in disputes on the job must link them to social issues and campaigns; our most powerful weapon is our power on the job.

 

There are laws against class solidarity in action. All that is supported are harmless acts of solidarity, picket lines that are 24-hour gatherings nothing more, and protests that do not disrupt production and profit taking. We have to start from the position that we will organize mass picketing and actions that challenge and violate anti-labor, anti-worker laws. A start must be to publicly campaign against the Team Concept relying instead on our own strength on the job and breaking the disastrous death marriage the present trade union leadership has with the Democratic Party.

 

If the Boeing workers choose to strike today, I hope that the action gets back the pension they lost. Regardless of the outcome, defensive battles are not enough. Boeing is a major US corporation and rank and file workers should call for Boeing to be taken in to public ownership as a first step toward workers’ control and management of this vital industry. The state of this corporation, the deaths due to plane disasters, the cover up, the lies; this is the legacy of the private production. The private sector is incapable of managing and should not own, the forces that produce the necessities we need in society.

The NLRB is Not The Only Route To Unionization. But the Unorganized Need Backup.

Source

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

10-20-22

 

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. George P Schultz

 

I see that Amazon workers at the ALBI facility in upstate New York have rejected a union vote. According to the National Labor Relations Board, (NLRB) about 66% of the workers rejected joining the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the independent union for Amazon workers founded by Chris Smalls.

 

Naturally, Amazon bosses and its mouthpieces are elated that the company can continue to “……work directly with our teammates in Albany, as we do everywhere,” says one Amazon spokesperson.

 

“We are filled with resolve to continue and expand our campaign for fair treatment for all Amazon workers,”, Chris Smalls, the ALA president said in response to the result and that it’s not a loss but a part of “an ongoing battle.”. He's right about that.

 

Smalls and the ALU that he co-founded, successfully organized the Amazon workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island, a much larger facility than the upper New York State plant with over 8000 eligible voters compared to the ALBI with some 900 eligible voters. This might have contributed to the result. And despite this setback, and increased propaganda from Amazon with television ads touting the company’s generosity, Amazon workers throughout the country are anything but passive.

 

But, as I have stated in numerous articles on failed organizing drives, often reported by Labor Notes, what matters most in these drives is whether or not the union can bring the potential power of the working class, organized labor and workers in the communities to the table.

 

Power Attracts

Myself and another retired trade unionist and socialist were asked to give a short introduction to a discussion on the recent developments within organized labor in the U.S. to some friends in the UK and other parts of the world. Not surprisingly, many activists and socialists throughout the world are excited about the recent upsurge in pro-union activity in the US, Amazon, Starbucks and a couple at Apple facilities are an example.

 

One of the points I made was while this is a very positive development, the union drives are primarily directed through established legal channels, and I mean here the National Labor Relations Board. This is no small matter as even in these cases, workers using the rights afforded to them by the state, the bosses still respond aggressively, holding anti-union workplace meetings, threatening workers, firing them and so on. I call it workplace terrorism.

 

But the NLRB route has its limits. In the case of the success at the JFK8 facility, it is not yet done. Amazon contested the vote despite one of the NLRB hearing officers recommending the vote be upheld. The Amazon bosses will use every legal maneuver possible to delay the result of the JFK8 vote as they bribe, threaten and coerce workers to switch sides, every minute of every day.

 

At the ALBI facility, workers earn about $17 an hour which is approximately $2 above the minimum wage here in California. The $17 came about because of the activity of the ALU and the work that Chris Smalls and others are doing to organize other Amazon facilities. Amazon only recently raised wages in the front-line jobs to “an average of $19 across the country”. It is crucial for us to recognize this; that Amazon raised wages of its front-line workers throughout the nation by one to two dollars an hour as a direct result of the union activity in its plants as well as in other workplaces like Starbucks. It did it at a cost of some $1 billion just to to keep unions out.

 

I think most workers, including many that have rejected union organizing drives like the four-time rejection at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga Tennessee, do so because they are well aware of the brutality of the bosses’ not because they are anti-union. They know what they will face if they vote yes on a union. If the union involved cannot respond to the bosses’ retaliation and threats with some real power, mass picketing, shutting down or slowing production, turning out thousands of supporters in response to victimization  rather than filing NLRB charges or asking some Democratic politician for help, the workers will not risk the consequences and take the safest route out.

 

One woman at the ALBI facility who voted no, told the Wall Street Journal that “….she wasn’t convinced the union could deliver better pay and benefits.” . Why would she not feel this way? The. Trade union leadership whose policy is concessions, has failed the 14 million members in organized labor to the point that union workers have to work more than one job to survive. Wages, benefits and union power on the job is being eroded with the support of the present hierarchy at the helm of the AFL-CIO, all in order to defend capitalism and the market. Seeing the organizations they lead as employment agencies with themselves as the CEO’s, when capitalism goes in to crisis their immediate response is to “save the business”, bail it out at the expense of their own members’ living standards and power on the job.

 

Here in California we are more than three months in to contract talks between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) that represents employers like terminal operators and shipping lines. The ILWU represents the workers on the docks of the West Coast from the Mexican border to Canada and the potential power of the ILWU and the port workers is considerable as 40% of cargo containers that enter the US come through the Longbeach and Los Angeles hubs. California is the 5^th largest economy in the world with a GDP of about $3.5 trillion close to 15% of the US total so a strike by the ILWU could cripple the US economy and curtail profit taking for a while.

 

Yet we hear almost nothing about this dispute. The reason for this blackout in the mass media is the leadership of the ILWU has ensured the bosses and the Biden Administration that there will be no strike, or lockout and the post pandemic economy will not be threatened. Both sides have pledged to keep port operations moving according to some reports in the media. I have heard that there is a bit of s stumbling block over some issues but what an opportunity this could be.

 

As I write I believe dock workers, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) that represents workers on the East Coast, the Great Lakes and some other water ways, are threatening to strike at the Mobile Docks in Alabama.  I saw on the ILA website that this union promised “Full Solidarity and Support” to the dockworkers that were on strike in Felixtsowe in the UK.  But these are just empty phrases. Full support from one group of workers to another means not handling goods that hurt others. It means challenging and violating anti-union laws and not limiting demands to those that effect only the workers on strike.

 

The two maritime unions alone could transform the situation in the US and the balance of class forces. The 14 million members of organized labor in the US could be mobilized, links built with the unorganized and low waged that are stirring at the moment and setting roots deep in to our communities linking organized labor with the housing, transportation, health care and other struggles that are present throughout the country but are all left to confront US capital, and indeed, global capitalism alone. Industrial unionism came about in the US by violating the law, though mass action, occupations and the Civil Rights movement that followed used the same tactics. We must not lose sight of the fact that unions were illegal and were only accepted after mass action and breaking laws.

 

We know the present leadership of organized labor will not take this route as they are wedded to the Team Concept and the so-called free market. Chris Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union and leading figures in the efforts to organize Starbucks like Laila Dalton and other non-union workplaces like Apple Corp, were not invited to the AFL-CIO Convention in June despite organizing new members being an item on the Agenda. That says it all.

 

After a few years of telling “essential workers” what heroes they are and lavishing constant praise on those workers who for years have been treated like dirt, underpaid and overworked, we are witnessing an upsurge in activity particularly in the low waged sector. It will not be easy to put this genie back in the bottle.

But the bosses’ are responding with both the carrot and the stick and will not yield easily.

 

We learn through the struggle for reforms. The movement that is growing across the country will discover that relying on capitalist institutions, the courts, the NLRB, or the Democratic Party and its agents within organized labor has limits. Relying on our own strength as workers. Building an independent mass movement of all workers, union and non-union, linking with our communities and other workers internationally, and ultimately building a political party of our own is what will clear the path to a secure future for all.

Labor: Scranton Teachers Strike and Media Bias.

 

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED HEO

 

Trump talked about "fake News" all the time. Now, being the degenerate slumlord and all round con-man that he is, he used the term opportunistically. But he is right that the news is biased. The mass media has a class bias.  Four of five major companies and the parasites that invest in them control, the news media.

 

We have heard very little about the teachers and educators strike taking place in Scranton Pennsylvania. Scranton is the birthplace of Joe Biden, the man who most of the top officials of organized labor call, "Labor's man in the White House".

 

I thought I would check in to it after reading about it in a small column in the Wall Street Journal and found this report from PA News which is I believe an NBC affiliate. This report on the strike spends more time on the students than the teachers. The reason for this is it wants to garner our support; wants us to blame the teachers for their irresponsible action to withdraw their labor; wants us to feel sorry for the poor students missing out on their education. The same forces that are destroying the public school system and savaging workers’ living standards especially those who teach our children, are feigning concern about children affected by a work stoppage.

 

The interviewer talks to a teacher who explains in a very balanced and calm way why they are on strike. I have been on strike and it is not a decision workers make easily as it is extremely destructive and damaging to our families and financial lives.

 

The interviewer moves immediately from the teacher to the impact the strike has on the students and the effect this strike will have on their learning. This class traitor, then says that these questions, about the impact of the strike on students, "were not directly answered."

 

The entire report is an example of class bias and propaganda by the capitalist mass media. The Scranton teachers have not had a contract for several years.  The Scranton school District has lost 113 teachers and paraprofessionals to other districts over the past two years and like nurses, another seriously abused group of "essential" workers, they are leaving this underpaid, and disrespected profession in droves.

 

The Superintendent of the school District, Melissa McTiernan even admits that the district agrees with the union regarding pay: "Teachers’ starting salaries aren’t where they should be”, she told the media. Then what she is in reality is an agent of big business, capitalism and corporate America who serves on a school board. If she agrees with the teachers, she should refuse to carry out the cuts and offer and alternative, but beyond that, she should use use her position to build a wider movement to bring about a victory for the teachers.

 

The district, which serves more than 9,000 students, says it doesn’t have the money to meet all the demands but this is old news. We have heard this from time immemorial. The defense (more appropriately offense) budget has plenty of money in it.

 

A statement by the school district claims: “Since negotiations began five years ago, the District has put forward several increasingly generous offers, including the one made tonight. In contrast, the SFT has not amended its original 2017 position in any meaningful way, choosing to increase its list of demands while refusing to cede ground on any issue.”

 

But workers in general and teachers in particular have already given enough. They already spend their own money on school supplies and work beyond the eight hour day without overtime pay.

 

As I have commented on earlier, we are seeing an uptick in workers struggles in the wake of the pandemic. The conditions are such that labor is tight and coupled with this, we have been told how we are heroes and “essential” workers.  While it is good to take opportunity of market forces like supply and demand to fight for gains, we must reject the idea that we demand and fight for what we need depending on market conditions otherwise we accept concessions when economic times are bad (for capitalists and Wall Street).

 

There are strikes and protests throughout the country. Ten Thousand workers at John Deere have just rejected a contract for the second time. Workers at a Volvo plant rejected a contract three times and only voted for it by a narrow margin the forth time their employer friendly leadership brought it back to them (by 17 votes).

 

Two years ago we experienced one of the major labor revolts in 30 years when teachers and educators struck or protested their conditions in mostly right to work states making major gains. This movement shook the employers but also the labor hierarchy who are pro-market and wedded to the Team Concept which argues that employers and workers have the same economic interests, a philosophy most workers know is nonsense. If this were so we wouldn’t need unions. These battles from West Virginia to Arizona, were fought in opposition to the established trade union hierarchy.

 

The Scranton teachers belong to the American Federation of Teachers, affiliated to the AFL-CIO, the national trade union body with 12 million members. With the Change To Win Coalition, there are 14 million of us in the trade unions in the US. As the strike wave stirs around Scranton there is no effort on the part of the AFT leadership (who have just undermined teachers struggles in Puerto Rico, to unite all these battles in one united movement. The bosses' are united. They have the courts, the police the media (just watch that video above) and yet workers like the Scranton teacher and others, John Deere for example, are left to fight against what amounts to global capitalism alone. We cannot win that way.

 

Lessons of Labor History

The reason the heads of organized labor refuse to bring the potential power of organized labor to the table is that in the last analysis they support the employers. They have the same world view as the boss. So when capitalism goes in to crisis, when people like the Scranton school Superintendant says there is no money they accept this and then move to bail them out, at their own members and all workers expense of course. This is the bigger picture and the root of our problem that we must change. It has its origins in labor history.

 

We wrote on this blog:
As the last century drew to a close, the Wall Street Journal produced a centennial edition. This included a segment titled - "Events that Helped Shape the Country". It explained that in 1893 there was an economic slump that left half the membership of what was then the main union federation, the American Federation of Labor (AFL), unemployed. The AFL was composed overwhelmingly of craft unions (skilled trades).  Samuel Gompers was the leader of that federation. Under his leadership, and against the background of that economic slump, the AFL made a decision as to what its general policy should be towards U.S. capitalism.

Here is how the Wall Street Journal reported this decision. "The AFL led by Samuel Gompers votes against adopting socialist reform programs....Gompers believes that U.S. labor should work with capitalism, not against it, and that the AFL’s  proper concerns are wages and hours and better working conditions".

 

Take note, this is the statement from the main public voice of US capitalism, of the employers, as it looked back over the previous century at what were the "events that helped shape the country". This is no small deal. This public voice of US capitalism saw that the decision of the trade union leaders over 100 years ago, "helped shape the country", that is, the United States we all live in today.  The bosses, the employers, U.S. capitalism, speaking here through their most important public journal, recognize the importance of the decision taken by the trade union leaders of the time to "work with capitalism, not against it".

 

Quoted from: "Work With Capitalism, Not Against It". Why the Labor Leadership Surrenders to the Bosses

 

Lastly, here is a video that explains the situation in Scranton but I have not had the opportunity to watch it at the moment. I am hoping it does offer some useful information form the workers' side.

Puerto Rico: AFT Leadership Agrees To Further Attacks on Educators

2017: Puerto Rico teachers demand the reopening of closed schools

 

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444,retied
GED/HEO

 

In 2016, the US Congress passed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). Part of the Act was the creation of the Federal Oversight Board to manage Puerto Rico’s debt crisis The scenario is very similar to the IMF’s Structural Adjustments Programs it imposes on developing nations that become so overwhelmed by debt they can’t function. Structural adjustment’s are actually austerity programs; cut public services, public spending, wages benefits and so on. If they refuse due to social pressure perhaps, there will be a strike of capital and other resources by foreign investors.

 

Like these Structural Adjustment programs, Puerto Rico’s Federal Oversight Board has immense power backed by US Congress and its goal is to shift the burden of capitalist crisis on to the backs of Puerto Rico’s workers and the poor. Puerto Rico’s public sector is a major target and there have been huge struggles against this imposed austerity by teachers in particular. The Oversight board has the authority over “the prompt enforcement of any applicable laws of the covered territory prohibiting public sector employees from participating in a strike or lockout”. It’s clear to even the most casual observer that the US Congress sees Puerto Rico just like any other colonial possession.

 

Over 40% of PR’s labor force is unionized and teachers have been in the forefront of the resistance to the Oversight Board’s aggressive austerity agenda. Back in 2018 as teachers’ in West Virginia, Arizona and other Right to Work States were showing how strikes can be won, members of the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union (FMPR) were brutalized by police as they protested school closures, layoffs, cuts in pensions.

 

The FMPR has some 5000 members as the government decertified the FMPR after they struck in 2008 and removed members. They disaffiliated from the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO) back in 2005. The Puerto Rico Teachers Association Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, (AMPR) is the remaining AFT affiliate.

 

Mercedes Martinez is the president of the independent FMPR and reported today that the AFT/AMPR is in negotiations with the Oversight Board and “bargained to cut teachers pensions and increase retirement age to 63.”

 

She has appealed to members of the AFT affiliate and members of the AFT throughout the US to “stand with teachers in Puerto Rico and call out on Randi Weingarten and her treason to our teachers.”  

 

Treason

Facts For Working People encourages our readers to help in any way you can. However, what sister Mercedes refers to as “treason” is the norm among the leadership of organized labor. We saw it in the Machinists dispute with Boeing a few years ago. It occurs in the UAW, the ILWU, the Teamsters. Randi Weingarten is no different to any other president of a national union and you can bet your bottom dollar that the AFT Executive Council is on board with this betrayal; you have to be “realistic” is the usual refrain. It’s a euphemism for concessions.

 

The entire leadership of organized labor supports the Team Concept, the view that workers and bosses’ interests are the same; we’re on the same team. So when capitalism goes in to crisis like it is and has in PR, they move to bail it out and naturally, the dues paying member pays the price in reduced wages benefits and/or jobs.  We must reject this philosophy if we are to turn the tide as Sister Martinez and the Puerto Rican Teachers Union has. But they need help.

Back in 2017, AFT President Randi Weingarten and the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico President Aida Díaz de Rodriguez sent a letter to the Oversight Board informing them of the, “harmful impact of the deep education cuts over the past decade and the devastating consequences additional proposed reductions would have on students and Puerto Rico’s future.” They even invited the board to come to the schools and, “see firsthand how the cuts have affected Puerto Rico’s schools and children.”

 

Are we expected to think that these top labor officials actually think the members of this capitalist austerity board do not know the effect their policies will have on their victims? That’s an insult.

 

As they always do, in efforts to cover their asses, Weingarten added, “We are standing in solidarity with teachers in Puerto Rico as they demand an end to the destructive cuts that their education system has endured.”

 

Well, that didn’t have too much of an impact as she is now agreeing to further attacks on her members living standards

 

But she is “standing with solidarity” with them as she does it you see.

 

We can have our position on whether a union should disaffiliate or stay when it comes to the point where we cannot continue to go backwards and the leadership appears so entrenched. But we cannot avoid  a fight; the bosses' won't allow it. All workers, union or not should support a union and leaders like Sister Martinez that are willing to go on the offensive.

 

Sister Martinez is asking members of AFT/AMPR to vote no on this agreement that would be crucial as a yes vote would undermine all workers in PR And if other AFT members are able to, introduce a solidarity statement with the teachers in Puerto Rico to your local or write one individually.

 

But that alone is not enough. Sister Martinez and others in the leadership of the Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union clearly have a more militant approach and rather than write a letter here or a phone call there, have looked to the power of the rank and file and direct action as opposed to class collaboration. We can use the courts but we can’t rely on them. There were significant struggles in Puerto Rico between unionized truckers and the Oversight Board recently as well; as the old saying goes, An Injury to One is and Injury to All

 

Randi Weingarten and “her” executive board as that’s probably what it is, will not be swayed by appeals to decency, but they can be moved if the members of the AFT Affiliate in PR vote no and significant numbers of AFT members in the mainland make it clear they will not sit idly by and allow it.