By Rob McKenzie in the USA
via the US socialist website Facts for Working People.
I found the news that the Amazon Labor Union would pursue affiliation with the Teamsters Union troubling. The ALU victory at the JFK site was among the most positive labor developments of the century. Only months before workers at Amazon in Alabama had voted against union authorization with the well-funded Retail Workers and Department Store Union/UFCW even though President Biden had publicly urged them to vote to unionize.
The ALU won with no serious money or trained staff emphasizing a constitution that limited officer pay to a maximum of two and a half times the average pay in the bargaining unit. [This is from the UE, the United Electrical Workers Union, who put the ‘two and a half’ times the average pay of the bargaining unit for union officers in their constitution. The UE was expelled from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Workers) now in the AFL-CIO, for failing to remove communists from union leadership in the 1950s].
They gave the members wide latitude to make decisions by voting. They eschewed political endorsements that focused on the egos of union leaders. This was a tribute to a relatively new idea, “worker-led organizing.” The tireless work and courage of the work site organizing accomplished what money couldn’t.
ALU abandoned promise not to be involved in electoral politics
The success at JFK could not be repeated. It was unclear to me that the JFK model continued to be followed. Another Amazon union election in the following weeks featured Bernie Sanders and AOC at a plant gate rally. As much I wished this was where workers were at, it seemed the ALU had abandoned one of its tenets, the promise not to focus on electoral politics. The ALU president, Chris Smalls, appeared to pursue a strategy of high-profile media events. I saw no continuation of the dedicated workplace organizing needed to secure a contract with Amazon.
Smalls and his supporters changed the ALU constitution to allow him to stay on as president until a contract had been negotiated. This was challenged in court by opponents who prevailed and an election was scheduled for this summer. The problem is that I don’t think the ALU has enough money or resources to conduct an election.
I have attached the ALU LM Report for 2023. The LM is a union financial report required by the government.
The ALU took in $735 in dues. They received a $425,000 donation from the International Commission For Labor Rights in New York City. The ICLR apparently has Solidarity Center members on its board. My speculation about this is that the Biden administration utilized the government-funded Solidarity Center to finance the ALU experiment in unionization. It certainly was not an open-ended move to indefinitely fund it. I believe the ALU is now insolvent and has no other option but to pursue an affiliation.
The possibility remains that the ALU course originally adopted could have prevailed. We won’t know. The vote on a Teamster affiliation will be interesting. I don’t know who will conduct it. Will Amazon be able to run another anti-union campaign? Will this turn into a rerun of the authorization vote on grounds that Amazon is very familiar with? The Teamsters are susceptible to the attacks employers commonly utilize. I wonder how Shawn O’Brien will play at JFK?
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Bob McKenzie, is a retired UAW rank and file member and president of Ford local 879 in St Paul, Minneapolis. He spent many years investigating the events at Ford’s Cuautitlán Assembly Plant near Mexico City in 1990-91, where workers were attacked violently by organized gangs. His research resulted in the Book El Golpe (above) where he details the collaboration between the AFL-CIO’s regional organization, AIFLD (American Institute for Free Labor Development), the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the US State Department, the Mexican government, leaders of the CTM (Mexican labor movement) and Ford Motor Company management against a democratic, rank-and-file, shopfloor-based organization of auto workers.
His findings are important reading for all workers, socialists and activists, if we are to build any serious links with workers internationally. Brother McKenzie’s book detailing the events at the Ford plant in Mexico City and the role of the CIA can be purchased at Pluto Press, Barnes and Noble and other outlets. Kim Scipes reviews the book here.
From the US socialist website Facts for Working People here.
[Picture top from Teamsters website]
