By Chris Townsend

September 5, 2024

 

A “State of the Unions” webcast was conducted by the AFL-CIO on August 27, in anticipation of Labor Day. The 45-minute event was a zippy affair, loaded with feelgood lines, but only a few bits of useful information. This is the second year for a “State of the Unions” recap by Federation leader Liz Shuler, and the broadcast was thankfully brief.

What might have been a detailed and stimulating report on the current situation and future prospects for the labor movement was little more than a high school pep rally. The paid staff audience in the lobby of the Federation headquarters in Washington, DC did their best to show off their required enthusiasm and spirit, despite of the reality confronting labor today. The narcotic effect of the abrupt Biden exit and the debut of the new and shiny Kamala Harris figurine helped to divert minds from the cold reality of labor’s multiple predicaments.

LOW EXPECTATIONS

As has become the norm, low-calorie but loud cheerleading for whomever the Democratic Party puts on their ballot line is the rule in all Federation events today. The August 27 event bore out this reality. Several rank-and-file workers told five-sentence stories about their recent union battles in education, high tech, and the hotel industries. The huge organizing win of 27,000 public school staff in Fairfax County, Virginia, by both teachers’ unions (AFT and NEA in alliance) was at least mentioned, but with no mention of its remarkable importance.

PROFOUND STUPOR

Although the Fairfax County School District organizing win was at least highlighted, the other 25,000+ workers who have organized in the past several years in Virginia are still unknown to Federation scriptwriters. See: The Biggest Organizing Wave You Never Heard Of – MLToday  In a labor movement starved for actual good news and tangible signs of progress, the failure to even recognize the seismic shift in the previously barren union wasteland of Virginia is confirmation of the near unconscious state of the Federation. This organizational stupor has a number of causes, primary among them a debilitating addiction to the Democratic Party and a subordination of every facet of its functioning to this political entity.

So complete is this obsession that a remarkable and even historic advance for the embattled unions in Virginia is missed, overlooked, lost in the stampede to shovel money and votes into the already bloated Democratic party establishment. This omission is all the more ironic given the fact that the recent organizing expansion can be attributed significantly to the partial un-banning of public sector unions in 2019, a decades-overdue act led by progressive Democratic elements then in control of the Virginia state legislature.

This embarrassing failure to even take note of a huge positive byproduct of their actual handiwork is yet another reminder that the actual state of the unions in Virginia is just barely on the radar screen of most Democrats. Other explanations might be the reluctance of many Democrats to say or do anything publicly to indicate their approval of unions, a time-honored tactic in Virginia and elsewhere.

MINDLESS CHEERLEADING, NOT LEADERSHIP

Overall, the bulk of the so-called “State of the Unions” program was ultimately dedicated to forgetting the genocidal Joe Biden regime, electing the nearly unknown Kamala Harris to the White House, and exhorting the audience in a dozen ways to unconditionally prop-up any other Democrat appearing on the ballot this November.  There were the usual cheap justifications for labor’s existence by repeating yet again the public opinion polls that prove that working people support unions. Here and there the menace of Trump and Trumpism was referred to, but there few details by offered by which any undecided workers might be swayed.

Several name-brand billionaires were predictably excoriated for their greed, and at multiple points Shuler pointed to “love and joy” and other feelgood emotions as a promised byproduct for members embracing Harris. So pervasive in labor’s leadership ranks today is the pandering to the mental-health crisis affecting many millions of over-worked and systematically overstressed working people that it now even enters their political campaigning. But no mention is made of the fact that our insane and destructive profits-only economic and political “system” is the cause of this mental health disaster.

Most problematic of all for labor’s “leaders” in this regard is that this poisonous and deadly economic and political system is completely and unconditionally embraced by most Democrats – including Harris. No critiques of, or contemplation of alternatives to this ruthlessly exploitive and war-making Empire system are allowed.  The total subordination of labor’s political thinking to the Democratic Party must prevail without exception.

EXPENSIVE SLOGANEERING

The event was also a chance for the Federation and Shuler to road-test their ongoing and expensive sloganeering using the “It’s Better in a Union” campaign chant. Sold to the Federation by the public relations industry to inject listeners with more fuzzy and feelgood vibes, this theme was woven throughout the event. Those stirred by this phrase are apparently left to figure out for themselves what the “Better” part of it will be for them as workers. This watered-down soup might seem enough for highly paid union leaders and staff, but any union leader, organizer, or member at the local level would attest that much more than this is needed to maintain the loyalty of the existing union membership – let alone attract new recruits to labor’s ranks.

As the unions frantically poll and focus-group their own members in this election season they are painfully reminded that in many unions as many as 35% to 40% – sometimes even majorities of their dues-paying membership – support Trump and even worse. This outrageous and inexcusable situation is an indictment of the bankruptcy of the business union “leaders”. Simpleton slogans are not going to educate and mobilize the union membership to the real dangers faced as our political system continues to deteriorate and lurch rightward.

POP GUN ENDING

Federation President Shuler offered in pop gun fashion the grand finale assertion that somehow “The state of our Unions is battle ready!” If “battle ready” is defined as droves of union members going door to door, phone banking, and campaigning all at union expense every couple of years for Democrats, such delusionary thinking is yet again another sign of labor’s inability to come to grips with the gravity of today’s crisis. The freshly-minted Harris machine is nothing new at all, and will not alleviate our downhill slide. It represents little more than a combination of Biden, Obama, and Clinton operatives all guided by the same warmed-over corporate governance, political opportunism, and rank warmongering.

The rise of Trump and Trumpism can be directly traced to the failed, anti-worker, and big-business led governance of Democratic regimes reaching back as far as Jimmy Carter. Today’s Democratic Party leadership is well aware that the requirement during the current election campaign is to say the things that voters want to hear, capitalize on the people’s mistrust of the erratic and vulgar authoritarian Trump, ignore the Democratic Party genocides in Gaza and Ukraine, and ultimately govern with the intimate support of big business, big finance, and most importantly the war machine.

IGNORING GROWING CRISES

Not offered in the Federation production was any mention of labor’s multiple and unaddressed crises. Falling membership levels in most unions; new organizing still stuck at all-time low levels in terms of participation and election frequency; rampant union-busting run amok with little government res  onse; new and expanding attacks on public sector unions in many states; negotiated wage increases that still lag far behind galloping prices; and falling union density levels in almost every industrial sector across the country were all ignored. Any such troublesome mention of these issues would have undermined the forced upbeat tone set by Shuler, but of course a denial by the labor leadership of the sinking ship reality is nothing new. Watch for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/live/BdZJ2TCGmQ4?si=hdfscBZxaBGJoYG7

FEDERATION DRIFTS TOWARD OBLIVION

This incidental and forgettable public relations event is a reminder of the emergency confronting labor and working people. Decades of political subordination to the Democratic Party and an ongoing unconditional embrace of Democrat candidates has brought the labor movement to ruin. Outlandish and destructive forces – as evidenced by Trump, and far worse – have been in large part created by the refusal of the labor “leadership” to engage in sustained political education and mobilization on an independent basis. As the working masses increasingly abandon and scorn the two-party political racket, and as their living standards continue to fall on account of the anti-worker policies of both ruling parties, all this acts to push the labor movement towards imminent calamity.

STATE OF THINGS NOT GOOD

Any sober and honest observer is compelled to recognize the failed course of the Federation and its unwillingness to face reality. But few in the labor bureaucracy acknowledge, let alone confront this disaster, and instead plod along shielded by the “good new only” school of labor reporting and journalism. An exception to this falsification school is Radish Research, an independent pro-worker labor research center. Their Labor Day reporting on the delusional and at times farcical declarations made at the recent AFL-CIO press event is refreshing for its stark honesty and accuracy. See: The State of the Unions? – by Chris Bohner (substack.com)

The Radish report lays bare the fraudulent and absurd claims made by the AFL-CIO on the eve of Labor Day. The report debunks the claim of new organizing “upsurges” and great leaps forward in union bargaining, exposes the mushrooming financial assets of many unions while the membership languishes, and delves into one of the greatest problems labor faces – suppressed union democracy preventing any real debate of these life and death matters.

ADMINISTRATORS, NOT LEADERS

The age-old but sound military counsel that, “When you are too weak to defend, you must attack ”, is needed advice for the unions in the current moment. But unfortunately, the current layer of top union leaders are predominately not labor “leaders” at all in the full sense of the term, so much as they are administrators and caretaker place holders. Organized left forces seem at an all-time low ebb point in many unions, with those few in place largely flailing away on broad political issues remote from the internal trade union agenda. The conservative regimes dominating many unions face no challenges either internal or external. Rare is the contested election for top union offices today, with union leftists and activists mostly to be found furiously working outside the unions or at best on the fringes.

REVIVING THE “TUEL” SPIRIT

The scattered and disconnected trade union elements desiring to rebuild and re-energize the trade unions are making incidental progress in unions such as the Teamsters (IBT), Auto Workers (UAW), and the Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) among others. A number of construction unions and rail brotherhood are current places for internal rank-and-file ferment. But more must be done, with the William Z. Foster-inspired Trade Union Educational League (TUEL) as a guide and map forward. American Trade Unionism – International Publishers (intpubnyc.com)  The task of educating and mobilizing the union membership to resist and challenge the business union misleaders is an urgent task. Economic conditions will likely not remain conducive to union organizing, bargaining, and strike gains for much longer. The inevitable recession and austerity that likely looms ahead will sap labor’s ability to pull together the forces within the unions needed to confront stagnant and corrupt leadership. Likewise, a push by the left to invigorate labor reporting is in order. The corrosive and demobilizing stream of “good news only” journalist fiction must be replaced with honest appraisals of the actual situation, frank assessments of the failed labor leadership, and real guidance to activists looking to deepen their positions in the unions.

 

-Chris Townsend is a 45 year veteran of our labor movement and was most recently the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) International Union Organizing Director. Previously he was an International Representative and Political Action Director for the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), and he has held local positions in both the SEIU and UFCW. He may be reached at cwtownsend52@gmail.com