By Richard Mellor in California
This is from a Facebook post by Brian Tierney
“I’d like to clarify that I agree with Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters in denying Biden an endorsement. I know in our binary political culture that my recent posts against the Teamsters’ flirtations with Trump and the far right could be read as my own endorsement of “the most pro-union president of our lifetimes,” Joe Biden.
“In fact, I have long believed the Teamsters should endorse no one. And that’s not because of my views related to Biden’s genocide in Gaza. It’s because Sean O’Brien [Teamsters’ leader] is 100-percent correct that it’s time to end the abusive relationship between labor and the Democratic Party. It’s long passed time that unions stop bowing to a political party that campaigns (in part) on labor issues only to legislate and govern as insatiable corporatists who don’t give a goddamn about the working class.
“And the Teamsters could have dramatically made that case, using the power of withholding an endorsement, all without propping up the fascistic Trumpian agenda of the Republican Party. Without kissing the ring of an elitist billionaire conman. Without giving the GOP a tacit, undeserved stamp of labor approval while that same party remains overwhelmingly hellbent on wiping out the labor movement and every means by which workers collectively take action and wrest from the greedy hands of the ruling class what is owed to them.
“The Teamsters could have done that under Sean O’Brien, roundly condemning both parties for their corporate allegiance. Instead, in a bid for a seat at the table on both sides of the aisle, the union has offered itself as prop to two ruling political factions that couldn’t care less about workers – two parties that remain loyal, in varying degrees, to a bipartisan agenda of restraining worker power in the United States.”
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I am in general agreement with the author’s comments above, but Teamster President Sean O’Brien’s fake attack on both parties is not the first time an opportunity for an alternative to the twin parties of capital has been passed over. The mood for an alternative has been present for a long time, and union officials like O’Brien have known it for a long time; it is a terrifying thought for them.
There are too many opportunities to name them all. In 2016, almost 100 million opted out of the electoral process and this has been a long process. This abstention from electoral politics is not due to apathy or becasue, as some liberals argue, ”Americans are selfish and don’t care”. After all, voting is not an exercise in civics. People participate in the process in order to improve their material conditions, the same reason they are willing to pay union dues.
But when the activity produces no results, or living standards continue to decline, people either quit the game or look for anything but the status quo. A similar situation exists in the UK as, nineteen million people didn’t bother to vote, more than twice the number that voted for the Labour Party.
The rise of the degenerate Trump and the right and fascist elements in the Republican Party in particular, is due to people like Sean O’Brien and the entire leadership of organised labour refusing to break from their deathly embrace of the Democrats and offer US workers an independent political party.
Efforts in the past to create a party of labour
An exception to this was Anthony Mazzochi, the former official from the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers, who travelled the country in the 1980s and early 90s, raising the need for a labour party based on the trade unions. He pointed out that capital has two parties and we (labour) not one and had some success raising the issue. This effort ended with a whimper as I thought it would, but could have led to a genuine movement for independent political action on the part of the working class.
I introduced numerous resolutions for a labour party in my own local, Afscme Local 444, and also in the wider union bodies. In his opening address to the 20th biennial convention of California State Labor Federation in 1994, then Executive Secretary, Jack Henning, in part due to a resolution I introduced from Afscme Local 444, said:
“The two party system can’t give relief because capitalism in large finances both parties…….We may say it finances the Republican Party more. But have you ever known Democrats en masse to turn down the enticements of capitalism?
“We were never meant to be beggars at the table of wealth. We were never meant to be the apostles of labor cannibalism on the world stage. We were meant for a higher destiny. We were never meant to be the lieutenants of capitalism. We were never meant to be the pall bearers of the workers of the world.”
Fighting words from Henning that went nowhere.
But the main point is that the disgust with the two capitalist parties that have dominated the political and economic life of the United States for over 100 years has been there for a long time.
The USA has fourteen million workers organised in unions
Organised labour has the structure, the numbers, some 14 million members, and occupies such a crucial role in the production of goods and services in US society that economic activity, therefore profits, come to a halt if we stop work. In addition, the exercise of this power or any aspect of it, would inspire millions of workers outside of organised labour: the low waged, the poor, immigrant labour and other marginalized sections of the working class, and draw them in to a movement that could counter the capitalist offensive. It would undermine the right wing elements that are opportunistically filling the vacuum.
It is the prospect of such a movement developing that terrifies the class collaborationist, business-oriented heads of organised labour, Sean O’Brien included. They have the same world view as the capitalist class; the market is the answer to all things and profits are sacrosanct. There is no alternative to capitalism (TINA as Thatcher put it), so when capitalism goes into crisis they move to rescue it, bail it out at the expense of their own members’ living standards and the working class as a whole.
This is the basis of the Team Concept philosophy as applied on the job through labor/management cooperation, Quality of Life Circles, Interest Based Bargaining and so on.
For them, mobilizing working people to act in our own interests, independent of the politicians of big business and their parties, can only lead to chaos; it threatens the union hierarchy’s existence atop organised labour and the relationship they have built with the bosses and the Democratic Party based on labour peace. Sean O’Brien and the entire labour bureaucracy simply want to put a little pressure on big business to be a little less aggressive, share a bit more of the pie but that train has left the station.
“Worker Joe” Biden forced rail workers back to work
Unorganised workers don’t vote against unionisation because they are ideologically against unions; they do it because they know the employer will retaliate with a vengeance and the union leadership, people like O’Brien, will back off; the bosses aren’t afraid of the trade union hierarchy. They rely on them to block any movement from below that threatens this relationship they have with capital and the Democratic Party, and still push their members to vote for a party that most have abandoned long ago. It’s been a disaster.
Look what Biden did last year to the rail workers. He joined forces with Republicans and introduced emergency legislation to deny workers the right to strike. Do we think this inspires workers to take job actions, or to vote for Biden, the most pro-union president ever, according to union officials that support him? With friends like this who needs enemies?
Under these conditions, many people will turn to a strong figure, someone who can “kick ass” can put food on the table and bring stability to society. This is nothing new and it’s looking increasingly likely we will have one of these figures in the White House this time next year.
Whether Biden or Trump sits in the Oval Office, the assault on US workers and our hard-fought gains, that took great sacrifice to win, will continue. Our backs will be against the wall, but sometimes that’s what it takes to force people to take action.
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, there will be periods of reaction and steps backwards, but history teaches me that when workers move into struggle there is a strong tendency to seek allies, to seek to unite our class and reject the capitalist strategies that divide us: racism, nationalism, gender and religious oppression and at all times, the war on women.
We have nothing to lose but victory.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
Top picture, Sean O’Brien speaking on the first day of the Republican National Convention last week, source here.
