By Richard Mellor in California
In March of this year, the US airline industry received a $25 bn bailout from the taxpayer via the Cares Act, along with $25 billion in loans and loan guarantees. This was to cover labour costs and prevent the investors from abandoning ship. In August, the airline investors were back again, threatening to lay off thousands of workers if they didn’t get more government aid with a new stimulus package as the old one expired.
Naturally, union officials representing workers in the industry joined with bosses in calling for an extension of the aid package. One of the most vocal and well-known union officials is Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, an AFL-CIO affiliated union. Sister Nelson has become the darling of the liberal left inside the unions and out. The leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have had her speak at functions and Jacobin, the left-leaning quarterly that is described in the media as providing its readers with “socialist perspectives” loves her.
Nothing said to offend employers
This is a common thread in the labour movement whenever “tough talk” comes from the mouth of a labour leader, as this section of society generally says nothing at all that might offend the employers. Any slightly left of centre official is seen as a ray of hope to many left organizations and individuals.
I am old enough to remember Amy Dean, the former head of the Santa Clara labour council here in California, another so-called “firebrand”. Both her and Andrew Stern were once seen as the saviours of the working class. Stern is a hedge-fund manager now. They both used the workers’ organizations as a stepping-stone into the business world and were staunch defenders of the so-called free market.
Back in August, when the airline bosses, in partnership with union officials demanded more taxpayer help, Sister Nelson went on social media demanding the US Congress ensure workers get paid and, “No taxpayer money for CEO bonuses, stock buybacks, or dividends; no breaking contracts through bankruptcy; and no federal funds for airlines that are fighting their workers’ efforts to join a union.”
Appeals to national pride
Unfortunately, Nelson also made it clear that, “We’re all in this together, there is no difference” and she appealed to national pride and how important the airline industry is to all of us carrying our troops and so on. Oh dear! Not a good sign. You can’t have it both ways in this game.
After this episode, I did warn that, “Sarah Nelson, who has gained some respect for her outspoken views and sounding quite militant, is in danger of ending up as they all do,”. Unfortunately, Sara is almost at the point of no return.
For a workers’ leader, the power that has to be brought to the table is the power of the working class and our ability to stop production, for without production there are no profits. It wasn’t a workers’ leader, but George Schultz, US politician and businessman, and a friend of Henry Kissinger, who said “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.” The bosses’ do not ask for a bail out so save workers’ livelihoods, it is to save their profits. They want some welfare.
I raise these concerns about Sara Nelson once more because, as I predicted, she is on the road to betrayal and in some nasty company. Instead of orienting to the working class both organized and unorganized, she is looking to a section of the capitalist class to save the US worker from pauperism.
Nelson joined a panel of experts brought together by the Washington Post, owned by Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos, to discuss the future after the pandemic. “Inclusive Capitalism” was the theme,with Sara Nelson, Andre Perry & Paul Romer. From a short clip I watched, Nelson repeated her calls for Congress to recognize that the most valuable workers are those who get paid the least and called for higher wages and “giving people the power to bargain at work” which here in the US means collective bargaining, a right that many states do not legislate.
Union rights weren’t ‘granted’
Firstly, we were never given the right to form unions that gave us power and the right to negotiate with the bosses for wages, hours and working conditions. US workers took it. Workers fought and died for this right, against the most vicious and violent resistance from the bosses, their courts and their institutions of government.
And who are the two characters alongside her? Andre Perry is a representative of Black capitalism, an academic and writer. I listened to a short clip from him on the panel. He’s an expert on race relations and the white liberals love him. He points out that as far as racism is concerned, “we shouldn’t have to wait for white people to accept or to want to deal with racism to deal with it.” I find agreement in that. He calls for more investment in Black and brown people that “we” “have to stop this robbing of Black and brown communities of wealth”. He stresses that, “we should invest in Black people like we invested in white people in the thirties…It got us out of the depression”. I have to take issue with that claim, as it was not the New Deal but the Second World War and war production that saved capitalism from its internal contradictions and it cost the lives of some 50 million people.
Chief economist at World Bank
I should add that when he says “we”, he means the liberal white capitalists represented by Paul Romer, on the panel with him. Romer is another academic, a Nobel Prize recipient in Economics, a policy entrepreneur whatever that is, and, according to the bio, “He has spent his career at the intersection of economics, innovation, technology, and urbanization, working to speed up human progress.”
He’s damn near a saint it seems and when Perry talks, he nods his head in agreement, showing how non-racist he is. Romer was the chief economist at the World Bank, another bunch of global blood suckers.
Perry, with the effects of three centuries of systemic racism and exclusion as the backdrop, uses the crisis in Black working class and poor communities to advance the class interests of Black capitalism and the Black middle class. The ‘solution’ to racism that he offers is in complete contradiction to the views of heroic figures in Black American history like Malcolm X and Fred Hampton, as well as Martin Luther King in his later years. He’s an opportunist basically.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul
Perry says that, “…we should not have to coddle white anxieties as a. path towards remedy.” That’s true, but the question here is which white people is he referring to? I say this because whenever representatives of the capitalist class discuss economic issues and how to allocate capital, they will inevitably protect their economic interests and rob Peter to pay Paul, which is also a useful divide and rule strategy.
That some white workers will feel anxious about the possibility of their already declining living standards being eroded further in order to shift more money to other areas, whether the Black community, immigrants or the environment for example, is not unwarranted. This anxiety will also be promoted by right wing elements, White supremacists and other anti-worker forces, to serve their interests.
Undermining working class unity is crucial to preserving the status quo and an economic system that, if not discarded, will destroy life as we know it. There is no solution to racism on a capitalist basis.
Working class unity
Workers, trade unionists anti-racists, any anti-capitalist activists, must recognize that the anxieties that white workers have are not totally misguided. In a way it’s a recognition that they don’t trust the bosses or the state. So we have to approach this issue understanding that we recognize it and approach all workers with the goal of working class unity in mind and with the understanding that the bosses will always find some way to divide us. It doesn’t mean that one abandons the struggle against racism or waits for white workers to act before taking up racism in the workplace or society as a whole.
In the words of Fred Hampton, who was drugged and assassinated by the Chicago police and the FBI, “We’re going to fight racism, not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism.” Perry is on the opposite side of history to Malcolm X.
Sara Nelson has a different base. She is a leader of a workers’ organization. Her role as a prominent leader in transportation is important. And despite the decline in union representation, due to the failure of the entire leadership atop organized labour to bring the power of 14 million members to the table as George Schultz states above, the US economy can still be brought to a halt by organized labour.
Teachers’ strikes of 2018
Beyond that, an aggressive militant labour movement will attract the millions of unorganized workers to our side. Power attracts. The teachers’ strike of 2018-19 had the potential to open a new era for organized labour and while they could not be ignored, there has been no attempt to take that horse and ride with it. There is nothing more terrifying than victory if you have no vision of a different future.
Sister Nelson’s support of the Team Concept, that workers and capitalists have the same interests, or that we’re “all in this together” is leading her down this slippery slope from which it’s very hard to return. Biden named her, along with Bernie Sanders, an organizer for the Democratic Party, to head his Economy Task Force. Lee Sanders, the President of the Afscme trade union is also on it. It is a useful political tactic that big business uses, bringing labour officials onto their economic panels that are created to help US capitalism become more competitive.
Not inclusive or equitable
The economic crisis brought about by the pandemic, itself a product of capitalist food production, “…..is an opportunity to rebuild an economy that promotes inclusive, equitable growth and financial security for all.”. So the Washington Post article says. After five centuries or more of capitalist development and two global conflagrations, if we have learned one thing it is that this form of social organization is not inclusive, it is not equitable, and it cannot provide financial security for “all”. It never has and it never will; it is a system based on exploitation and violence.
This doesn’t mean that we never meet with the bosses in any way or negotiate with them. Sometimes we go on the offensive, sometimes we retreat. But we always meet independently of them and with our own program and demands and we retreat with the understanding weare doing so in order to regroup and prepare for the next struggle. How we function in these instances depends on the balance of class forces at the time
Prime candidate for co-option
Given her popularity among rank and file workers and her aggressive rhetoric that raises eyebrows in capitalist circles and think tanks like those supporting the Panel, Sara Nelson is a prime candidate for co-option by Wall Street, and its Democratic Party. She lauds Eugene Debs as a Democratic Socialist, but Debs would not consider supporting the Democratic Party.
If I were a gambling man, I would bet that Sara Nelson shows herself to be another in a long line of prophets in the labour movement. Not because of corruption or criminal tendencies, or because she’s an inherently bad person. She simply has the wrong game plan.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
December 8, 2020
