Editorial: what will a Burnham leadership mean?

L Keir Starmer R Andy Burnham

From the UK Socialist Website Left Horizons

Editorial: what will a Burnham leadership mean?

24 June 2026Posted by Editor

Short of an unexpected natural disaster, it looks like Andy Burnham will be Labour leader and new Prime Minister, perhaps be the end of July. Labour conference looks like being a coronation, there being little likelihood of any right-wing opposition to Burnham from the parliamentary Labour Party, most of whom are only too happy for a chance to salvage their political careers under a new leader.

Before considering the implications of Burnham ascendancy, it is worth noting that he will be the seventh Prime Minister in ten years – a record for the British capitalism state and one that marks it out as the least stable in western Europe in recent times. Moreover, the dumping of a Labour Prime Minister, less than two years into the parliament has never happened before in more than a century of Labour history.

Starmer’s resignation speech was a master-class in self-righteousness, lies and hypocrisy. He claimed to have inherited a party “that was politically, financially and morally bankrupt”. In fact Labour was the biggest party is western Europe, awash with money from its membership dues. Starmer squandered this money on pointless litigations over alleged antisemitism.

As for “morally” bankruptcy, Starmer glossed over ditching his “ten pledges” as soon as he was elected, and the tens of thousands of pounds-worth of “gifts” he received from rich backers immediately on coming into office. And there was no greater absence of morality in helping empower Netanyahu in his genocidal attack on the people of Gaza.

The key question that faces socialists

The key question that faces socialists today is this: to what extent will the Labour Party revive under Andy Burnham? If the Labour Party is pretty much a moribund organisation now, with few activists and largely demoralised or  quiescent membership – not to mention the plague of CLP suspensions and closures – will it revive again in the future, and will it once again, a place where real socialist ideas can be aired and get a hearing? The answer to that, as we will explain, is a heavily qualified‘yes’. Qualified, only because the scale of change and the pace of change are impossible to predict.

There is a spectrum of opinion on the left as to what difference Burnham will make. On one end of the spectrum is the Marathon to Snickers view: the name and wrapper was changed, but the content was exactly the same. On the other end of the spectrum, some on the left think that Burnham will ‘save’ the Labour Party from a defeat at the hands of Reform. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but where precisely it lies on that spectrum remains to be seen.

In times of social and economic crises, class conflicts and struggles are sharpened to a higher degree, through strikes, demonstrations, occupations and even riots. As economic uncertainties and insecurities intensify, so also do political reactions to them. But clash of opposing class interests is always reflected inside the labour movement – in the trade unions and the Labour Party – in the form of more bitter and angry conflict between left and right, over what is the correct course of action.

Such is the period that is opening up at the present time. We can more or less identify the pressures that will be put on Andy Burnham from both right and left, once he takes the keys of Ten Downing Street.

The worst Parliamentary Labour Party in its history

Burnham will be under the sway of a Parliamentary Labour Party which is the worst in the Labour Party’s entire history – nine-tenths of ‘Labour’ MPs with little connection to working class people, and out only to further their own careers and prestige.

Burnham, let us remember, has been adopted by the PLP right wing as the only hope of saving their careers. Josh Simons, who stood down as Makerfield MP to let Burnham stand, is an arch right-winger. He was the director of Labour Together, that toxic factional organisation that spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and then promote Starmer for the leadership. (See analysis of that by-election, here)

Much of the huge sums of money given to Labour Together was illegal – not declared to the Electoral Commission, for which the organisation was fined – but as director, Josh Simons spent tens of thousands more to put private detectives onto the journalists who were researching that illegality. (On this, see the excellent book Fraud, by Paul Holden).

This PLP of carpet-baggers and chancers only want Burnham to save their necks. But in the process, they will also push him towards ‘moderation’ and against too much ‘radicalism’ – like the rest of Labour’s right-wing, they have no understanding of real politics and their political horizons cannot see beyond the capitalist system.

In pushing from the right, the PLP will be backed up by the media and the establishment in general, including the civil service, the judiciary and the defence procurement monopolies who want to make billions more in profit from an expanded defence budget.

The biggest of these pressures on Burnham, however, will be the insistent and remorseless pressure of the market system itself. Over recent months, even the smallest threat of Starmer’s resignation led to the bond markets being in a panic, pushing up interest rates. There is a constant threat from this quarter that ‘unfunded’ government expenditure will lead to a massive rise in interest rates – as happened under the ill-fated premiership of Liz Truss – and an economic crisis.

The imperatives of capitalism – more austerity

The consensus in all the representative journals of capitalism – like the Financial Times and the Economist – is that there need to be strict controls on government expenditure and that increased spending on defence comes out of spending on welfare. For capitalism, these policies are an imperative.

These, therefore, will constitute the pressures that will push Andy Burnham in the direction of the Marathon/Snickers metaphor – a new label, but the same confectionary underneath. In response to hints about public spending, Burnham has already been making some suggestions that he will abide by the same ‘fiscal rules’ – ie limit public spending – as has Rachel Reeves.

But on the other hand, what will be different for Burnham, as compared to Starmer, is that expectations are different. Burnham has been catapulted into high office precisely because there is a perception within the labour movement that he will represent working class people better. To some extent, although often vaguely, he has articulated the needs of working class people – for example, by talking about “forty years of failed neo-liberalism” and the need for public ownership of utilities.

Most trade union leaders, with a few honourable exceptions, cravenly supported Keir Starmer heaving the Labour Party to the right. With the assistance of the then general secretary, David Evans, the left was attacked mercilessly. Labour conferences – with the support of right-wing union leaders – backed constitutional changes that shifted the balance of power to the right wing. Corbyn was isolated and not allowed to stand. MPs were suspended for supporting measures like abolition of the two-child benefit cap (a measure Starmer was eventually dragging kicking and screaming into doing away with) and thousands of members were expelled or walked away.

For the 2024 general election, scores of right-wing candidates were parachuted into seats over the heads and usually against the wishes of local party members, and all of this was accepted by most of the trade union reps on Labour’s NEC.

TULO showing signs of life

That may no longer be the case, however. The organisation of affiliated trade union members, TULO, has so much clout in the Party and on the NEC that it could lift its little finger and make the Party leadership jump. They are supposed to represent four million affiliated members but in the Starmer years, TULO misrepresented them.

Now, however, TULO seems to be waking up. In its recent statement it said, in part, “Labour’s affiliated unions are deeply concerned by the Party’s catastrophic election results. They show a stark disconnect between this Labour Government and the working people.”

How can it be otherwise? The trade union leaders understand – even though they may sometimes pretend not to – that the surge of votes for Reform, which threatens the careers of MPs and the rights of workers in general, is not due to a wave of millions of voters become racist. It is due to the overwhelming gut feeling of millions of workers that their economic prospects are getting worse year on year.

Andy Burnham will be under enormous pressure to deal with these very real concrete issues. Working families are less secure. The services on which they rely, especially the NHS, is falling apart in front of their eyes. Their children and grandchildren are getting married but there is no decent affordable housing available. Good, well-paid jobs exist only for a few, while most jobs do not provide enough to live on week by week. Reform UK and the rag-bag assortment of racists and xenophobes have no answers – socialists are well aware of that – but it is easy to understand why so many voters are seduced into thinking that ‘someone’ else, ie migrants, are getting more resources than them.

To take one more relevant example, The Guardian published a story only yesterday about child poverty. “Four hundred thousand children in the UK”, it reported, “were supported by baby banks in 2025, an 11% increase from the year before, prompting warnings from charities that they “cannot continue to absorb the impact of child poverty on this scale” without government support”. And this is under a ‘Labour’ government.

What we need to understand is this: it was not due to parliamentary chicanery or manoeuvres in the corridors of power that Starmer is being booted out. It is due to the bread and butter issues that face millions of working class families and the impact these have had on electoral politics.

And it is in this respect that there will be expectations put on Burnham that were not put on Starmer – in the streets, in the workplaces and in the communities. There are expectations that he will have to provide some answers, something different, even if it means challenging the wealth, power and privileges of the billionaire-class.

If, as seems likely, the right wing of the parliamentary party is not willing to stand a candidate against Burnham, it is because they know that their candidate – Darren Jones, or Wes Streeting, for example – would be utterly crushed in any contest. That is a measure of the feelings of the Labour and trade union grass roots.

Left Horizons believes, therefore, that the Burnham leadership and premiership will mark a new stage in the life of the Labour Party, a small beginning of change, but only a beginning. It does not mean a return to the old conditions, where the two-party system dominated utterly and Labour was the only serious party on the left. The Green Party, with a radical leader and policies as left as Corbyn’s ever were, is here to stay in the short and medium-term at least. It is a party with many good socialist members, thousands of them driven out of Labour by Starmerism.

Labour is today a desert, but things might change

But the idea that the Labour Party is near ‘death’ is a long way from certain. In fact, that argument has been made and proven too many times in the past, and at least at the moment it still rests on the affiliation of four million trade union members.

If an early period of promise and hope under Burnham eventually gives way to a period of disappointment, because of the pressure of capitalism and his inability or unwillingness to resist that, even then that will not necessarily mean the end of that party.

Such disappointment in the present circumstances is far more likely to lead to a revolt within the affiliated unions, and through that, to a revolt in the Labour Party in general. Where the Labour Party is today a political desert, with little activity and discussion, Burnham’s accession to power represents the very early beginning of a change, at first particularly inside the unions.

We live in a period whereby the crisis of the capitalist system is more demanding and intense than it has been for generations. Socialist ideas – the programme of democratic control and management of the commanding heights of the economy and a rational economic plan in the interests of all – are more relevant today than at any time. Such ideas will find a far greater echo in the future, but particularly in the organisations where workers and youth gather to discuss left-wing politics.

Labour has not been such an organisation for some time, but that could be about to change. How much it changes, and how quickly, we cannot say, but in the life of this very important political party, Burnham’s rise could mark an important turning point. 

Opinion: If Starmer gets his way, Reform - not the Greens - will be his legacy

If Starmer gets his way, Reform - not the Greens - will be his legacy

The question for Polanski, as for Corbyn before him, is whether the spear of an insurgent politics can pierce the billionaires' defences

Johnathan Cook May 12, 2026

[First published by Middle East Eye]

There are two conclusions to be drawn from last week’s momentous local elections in Britain.

The first, and most obvious, is that two-party politics in the UK is now finished. After a century of being at the centre of British political life, Labour’s time is over. It is a spent force, whoever leads it.

Voters now understand that the party is too utterly captured by Big Business to ever again serve as a meaningful counterweight to the right – or as a vehicle for progressive, anti-austerity politics.

In this election, Britain’s decades-long Tweedledum and Tweedledee politics was finally unmasked as a charade.

The electorate is no longer having it.

Previous Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, elected by members a decade ago, was the last-gasp effort to make the party relevant to ordinary people. But the rightwing faction that dominates the parliamentary party – and the billionaire donors and media who stand with it – soon demonstrated who had the upper hand.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer had to dissemble, pretending to be the Corbyn continuity candidate, to win over the membership. But once installed as leader, he rode to power on the coattails of the billionaires.

It will be the same hidden hand, belonging to the same Epstein class, that nudges Starmer’s successor to the forefront in the coming months.

But Labour, offering only a game of catch-up with the right, is doomed electorally.

Pretender to the throne

The second lesson is that Labour is determined, before it sinks into terminal irrelevance, to pave the way for a far-right, Reform-led government under Nigel Farage.

It would be too charitable to suggest that this will be an unintended consequence of Starmer’s dismal, dishonest performance as prime minister.

In a real sense, Starmer’s political trajectory has done more than simply discredit the status-quo politics championed by modern Labour. It has also, by implication, painted Reform as the sole legitimate pretender to the throne.

Starmer and the Labour right did not just carry out a comprehensive, Stalin-esque purge of the progressive left after Corbyn’s ousting. They did not just drive that same Labour left into the embrace of the once-marginal Green Party, sending the latter’s popularity soaring.

No, they chose to launch the same dirty-tricks campaign against the Greens, centred on a supposed “antisemitism crisis”, which they earlier weaponised against the Corbyn left.

In doing so, the Labour right, alongside the British establishment and the state and billionaire-owned media, revealed their true colours: with two-party politics over, they would much prefer the baton be passed to the far-right than the progressive left.

That real-world conspiracy, out in the open, propelled Reform to its massive haul of seats in councils across England, and to its surprise successes in the Welsh and Scottish parliaments.

It also hampered the Greens, as we shall see, by tainting their political brand.

Insurgency politics

Last week’s results proved there is a craving for meaningful change – and the two traditional parties, Labour and the Conservatives, are structurally incapable of delivering it. Each is captured by the billionaire class.

The only game in town now is insurgency politics. That is what Reform claims to be offering, as do the Greens. Both cleaned up in disillusioned Labour and Tory heartlands.

But this is not really a fight between two competing insurgencies. Farage and Reform are cosplaying insurgency politics.

Like President Donald Trump in the United States, they are a wing of the billionaire class pretending to be taking the billionaires on. They are another captured party, another safe pair of hands for the super-rich.

With the Tories and Labour structurally incapable of fixing a system purpose-built to siphon off public wealth into the private coffers of the billionaires, Reform has come up with a crowd-pleasing solution.

Farage isn’t promising to tackle a corrupt political system that keeps the super-rich in power. No, his function is to shift attention away from the billionaires’ malign role and direct it instead towards immigrants and Muslims.

Farage knows where his bread is buttered. And so should the rest of us, given the revelation that the butter was thickly plastered on – to the tune of £5 million – by an expat cryptocurrency trader living in Thailand.

Reform has an endless number of such skeletons in its closet. Among the latest to be exposed was a candidate elected last week to Sunderland council, who among his recent grossly racist and sexist social media posts, suggested of the local Nigerian population that the city should “melt them all down and fill in the pot holes”.

Chorus of concern

Racism is endemic to Reform. It’s central to its platform. Immigrants – always “illegal” – are viewed exclusively as a problem that must be dealt with firmly. Islam and Muslims, in Reform’s view, need to be discussed as a threat to “the British way of life” and western “civilisational values”.

But note this: racism is not central to the media discourse about Reform. However often the profound racism of its members and candidates is exposed, none of it sticks to the party itself. None of it stains the moral character of Farage as leader.

Contrast that with the treatment of the Greens since their new leader, Zack Polanski, took the party from irrelevance a year ago to membership numbers of 230,000 – larger than the Conservatives, and possibly even than Labour by this point.

Polanski is the country’s only Jewish party leader. But he spent much of the local election campaign defending himself and his party from the constant accusation that the Greens were institutionally antisemitic. In this extraordinarily twisted political climate, even Reform felt confident about smearing the Greens as racist.

The media rushed to add every incident, however small or unrepresentative, to a ledger suggesting that there was something unhealthy, even sinister, about the Greens under Polanski. At every opportunity, the media chorus of concern that antisemitism is once again surging – as it supposedly did under Corbyn – was laid at the Greens’ door.

In the ultimate paradox, the insinuation that the Green Party was rife with Jew hatred authorised a wave of grossly antisemitic caricatures of Polanski himself – in the Telegraph, Times, Mail and Sun – that would not have looked out of place in the Nazi publication Der Sturmer.

In turn, claims by the establishment that Iran is ultimately guiding this wave of antisemitism subtly imply that the Greens are really acting in the service of a foreign enemy. The subtext – levelled against Britain’s only Jewish leader, remember – is that Polanski’s party is unpatriotic, that it is serving another master.

In the topsy-turvy, manufactured political and media consensus, racism does not define the racist platform of Reform. But it does define the anti-racist platform of the Greens.

Firing squad

There is a reason that the Greens’ current moment under Polanski feels so familiar – like a rerun of the hounding of Corbyn through 2017 and 2018. Because that is exactly what it is.

Now, as then, an insurgent leftwing party, led by a popular figure, is disrupting the cosy ping-pong politics of the two main, establishment-serving parties.

Now, as then, the left insurgency appears to be growing into something bigger than simply a political party. It is tapping into a wider mood that will not be satisfied with tinkering. It demands wholesale change.

Now, as then, the insurgency is emphasising how the billionaire class has captured and corrupted the political system, and how it maintains “mainstream” narrative control through its ownership of the establishment media.

Now, as then, the insurgency is challenging the lifeblood of Britain’s ruling class: its permanent “rip-off” austerity politics at home, and permanent warmongering politics abroad.

Now, as then, the establishment is playing dirty: it studiously avoids addressing the political issues raised by the insurgents, because it knows it would lose such debates. Instead, it focuses on staining the moral character of the insurgent leader.

And finally, now as then, it has learned that the best way to smear the insurgents, and drain energy and political momentum from the movement, is by tarring them as antisemites.

If the Greens were forced to run the gauntlet during this local election campaign, just wait for the firing squad they will face when the national elections arrive in a few years’ time.

The British establishment is once again cornering the insurgent, anti-racist left with a double-bind ultimatum. It must hollow out its moral core by jettisoning its opposition to apartheid, genocide, wars of aggression, the military-industrial complex, and the war machine’s interminable assaults on the environment – or be condemned as Jew haters.

As became clear through these latest elections, the Greens are going to face relentless hounding until they agree to ditch Polanski. They will be required to find a “moderate” leader ready to cosy up to Big Business – and make their party as politically superfluous as Labour has become under Starmer.

Caught in quicksand

Anyone who imagined that Polanski would be spared Corbyn’s fate because he is Jewish was not paying close attention during the pile-on a decade ago.

The British media and political classes successfully obscured what they were up to then, during what they characterised as a Labour “antisemitism crisis“. The reality was that a disproportionate number of Corbyn’s supporters who were suspended and expelled by the party bureaucracy as antisemites were, in fact, Jews.

That was the reason the left spoke at the time of antisemitism being weaponised – an observation that itself became grounds for expulsion from the party.

Non-Jewish politicians – including prominent rightwing factionalists in Labour – as well as non-Jewish media commentators were among those rushing to label Corbyn-supporting Jews as “self-hating” or “the wrong sortof Jews”.

Polanski now finds himself in exactly the same kind of political quicksand. The more he fights against his smearing, the more smearing he faces, as evidenced by the media’s antisemitic caricatures of him.

Note another feature of this process. Jewish Voice for Labour, the main group of Jews inside Labour who backed Corbyn, were – like the Jews who march against the Gaza genocide – erased from the media’s narrative about a supposedly “antisemitic left“.

They had to be, because their very existence made nonsense of establishment claims that it is the anti-racist left, not the racist right, that poses a threat to Jews.

Polanski’s Jewishness, as he has pointed out, is being carefully erased from coverage too. It has to be if the vilification campaign is to land.

Trading in tropes

But there is a further ominous development at work. The British ruling class is not just exploiting what it describes as a rise in antisemitism; it is stoking it for its own political survival.

Paradoxically, it is the very people casting themselves as the protectors of the Jewish community who are trading in the antisemitic tropes they accuse others of.

It is Starmer, Farage, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch, and Metropolitan police chief Sir Mark Rowley who are responsible for fuelling the kind of antisemitism they claim to be tackling.

The growing clamour to crack down on the marches against Israeli crimes in Gaza and southern Lebanon – or even ban them – depends on an assumption that any vocal opposition to genocide equates to a racist threat to Jews.

That, in turn, depends on a perverse premise: that all Jews support Israel; that the two are inseparable. By extension, it implies that any Jew who calls out these crimes, such as Polanski, is an impostor.

The conflation between Israel and Jews is clearly in breach of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism – a definition that British politicians extol, while cynically wielding it to malign and crush the left.

Consider the event that served as the starting gun for the latest outpouring of concern about antisemitism, and the opportunity to pile on Polanski: the stabbing of two Jews in Golders Green late last month. Though you would not know it from most of the media coverage, or even statements issued by police, the accused perpetrator also attacked a Muslim man.

The political and media classes sought to downplay the attack on the Muslim man, because it disrupted a more convenient, and simplistic, narrative they are determined to advance.

Discourse trap

The argument being pressed into service by the establishment – blaming pro-Palestine marches for a rise in antisemitism – is clearly ridiculous.

Had no pro-Palestine marches taken place over the past 30 months, images of children torn to pieces by US-supplied Israeli bombs would still be on our feeds. There would still have been news of Israel levelling Gaza’s hospitals, and starving its population month after month. Palestinians taken hostage by Israel, as well as their whistleblowing Israeli captors, would still have revealed that the Israeli army trained dogs to rape them.

Anyone who blames Jews for the Gaza genocide, or for the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon, isn’t doing so because of the London marches. At the protests, the distinction is always clear, and indicated by the visible participation of a significant Jewish bloc.

Trump Furious as AFL-CO Leadership Goes on Offensive

Source

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
HEO/Ged

8-8-25

 

Some years back in the early 2000’s my friend and fellow union activist, Roger Martinez and I walked in to our monthly membership meeting. As soon as we got through the door we noticed two guys sitting there who we didn’t recognize.; they certainly didn’t look like any of our blue-collar brothers or sisters.  Our conversation went something like this:

 

“Who do you think those two are Rog?”

 

“They look like a couple of lawyers to me, Rich”

 

“Yeah, that’s what I think”, I reply

 

“They’re either a couple of lawyers or staffers from the International Union.” Says Rog.

 

Well we were half right. They were staffers from the AFL-CIO, and they were there to get our local, Afscme 444, on board with the AFL-CIO’s latest campaign titled; “The Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride: "On The Road to Citizenship". The term “Freedom Ride” was in deference to the Freedom Train movement of the 1960’s in the US South., but in 2002 buses would be carrying immigrant workers. Other than that, there was no significant similarity with the past.

 

The idea was to cross the country traveling through working class communities culminating in rallies in Washington DC and New York City. The initiative was started by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union (H.E.R.E.), now H.E.R.E./UNITE, in order to, “….counter anti-immigrant bigotry and xenophobia in the wake of 9/11.”, according to UNITE’s website. It should occur to any serious political activist or trade unionist that being able to explain to a worker in Cleveland why their job went to Mexico and what a worker/union response to it should be, including why it’s in our interest to defend immigrant workers, would be first on the agenda. Unfortunately not.

 

The AFL-CIO’s resolution on the campaign is here. H.E.R.E. represented hotel, restaurant and other workers in the hospitality industry and many of them are immigrants as anyone who has stayed in the big hotels in Las Vegas or other US cities would know. So the union had a vested interest in pushing immigration reform and getting the wider labor movement to support it. This industry has contributed greatly to the percentage of US workers in organized labor. It’s all about revenue which is what members’ dues is.

 

After the two staffers’ presentation there was some discussion. Both Roger and I opposed supporting this campaign as it was presented to us. We distanced ourselves from one member whose opposition was from the right and a touch xenophobic. We explained that while supporting immigrant rights and countering the bigotry and fear of immigrants taking our jobs is essential, the campaign needed to have a program and set of demands that can appeal to all workers on a class basis rather than moral appeals for fairness and respect for immigrants’ rights.

 

We pointed out the failings of a bus tour or freedom ride through middle America for immigrant rights where thousands of jobs had been exported to Mexico and other countries where human labor power was cheaper and democratic rights weaker. In many industries, the immigrant population was beginning to replace native born workers as a cheaper option. This was occurring not because immigrants are more “willing” to work for less as the mass media always frames it in order to denigrate the native worker as lazy and spoiled, the immigrant worker, often limited by language as other issues is more desperate. 

 

An example was the meatpacking industry. Twenty years earlier with the defeat of the Hormel Strike,wages and the conditions in the meatpacking industry continued to worsen. Injuries to workers increased as belt speeds were increased and workers looked for better options. In order to maintain the supply of bodies, meatpacking companies in the mid-west, “…recruited illegal workers in Mexican villages and brought them north. Nebraska state officials estimated that illegal migrant workers represented 25% of the meat packing workforce.” Sharing The Pie p 68 by Steve Brouwer.

 

It was a serious mistake to organize a bus tour through many US working class communities with immigrant rights as the only theme, when these workers had their jobs exported to Mexico or they were replaced at half the wages by Mexican or other workers from our southern border (Canadians are in no rush to work here). Surely, this would do more to strengthen anti-immigrant feelings than build solidarity and class unity between immigrant and native born workers. Any person with an ounce of sense would understand that.

 

But the purpose of that bus tour in 2002 was not to strengthen or build the organized or unorganized workers’ movement. There is nothing further from the minds of the strategists atop the AFL-CIO. That’s why there were no demands that would appeal to the average worker to get involved in anything. Even those that sympathised with and supported favourable legislation to protect and guarantee immigrant rights would hardly take to the streets for that. 

 

The resolution from the AFL-CIO supporting the campaign in 2002 makes it clear that the goal of the mobilization, “…was meaningful legislative reform in Washington, D.C……” In other words, pressure the Dems to pass a law here and there. That’s it.

 

I am reminded of these experiences as I came across the AFL-CIO’s latest bus tour campaign launched a month ago at union headquarters just down from the White House, (closer to their friends and safer ground, far from the folks who pay the dues). The new bus tour is titled, “It’s Better in a Union: Fighting for Freedom, Fairness and Security” bus tour. Wow! The strategists atop organized labor have got a gem there. Not sure many workers will take to the streets, miss the PTA meeting, extra overtime work needed to pay the child care for that one even though we know we’re better off in a union than working non-union in most cases.

 

  “It’s ‘Better in a Union’ bus tour is officially bringing union power to a city near you!” says the AFL-CIO in its announcement as the, “…bus tour will crisscross the nation to amplify workers’ voices on our fights to organize….”

 

Political Activity

Let’s be clear here. The heads of organized labor have no intention of mobilizing the potential power of their members in order to counter the offensive of capital that will continue with Trump.

 

The Freedom Bus Tour 22 years ago and the bus tour today is simply an attempt by the labor hierarchy to get their Democratic Party friends in to office and return to the status quo of a somewhat less aggressive administration than the present one.

 

The split that took place in the AFL-CIO back in 2005 that led to the Change to Win Coalition caused much excitement among the liberals but that split was over the same issue, organizing and drawing more members in to organized labor giving it increased clout at the ballot box. In other words, it was all about electing Democrats to office and organized labor has given the Democratic Party billions over the decades and is unequivocally pro market and pro-management.

 

But this support for the other Wall Street party has undermined labor’s leadership even further and is one of the main factors in the rise of Trump. The disgust with the two parties of capitalism is so deep that the union leadership’s support has to be carefully couched within obscure phrases. This has been ongoing. I was at an Afscme International Convention back in the 1990’s when I first started noticing that open support for the Democrats was not so prevalent and was replaced by the need to elect candidates that support “working families” no matter the party though that’s pretty much always Democrats. The term working class here in the US is avoided like the plague.

 

At the announcement for the super militant Bus Tour last month leading up to Labor day, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, “rallied the crowd around how a union contract gives workers the freedom, fairness and security”. “And the answer is not a political party—the answer is not more of the broken status quo—the answer is a good union job!”, she added.

 

Why Won’t The AFL-CIO Leadership Form a Party?

 

The answer to that question is fairly simple. As things stand, the folks that sit atop the AFL-CIO, an organization with 14 million members in it and whose members could, with little effort bring the US economy to a halt, can always blame politics in general or the Democrats in particular when they turn on us. For the labor hierarchy to venture in to the political arena with an independent party of our own based on our organizations and our communities, it’s a tricky situation; such a development would inspire millions of workers as the two parties of capital are so despised but it would also mean they would have to produce the goods and the labor leadership is wedded to the market, capitalism, profits and the right of the boss to make them at our expense. So they dodge the bullet any way they can including forcing concessions on their own members.

 

This does not mean we should give up on our unions. We should not, as some socialists and leftists argue, abandon these organizations that our ancestors built through great sacrifice and struggle, without a fight. Part of the campaign against the class collaborationist policies of our own leaders is like the wider struggle for reforms in society as a whole. The conclusions workers draw from such a struggle for reforms is that they cannot resolve the crises that we face in capitalist society or the unions. What workers learn in the struggle for reforms is that we have to change society. We have to usher in a new era.

 

I have been out of the labor movement battles for 20 years or more but I cannot accept that the bureaucracy is so entrenched there is no possibility of movement at all; they are like rotten apples on a tree that seem to be firmly fixed but the slightest breeze dislodges them without effort. We need to provide that wind.

 

If you are in a local union in particular and are an elected, rank and file leader (not a paid staffer) and you are not engaged in this internal struggle to take control of our organizations then you are not doing your job. 

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/

Opportunity Knocks for Zohran Mamdani. Will He Open The Door?

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

6-29-25

 

“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.” – Martin Luther King 1966.

 

The stunning victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary for New York City last week, has without doubt driven the US ruling class and the Democratic Party bigwigs in to a frenzy.

 

Not only is Mamdani a Muslim, his condemnation of Israel and calling the Zionist regime’s actions against the Palestinian people a genocide, did not upend his campaign despite numerous attempts by the big business media to do so; and this is in the city that is second only to Tel Aviv in its Jewish population.   

This comes as no surprise. Israel’s barbaric slaughter of Palestinians, perhaps as many as 400,000 have been murdered over 20 months of relentless bombings, has had a huge effect on the US population, young Jews in particular. According to a Pew Research poll, 71percent of Democrats of ages 18–49 have a negative view of Israel in 2025, and 66 percent of Democrats 50 or older do too.

 

But it is Mamdani’s reform platform that was key to his victory and eventually led to a campaign of 50,000 volunteers, many of them rank and file union members, knocking door to door and visiting working class communities. He spoke directly to the needs and desires of the vast majority of the people in New York City. 

 

His Proposals
He proposes to make all city buses free by 2027 and introduce a rent freeze on all rent-stabilised apartments. Rent freezes are not new and have been introduced by prior mayors. The average rent for a two-room apartment in New York City can vary between $4000 and $7000 a month depending on location. In addition, Mamdani is planning to establish a Social Housing Development Agency that would build publicly-owned, permanently affordable housing according to reports in the media. He also intends to create a new Department of Community Safety staffed by mental health professionals, crisis responders and outreach workers and has pledged to expand free school-meal programs to include city colleges, and to offer universal childcare and early education programs.

 

On immigrant rights, he will not allow the NYPD to assist ICE in rounding up immigrants for deportation and will defend New York City’s pledge as a sanctuary city.

 

He is also campaigning for a $30 an hour minimum wage.

 

Mamdani says his social reforms can be paid for by raising the corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent which would put it on par with the corporate rate in neighboring New Jersey, and imposing a 2 percent surcharge on individuals earning more than $1m per year. 

He says these measures could bring in over $9 billion annually. 

 

His platform is a relatively mild reformist program and is certainly not enough to bankrupt the city of New York. But we are in the belly of the capitalist beast here in the US so any attempt to return the wealth of the country that workers produce to us in the form of social services, is attacked as communism and anti-American. 

 

As usual, the trade union leadership is relatively quiet but the UAW did endorse Mamdani back in December last year and Afscme Council 37 in NYC endorsed three candidates in the primary which has ranked choice voting so it will likely endorse him in November. Afscme is my former union and DC 37 is the largest council in the country.

 

There is a strong chance that Mamdani will prevail in the Mayoral election in November but there are already plans being hatched in the big business community to derail the campaign. The defeated Cuomo is staying on the ballot for that election and deciding whether he will run or not as an Independent.  

 

Former mayor, and ex-cop Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced he will be running as an independent claiming Mamdani as lacking experience among other things. Adams was indicted for bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, (what’s AIPAC for heaven’s sake. By that measure the entire US political establishment is accepting illegal foreign campaign donations)

 

As for his tax proposals, they have to be approved by the legislature and in the interview above with CNN he gives some examples of the costs and effects on the big business community. While the interviewer was not openly hostile, CNN is compelled to make sure when he is talking about state run grocery stores, “….you're not looking at some, like Soviet Union, grocery stores on every corner that are going to be run by the government.?”.  This country's mass media is something else. Mind you, the BBC is no different. 

 

Despite what is really a mild reform platform, the level of panic from the capitalist class and its political representative, is formidable. Beside the name calling, Trump referred to Mamdani as "100% Communist Lunatic" and Adams has called Mamdani a “Snake oil salesman”, Mamdani has faced all the Islamophobic slurs and will no doubt have more to deal with as he picks up steam.

 

New York City’s money men are going on the offensive in the aftermath of the primaries result and are preparing to bankroll a candidate to stop his campaign in November. It appears likely to be Adams, and a judge dropped Adams’ indictment under pressure from Trump allegedly; what a coincidence.

 

Eric Adams and hedge fund manager, Democrat Daniel Loeb, (worth $3 billion plus), met with other business leaders and political brokers to discuss how to stop Zohran Mamdani’s forward motion according to reports in the press. From what I understand Loeb is a staunch supporter of the Israeli Apartheid regime like many billionaires. Billions of US taxpayer dollars to slaughter innocent people is no problem for them

 

“You want to have leadership that speaks to what New York is,” says Scott Rechler CEO of a Real Estate firm, “It’s the capital of capitalism.”  The City 6-26-25

 

GOP megadonor John Catsimatidis (worth $4.1 billion) is organizing other billionaires in a united front for November and Bill Ackman (worth $9.1billion) another, social parasite, hedge fund manager, and Trump supporter has made it clear there are millions of dollars available to derail Mamdani’s Mayoral aspirations. Ackman makes his views very clear: "The problem, however, is that his policies would be disastrous for NYC. Socialism has no place in the economic capital of our country,"  

Not only is Ackman wrong about Mamdani’s policies being socialist, they are certainly far from a disaster for NYC, even for billionaires like Ackman. Ackman and the big capitalists concern is that any steps that favor even in the slightest, the worker over the capitalist, or the public over the private, are a dangerous precedent to set. The anger he knows exists among millions of US workers and poor is always in danger of bursting on to the scene with a vengeance.

 

But this early offensive is just the shot across the bow. If Mamdani wins the Mayoral race in November, there will be as major offensive from the entire US capitalist class, its media, its political parties, the pulpits of the Evangelical Protestant movement and some other religious institutions, along with the right-wing podcasters and talk show hosts. 

 

And this is to unseat or block the policies of a candidate in a capitalist party and who is a supporter of the capitalist system.

 

Mamdani will have to have a plan to confront this “shock and Awe” approach from the US ruling class if he does not want to end up in the same sinking ship as Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. He needs to stand apart from their approach. He is in the Democratic Party which is an obstacle but he must make it loud and clear in his speeches and to his supporters that he will be facing an all out capitalist offensive in November and particularly after, if he emerges victorious.

 

He has an opportunity, like Sanders did in 2016 and beyond, to open a pathway to a genuine working class movement against the intensifying offensive of capital in the US. He needs to spread the campaign to other cities and turn 50,000 volunteers in to 5 million and begin a process of building links between different areas of the country.

 

New York City cannot function without the support of the city’s unions, particularly the public sector, but also the dock workers for example. Mamdani must appeal to the rank and file support he has to wage a campaign within their unions to join this movement. One way or another he has to point to the immense potential power of organized labor and how that power combined with the unorganized and the rest of the working class is unstoppable. The first Amazon union was won in New York City. This power must be mobilized, his enemies are mobilizing as I write.

 

He needs to demand without apology, that society provides, and can provide, what people need to live a decent and secure existence. He must clearly explain and condemn the likes of Ackman and the capitalist class for denying the American people, not only happiness, but the pursuit of it.

 

Another major enemy is the Democratic Party old guard. In my view this major capitalist party will not be the party through which the working class and all oppressed people can resolve the crisis of capitalism that is the root cause of the problems Mamdani is claiming to resolve. He can point this out ahead of time and make it clear that if the party old guard is in the way then a break from that party and the building of an independent working class alternative to the two big business parties will be on the agenda.

 

One of the reasons some workers are attracted to right wing ideas and authoritarian leading figures is, the weak, super woke, identity politics alternative of the Democrats. Power attracts, and most workers know that we are in for a serious battle, look at how our own government treats us. Where are the union leaders or workers’ leaders that are calling for mass violation of anti-union anti-worker laws?  They see the right wing and Trump quite willing to do what they want regardless of the US constitution which is a revered, almost divine document to many Americans. Act first and see what happens, is their approach.

 

Mamdani and anyone like him must not only warn workers and his supporters that we are up against a ruthless foe and we have to act accordingly. We have the numbers, we have the power. 

 

It is positive that Mr. Mamdani doesn’t shy away from being a Democratic Socialist. He needs to champion equally as much the socialist aspect of this. Capitalism is a wasteful system. It cannot feed people. It cannot provide health care to people. It cannot address the climate crisis. It cannot put people to work, provide decent education or transportation.

 

The US post office (USPS) is the most efficient business in the US. It delivers mail to you wherever you live in this country. It doesn’t have to make a profit, it’s a public service. Our public services are poor when compared to other industrialized countries. The likes of Ackman, Gates, Musk, all the billionaires, have no qualms defending policies and laws that lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.  While I reject his failed methods, the guy that assassinated the health care CEO had tremendous support from millions of US workers as health care is such a disgrace here. 

 

If the private sector can’t provide jobs, provide mass transit, health care, decent public education and the necessities we need to live a decent life, then the major corporations here that are practically a dictatorship over US economic life must be taken under public ownership. 

 

As the battle heats up the billionaires, and others, will go on a strike of capital or withdraw it completely. They will threaten to move house. They have no loyalty to any country or any community, their world is global and they will take their capital elsewhere. The answer to that must be to stop them, to take under public ownership the financial industry, banks etc. They don’t hesitate to take your house and home so don’t fret it. 

 

They have a right to live a decent life but not if it results in. users for millions of others. 

 

The rich are hated in this country. There is a serious mood for change and people like Mamdani, the politic representatives of capital and the trade union leadership know this and are also afraid of it. The so-called liberal elements, like the labor hierarchy  are forced to appeal to this immense social power to wring concessions from the bosses’, and it has amounted to a slower death as they always have to keep this power contained; they just need to let off some steam.  Workers have had enough of that. The Democratic party electorally is one way and the massive increase of the security state, as exampled by ICE is another form of this containment.

 

Another opportunity knocks, this time for Zohran Mamdani. It’s up to him whether he takes it or not.