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

Source: Chattanooga Times

Richard Mellor

Affscme Local 444 retired
HEO/GED

2-12-26

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

A Payday Report article about Brooks firing at the UAW 

Don’t books make the sweetest holiday gifts?

Enjoy a free book with your holiday shopping. In the spirit of the upcoming holidays (including Thanksgiving!), Hard Ball & Little Heroes Press is giving away one book for every three books purchased.   For the adult books, you will receive a Lenny Moss shop steward detective book, (which received glowing reviews in Library Journal & PW).   For the children’s books, you will receive a copy of the bilingual Polar Bear Pete’s Ice Is Melting!   Please head to the Hard Ball Press web site and look the titles over, we have everything from novels, memoirs, labor histories, union organizing tools and story collections by nursing home and by community college students.   We have wonderful bilingual English-Spanish children’s books, and one in English & Korean!   Whatever you do, share the love and find a peaceful place to dwell for a time, you deserve it.   In solidarity, Timothy Sheard, editor Reflections to keep your spirits hopeful. Workers standing up for justice. Written in the trenches of a NY ICU. A beautiful story of a Maya village where they nourish the forest and keep their love of the natural world alive. A sweet Christmas story for labor that will touch your heart and make you smile. A young girl and her dad make a dangerous journey in search of a better life. Hard Ball & Little Heroes Press 415 Argyle Rd., 6A Brooklyn, NY 11218 917 428 1352 info@hardballpress.com

 

The Brutal US Prison System. Prisoners Must Have the Right To Organize

Source: ACLU (Screenshot)

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

GED/HEO

6-17-22

 

It is widely known that the US imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world. Two thirds of these prisoners almost 800,000 people according to a new report from the U.S. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), also function as workers. This has been a contentious issue within organized labor although, like every other important issue in society, the labor hierarchy does next to nothing to combat it.

 

Workers in prisons are denied basic rights afforded the rest of the population.  The brutal US prison industrial complex is as secretive as the US military where workers in uniform are also denied many rights the rest of us have. The 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution protects against slavery and involuntary servitude but, as the report points out, “….explicitly excludes from its reach those held in confinement due to a criminal conviction. The roots of modern prison labor can be found in the ratification of this exception clause at the end of the Civil War, which disproportionately encouraged the criminalization and effective re-enslavement of Black people during the Jim Crow era, with impacts that persist to this day.”

 

The ACLU report points out that these, “…..incarcerated workers, produce more than $2 billion per year in goods and more than $9 billion per year in services for the maintenance of the prisons. Once incarcerated, workers are excluded from minimum wage, safety and other labor laws, they are denied the right to unionize. Here in California, we have seen how important incarcerated workers’ are during fire season as many of those that fight the increasing number of wildfires that are a product of climate change, are prisoners. A total of 14 states use prisoners in this capacity, the report says.

 

Prisoners are forced to work for next to nothing----13 to 52 cents an hour and it comes as no surprise that seven southern states, renowned for the brutal exploitation of prison labor, historically, in particular when it comes to the black population, pay no wages at all.

 

The pandemic has also had a devastating effect on the incarcerated with more than 3000 dying, “…..due to overcrowding, lack of access to virus mitigating tools like masks and vaccines, and inadequate access to health care.” Some 16 US states denied them early access to vaccines the report says.

 

Faced with the increased efforts by the mostly young unorganized workers at places like Starbucks and Amazon, the labor hierarchy has been forced to pay lip service to this movement. We have seen some of the leaders of this movement being photographed with established union bureaucrats and some have made comments here and there. On twitter, a “like” here and there from established union officials, Sara Nelson of the flight attendants’ union for example, has accompanied tweets from Amazon and Starbucks activists, but there has been no serious effort on the part of the labor hierarchy to mobilize the potential power of organized labor’s 14 million members and link the organized with the unorganized in a serious offensive against capital.

 

The organized working class must demand that the incarcerated and workers in the military have rights afforded the rest of us, rights workers fought hard for over a couple of centuries. In particular, the right to unionize. The ACLU report explains that prisoners that refuse to work are subject to punishments that include loss of family visits, denial of sentence reductions and even solitary confinement. Every worker should be conscious of this brutality and if in a union, take the issue up with your co-workers and get your local to take a position. We need to make this an issue. Incarcerated workers are among the most vulnerable of our class with the least rights. Not surprisingly, the bosses will not be averse to using them against us when we go on strike, just as they do with workers in the military. Fighting to expand rights we have to those of us in prison and in the military will strengthen us in our day to day battles against the capitalist offensive and the destruction of our wages, benefits and standard of living in general.

 

I am not naïve enough to expect the trade union hierarchy to take action on this disgraceful situation as even going on the offensive on behalf of their own members is avoided. The union officialdom, is fully aware of the tremendous potential power of their own members and are terrified of it and the idea that the Democratic Party will step to the plate is sheer fantasy.  But labor’s rank and file and all activists fighting on any fronts, must take these issues up. It is in our best interests to do so.

 

The ACLU report can be read here.

Amazon Heads to The Safety of The Courts To Reverse ALU Victory

Union organizer Christian Smalls (center, in red) celebrates as he speaks following a vote for the unionization of the Amazon Staten Island warehouse in New York City, United States. Photo: Andrea Renault/ AFP Source

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO

4-27-22

 

In previous commentaries I wrote about the success of the workers at the Staten Island Amazon facility and their union, the Amazon Labor Union. I stressed that this is a very positive development for the US working class as is the increasing trend toward unionization among the unorganized workers. These developments have the potential to transform the balance of class forces in the US and introduce a new era for US workers but, as I wrote before, there are real dangers.

 

Winning an NLRB election is just the beginning and as I wrote on April 12^th, “Amazon can institute court action to challenge the legitimacy of the election itself and use other legal avenues. During this time of course, the company will have a massive in-house anti-union campaign using threats, coercion and treats and hopefully force another election. Amazon could refuse to negotiate at all which could force the NLRB to file a complaint that the company would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.”.

 

This is standard practice in these situations and knowing this, learning it from history, it is important to stress that workers cannot rely on the courts, so-called labor friendly politicians, or the Democratic Party that is a home to many of them; they write all the laws. Unions were built by relying on our own strength and using the only power that we have that works, our ability to withdraw our labor power and shut down production.

 

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is a capitalist institution, a governmental panel that was a result of the Wagner Act of 1935, more commonly known as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRB is governed by a five-person panel with its own legal counsel. All of the participants are appointed by the US president and have to be confirmed by the US Senate; it is a tightly controlled bourgeois body staffed by representatives of corporate America. The standard explanation as to why the US government was so generous in passing the NLRA at all was to make it easier for the US working class to form and belong to trade unions in the face of decades of employer resistance and violence. The lie is that it was created by the state to aid workers.

 

President “worker Joe” Biden, who most top labor officials claim is a good union man, stressed this point last year saying, that since the  NLRA, “….the policy of the federal government has been to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining, not to merely allow or tolerate them.”  

 

Why would the most ruthless, violent ruling class in history “encourage” workers to form unions if it wasn’t in their interest to do so? After all, only 60 years or so prior to the NLRA, workers even discussing such an idea could be charged with conspiracy and could be tried in a court of law and not by a jury of their peers as there were property qualifications required to sit on juries.

 

In order to understand any social event it is useful to scrutinize the objective conditions under which they arise. In 1934, one year prior to the NLRA legislation, there were three general strikes in the US. The dock workers of San Francisco struck in a move that led to the institution of the hiring hall system that undermined the power of the shipping bosses over hiring. There was the Toledo Auto-lite Strike where AJ Muste, a radical Dutch minister organized the unemployed undermining the bosses’ efforts to hire strikebreakers. And the 1934 Teamsters strike in Minneapolis that successfully organized truck drivers and the working-class community against the anti-union trucking bosses. An excellent account of this strike can be found in Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs.  A chapter covering all three of these strikes is in Art Preis’ account of the rise of the CIO, Labor’s Giant Step. There are many other sources but I found these very inspiring.

 

In these three strikes there were pitched battles in the streets with the national Guard and the police, some 40,000 in downtown Minneapolis and in all three, workers were killed.  Even earlier, in response to the great Depression that hit in 1929, there were strikes, riots, and the Communist Party organized rent strikes and homeless protests. The legislation passed in this period, and what is known as the New Deal, was a response to the rising militancy of the US working class, its independent nature and the influence of communists, socialists, anarchist and other radical movements that were threatening capitalism and profit taking. The NLRA and the NLRB as part of it, was intended to take the movement from the workplaces and streets in to the courts and legislative bodies that capital controls. The same approach was used in response to the Civil Rights movement and the Black Revolt of the 1950’s and 60’s.

 

In response to the ALU victory in Staten Island, Amazon is making use of the institutions capital creates that can derail union drives and at least give bosses more time to threaten, coerce and fire union supporters, namely, the NLRB. In this case Amazon is not simply challenging the validity of the election as I mention above, it is challenging the intent of the board itself. It is claiming that the NLRB is not neutral but biased in favor of the unions and this was not the intent of the NLRA. It’s forcing “their” justice system to determine whether the NLRB’s role is to “advocate for unionization or to enforce the National Labor Relations Act neutrally”. Amazon Takes On the Labor Board, Wall Street Journal 4-26-22

 

Amazon claims that the NLRB’s actions prevented “….a, free and fair election”.

 

We should not fool ourselves here, we are not in agreement with the labor officials who claim victory when they get employers to sign neutrality agreements or promote the capitalist parties or institutions as favorable to workers; this does not mean we never the courts or the law, we just don’t depend on it. Neutrality agreements disarm the worker or our unions not the boss. The boss is never neutral nor should we be, we have different class interests. And we should not fool ourselves in to thinking the courts or the NLRB can defend the interests of the US working class.

 

I went here to read more about the Wagner Act  and it says with reference to workers’ rights that the Act guarantees us:

“the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.”

 

As with all social gains, the massive upsurge after the 1929 depression forced the politicians of capitalism to recognize our right to organize, they simply wrote in legal code, rights already we had already exercised through our own independent, and more often than not “illegal” activity.

 

However, the NLRA also states: 

It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection.

 

And there is the catch. We are allowed to engage in concerted activities as long as commerce and trade (economic activity therefore profits) is not obstructed. The NLRA and its board is there to protect business and profits. We all witness this when injunctions are brought against strikes the minute they appear to be effective or harmful to the economy. This comes up every few years during transit strikes here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

The NLRB is about as useful as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) when it comes to protecting workers from injury or sickness on the job. OSHA by the way was opposed on the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest and most powerful gang in the US. A strike that hinders commerce, disrupts profit taking, is terrorism as far as the owners of capital are concerned and their courts will uphold that. They want us to bargain like gentlemen and women over the few crumbs we are thrown from capitalism’s table. To ensure this is process works is the purpose of the NLRB.

 

This legal manoeuvring suits the present heads of organized labor to a T. Rather than allowing Amazon to use the courts to give it time to work on its employees, the union hierarchy could be bringing the power of 14 million members in to the fray linking with the new fresh layers fighting for the future. We know they won’t do this of course though they have the resources to do so. Historically, their whole orientation as this blog as stressed before is to “work with capitalism not against it”. We witness this when the union hierarchy calls for a “cooling off” period in the middle of a strike that looks like it might hurt the business. Who calls for the troops to “cool off” in the heat of a battle they look like they might be winning?

 

But this doesn’t mean if we are a member of a union, we do nothing. Sarah Nelson, the leader of the Association of Flight Attendants CWA- AFL-CIO has raised the issue of a General Strike more than once apparently. The Vermont AFL-CIO called for a General Strike in support of Joe Biden when Trump suggested he might not leave office if he lost the election.

 

Those of us that have been active in the labor movement for any period of time know this is simply hot air. Walter Johnson former president of the Retail Clerks Local 1100, then head of the San Francisco Labor Council, talked of the need for a General Strike on many occasions but never used his position as a prominent labor leader to make it happen, just the opposite.

 

Now we have a new leadership of the Teamsters union, a coalition that includes the Teamsters For a Democratic Union (TDU) that it describes as “militant”.

 

The very least that any active member can do is discuss this situation in the workplace and introduce a resolution at the local level. We can raise the General Strike and the importance of building it as it has been thrown around of late. We can point to the huge army of full-time staff organized labor has that can organize visits to workplaces and unions around the country instead of carrying out the concessionary policies of the hierarchy, organizing rallies to prepare and setting a date for a one-day work stoppage for starters.  Activity like this can also be part of building a rank and file caucus at the shop floor/local union level.

 

Resolutions or appeals demanding leaders of the organized labor movement, the AFL-CIO and Change to Win groups, build stronger links with the AWU and the Starbucks workers and offer them the resources that the heads of organized labor have at their disposal can help to raise these important issues forcing debate and discussion in the workplaces and union halls.

 

Many union members have given up, they think that the leadership cannot be moved or removed but history shows otherwise; either way, we should not abandon the struggle against the union hierarchy for the consciousness of the membership. It is the duty of every serious activist to counter their concessionary policies and build an alternative.

 

It is not an easy task but it is a necessary one on the road to transforming the relationship between organized workers and the bosses.

 

We know that the entrenched bureaucracy atop organized labor will resist taking any such action and instead point to the courts and the NLRB, so they can blame them for their own failings. “We need to get more pro-labor folks on the NLRB”, they will argue, but workers don’t get to choose the members of the NLRB, the bosses’ politicians do.

 

There are many locals where the hierarchy has less influence and that becomes somewhat secondary. Pointing out a way forward, making the arguments for it, explaining the dangers of the NLRB trap and the importance of relying instead on our own strength is what matters. In other words where we have the ability to lead we should. Where we don’t, we can help clarify where the obstacle lies and help overcome the dominant view among so many workers that we can’t change things, that nothing can be done. The AWU victory at Amazon and gains at non-union workplaces like Starbucks are small but important steps that prove otherwise.

 

Further reading

Amazon Labor Union Victory Also Brings Dangers

Amazon Workers’ Union Can Usher in a New Era

Chicago Teachers Union Declares War on Whistle Blowers

Facts For Working People shares this commentary from Second City Teachers Blog

CTU Cancel Culture Declares War on Whistle Blowers & Those Who Question

By Jim Vail

Lindblom High School teacher Drew Heiserman
and long-time Core member and leader is about to be canceled.

The Chicago Teachers Union and its Core leadership team does not like free speech, whistle blowers or those who ask serious questions.

So they cancel them, in the spirit of cancel culture.

Drew Heiserman, a Core member who has been with the group since it began, is the latest victim.

The CTU executive board member and former Core steering committee member has been brought up on charges by the Core leadership team of harassment for asking questions about a recent pension election. 

While the outcome has yet to be determined, Core has demonstrated a pattern of ousting members in key positions who dare to blow a whistle or question what the leadership is doing.

I was kicked off the Political Action Committee because I didn't agree with the political agenda that aligned itself closely with the Democratic Party. Reggie O'Connor, who chaired the legislative committee was also booted from her position for asking questions the union did not like when it came to making certain political endorsements.

I asked CTU President Jesse Sharkey about this at a House of Delegates meeting and he said that the union will remove members from committees if they feel they are obstructing the work of the committee.

Former CTU field rep Joey McDermott questioned why certain union employees were involved in political campaigning when they were working on the union's dime. He was brought up on charges of misconduct and dismissed. McDermott filed a grievance to win his job back, charging the union with firing a whistle blower.

"I have filed four grievances specially alleging harassment, retaliation and/or discriminatory treatment," he wrote. "My alleged conduct was related to incidents while I reported illegal and/or ethical conduct. CTU staff campaigning for elected officials on work time."

McDermott said over 200 people wrote letters on his behalf to be reinstated. He is currently teaching in high school.

When it comes to disciplining recalcitrant Core members, getting canceled happens more often than not. Earl Silbar was an associate member who pointed out the sell out the Core leadership engineered with SB7 that took away teachers' seniority rights. His criticism led the CTU Executive Board to issue a resolution denouncing the union's position on SB7. 

Earl was ousted.

Former Substance Editor George Schmidt, who has always been critical of union leadership while editing a muckraking newspaper for over 30 years, worked as a consultant to the union when Core was first elected in 2010. 

He too was brought up on certain charges for questioning the leadership and was about to be kicked out until a groundswell of support generated from many black teachers prevented Core was kicking him out.

Free speech is particularly not welcome, especially if you attend any official union meetings.

Former President Karen Lewis used to say, "Loose Lips Sink Ships," implying that teachers should keep their mouths shut when they attend delegates meeting or else they will cause harm for the union. That message rings loud and clear at almost every delegates meeting, where any of the officers will tell delegates to not say anything outside the meeting (unless it's in a closed room in their school building?). 

Core founder Jackson Potter implemented this strategy of attacking whistle blowers and warning teachers not to speak about what is discussed in union meetings. Before Core was elected union leaders never told teachers to keep their mouths shut.

Heiserman has been a member of CORE since 2008 when he served on the leadership team or Steering Committee. He was also the former editor of CORE Issues and chair of the CTU Public Relations and Communications Committee for 8 years. He was also a CTU Trustee who overlooks the union's finances and today serves as a CTU Area Vice President.

"I didn't (and still don't) trust the process because it is rooted in an attempt to punish me for being a whistleblower," he wrote in a letter to Core.

Heiserman questioned the allegations of "harassment" and "discrimination" against him when he did not name any Core members who complained. Core has a policy that reads: "No CORE member may harass or discriminate against anyone on the basis - real or perceived - of race, religion, creed, ethnicity, age, disability, gender presentation or expression, or sexual orientation.

"What justification does the Steering Committee have for using inflammatory rhetoric like 'unsubstantiated gossip and false accusations,'" he wrote.

Heiserman fears a smear campaign will be the next step taken to oust him completely.

Teachers have complained that they have been kicked off the CTU Members Facebook page. Certainly, those who control the medium control the message, and if they feel certain comments go against what the union is fighting for, then they can just pull the plug.

It was done with President Trump when the attack on Capitol Hill led to Twitter shutting down his account.

CTU communications director Ronnie Reese, who monitors the CTU social media pages, said to quote the late Karen Lewis - does it unify us? Does it make us stronger? 

If not, off with their heads!

Ironically, this is the same argument Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her big business sponsors make to argue against having an elected school board. There would be too much fighting among various interests.

Does the union know what's best for its members, and those who disagree should just keep their mouths shut?

Another teachers caucus named Members First would disagree. 

Second City Teachers will talk to them next about what it means to have alternative voices unedited and uncensored.