New organizing is hard work, and can often take years. Too many labor leaders seem to think that it stops with the election. It’s not a new unit until that first contract happens. Bargaining a contract is a different skill (and different structure) than organizing the new unit. We need the nationals to provide bargaining support, organizing training and templates (like how to build a table team, how to build CAT, how to build a comms structure, etc).
Labor also needs to do a better job at political education. I am a member of my staff union and the political organizer for a small education local in the Midwest. (I can honestly say that it has taken *years* for members to begin to think about politics from an organizing perspective, in part because the Nationals and Internationals don’t.). Thinking about politics as more than just a horse race for votes means talking about politics at every member meeting, every member update, aligning political decisions with bargaining priorities AND the local thinking about how they as an institution interact and relate with communities. One of the reasons we have Trump-loving union members (aside from the racism and sexism and Islamophobia) is because union leadership talks a lot about elections and nothing else. This means that union members no longer connect their political identity with their union identity.
Union leaders need to push back, loudly and often, on the idea that the only role a union plays is to bargain a contract that is only focused on financial compensation and to provide representation. So we need stronger internal organizing campaigns as well. And those have to be done at the local level, by local members.
Rank and file also sometimes don’t seem to understand that *they* are the union and that a union is, at least in theory, a democratic institution. Too often I have seen union members complain about the way their union is acting, yet won’t even run for steward. Complaining while not taking action (even if it’s unsuccessful) means you will accept the way things are. I highly recommend checking out Labor Notes for anyone interested in starting down the path of union leadership.
Finally, I just feel it’s critical to reinforce that shifting the expectations that members have around politics takes fucking time and a shit ton of work. Silver bullet solutions do not exist. That also means unions cannot rely on a Sanders-style elected to save us. We have to save ourselves. We have to start November 6 talking about and organizing around our expectations for local and national electeds.
Totally agree with you on all of this. The best unions do constant, nonstop internal organizing to get the members to a place where they understand the political realities and hold the union to a high standard. Most unions do less than this.
The local I work for is the only small local that I know of that has their own political staff (I don’t work for the state union or a National, I work directly for the local. This is unusual). My work is explicitly NOT lobbying, or not lobbying in the traditional sense, nor is it just election turn out. My colleagues at other locals (mostly large locals or state unions) are extremely envious of the work I get to do. Our political work has, in the last couple of years, started to get some positive attention from the Nationals and from other locals. And I say “our work”, because it’s my job to support our membership and make their direction happen, but I absolutely could not do this work if they weren’t demanding the fundamental shift.
(It also helps that the local I work for has been doing Bargaining for the Common Good for well over a decade, and is very, very member led. They identified the need to have their own political staff, to focus on long-term political power building)
And even with all that desire to do things differently it’s taken a good five years to make a shift, and we still have a ways to go.
Honestly I have the best job in the world. And I likely would have left movement work entirely if I hadn’t connected with the local I work for about 10 years ago.
Organizing takes the political will of the top leadership ( not rhetorical pronouncements) to focus the entire union organization from the national to locals on growth. It needs significant resources (greater than it spends on politics as a baseline), and a strategy to build density in industries or scale organizing so it can best change workers lIves in bargaining.
I have worked in/around the labor movement for 25 years, and I agree with everything you say (especially your characterization of my brilliant former colleague Chris Bohner). On a more instrumentalist level, Democrats should not think of union votes along one dimension since the labor movement provides significant field organizing capabilities for Democratic candidates. I canvassed in PA for Barack Obama with members of 1199NY in 2008, and the political organizing work of the Las Vegas HERE local has justly been celebrated. Much of the non-essential staff at my union clients are now deployed to swing states to do political work full-time until the election. Writing off the labor movement would have disastrous electoral consequences for the Democratic party.
Unfortunately, though, the impact of this kind of field work is often overstated (at least in my experience doing electoral work in a swing state over the last ~7 years). There's been lots of empirical work on this - even the best field campaign swings maybe .03 or .05 percent of the electorate. That can matter at times in close races. But I think the underlying hope had been for something much more transformative - that growing union power could break us out of this permanent stalemate of razor thin elections against MAGA candidates and deliver more durable govnering majorities. And THAT will be out of reach until we do the level of organizing that this piece describes, IMO.
I’ve worked in the labor movement since 2008. And I think you’re mostly right about the impact, but only when canvassing follows the traditional pattern and the traditional script. Repeated contacts (same person, talking with the same people) using a model that mirrors traditional organizing conversations (so relational) has the ability to move voters in a more substantial way - as confirmed by the Analyst Institute. But that work has to start before voter mobilization does, and it requires investment (financial and training) to be successful. If you lay that deeper connection groundwork, traditional voter mobilization becomes that much more effective.
And I think it’s important to remember that there are distinct and different universes that are in play here. “Swing voters” (which don’t actually exist - they are not, by and large centrists or independents. Data suggests that what we have traditionally called swing voters are really high frequency, low information that just need a clear narrative focused on their own self-interest, and also has an emotional connection) need repeated communication. Drop off voters (for example someone that votes in only presidential years), need a different conversation, issue voters yet another. Not all canvasses include “swing voters” in their universe.
Additionally, given the low national voter turnout, the harsh reality is that every voter that gets even a cursory conversation from a trusted messenger matters. The work that UNITE HERE has been doing is extremely important, not just in the short-term GOTV impact, but also in integrating rank and file into the political process.
Yes, that all makes a lot of sense! Curious if you have examples of the model you lay out in your first paragraph operating at scale (for instance, is this how Unite Here's program works at this point, in your view?)
I think the quantitative data you want to see about canvass impacts can be be reviewed via the Analyst Institute. The qualitative data is both seen by anyone working on campaigns, and no one will share it with folks we don’t know. Because we have all seen what happens when you do that.
Working America (the AFL canvass), which has been functioning since the mid 2000’s is one example (there are others, and WA is the only labor focused one I know of) of a deep canvass that has repeated contacts. They also layer in non-door knock communication.
UNITE HERE’s program is different. I haven’t worked for them, from what I have seen they are likely working off a similar database to what other locals use, and they seem to prioritize repeated contacts in a set universe.
And no offense, but I don’t know you, so I am not sharing details on strategy and/or tactics.
That data is interesting and your and Hamilton's arguments re organizing workers are right on. I was making the much more limited point that I don't think most D candidates and their advisors will be willing to give up free field work that has even a very small impact on close races. Just another factor limiting Ds' willingness to give up on labor because of declining union density.
So, one of the many fascinating experiences of moving as an American to Sweden has been: discovering union membership! Here it's mundane to be in a union. Everyone's doing it. Though that percentage has definitely declined. And the main, working-class union, LO, has half of its members voting far-right now, which somewhat undermines your argument.
In any case, one thing that I see here which seems to make union membership more attractive is that it comes with all sorts of "perks" that have nothing to do with the noble, but abstract goal of reversing the power dynamic between Capital and Labor. For example, I get unemployment insurance through my union. That's how unemployment insurance works here. So that creates huge "lock-in." Also, I get amazing discounts on home insurance, mortgage rates, and even holidays through my union. So even for the normies who don't plan on striking anytime soon and maybe are a little ambivalent about that whole aspect of things, you still want to get your membership, if only for the perks!
Why don't American unions double down on this? Being in a union could be like being a member of AAA!
Most big American unions do have some stuff like this just fyi. Like you get big discounts on air travel, hotels and random stuff (and sometimes more meaningful stuff like that). Also, in my most cases health insurance comes through a union and that's the big "lock in" which many people see as a bad thing
re: "In the 1950s, one in ten American workers was a union member, and today, one in ten American workers is a union member." -- should that first "one" be a different number?
"The first and most profound mistake that this viewpoint makes is that it regards voters as working for political parties and not vice versa."
I know this isn't the point of this article, but I really appreciate this sentiment. I think a lot of people who are lost in the K Hive have lost sight of this very important fact.
I agree with what you have written but have very little hope in it changing unless there is wholesale change in the labor movement structure and leadership. I’m not talking about the AFL-CIO rather the International Unions and the Local Unions. Starting with mandatory retirement at age 65. Cut out nepotism. Require a dedicated percentage of resources spent on organizing. If a local is too small to make a difference the $ should be pooled. Unions have many issues the least are the Democrats. They need progressive leadership not care takers and bankers.
I really like this and your other assessments. What kind of push back do you see to the idea that we need to greatly expand our organizing? I know 40 or 50 years ago George Meanie was essentially telling the unorganized to go to hell. But nowadays what's the major malfunction?
Seems easy to increase organizing budgets. Harder to create salting programs, but achievable i think.
I don't get why anyone at the top of the AFLCIO or big internationals would resist the idea.
"The first and most profound mistake that this viewpoint makes is that it regards voters as working for political parties and not vice versa." The present "punch Left" season is a perfect time to point out that this is exactly how the Democratic Party regards the electorate. They are able to do so because this is not a democratic political and party regime. The Democrats' attitude is an admission of this as fact. It is a fact that includes the Democratic Party's "internal life", absolutely undemocratic.
The result is that Hamilton's argument revolves around am unresolvable contradiction. Trade union power depends upon an increase in union density, but the trade unions cannot advance in this and other respects autonomously from the conditions of the political regime. There is a relative dependency here, and the fact must be admitted that even "the most pro-union administration" since, one supposes, LBJ, has not been enough to reverse a decline in union density. Likewise the prospects for a "trifecta" are dim, where even in this case a 50/50 Senate would be likely the case again, and we can already see the next Joe Manchin Senatorial poobah insert themselves to veto anything progressive. That is how it has always worked in the US Senate, and it is what makes this a profoundly reactionary, antidemocratic institution. 51/49? Cough up two self-important poobahs to block things.
So if the Democratic Party cannot expect to reap the benefits of pro-union policies because the labor movement cannot realize greater union density, this latter condition itself may be because the Democratic Party is not PRO-UNION ENOUGH. In particular, they are not ACTIVELY pro-union. If they were, Biden wouldn't have forced the railway workers to accept a contract they rejected. There are many other ways the Democrats could tip the scales for the labor movement. But they don't, because they are not now nor ever will be a labor party, as "I am a capitalist" Kamala Harris proudly announced on Steven Colbert's show recently.
Leftists, there is no alternative to working for real regime change. Why leave that to the Far Right? The "leakage" of union members is not simply to the GOP, but to Trump and MAGA! "Backward" workers naturally see only backward "alternatives", and MAGA is a "real" alternative, since they promise political regime change. That's what workers of all sorts want, and that is precisely what the labor Left and the progressive Left as a whole have failed to offer. MAGA workers is a failure of the Left.
Here is an example of how the Left abandons the "alternative regime change" space, in favor of propping up the Democratic Party and general political regime, to self-proclaimed "New Right" wiseguys drafting behind MAGA: (from americancompass.org)
The Left has no real practical position on the Federal Reserve, for example. I guess the Left thinks the Fed is good as it is. But the Fed can precipitate a recession, and that can't be good for union density. And we all know - do we? - that it was the Volcker Fed, put in place by the Democrat Jimmy Carter, that launched the destruction of the old trade union movement, results we live with today.
Ah, but that was a "different" Democratic Party - or was it? It is true that the Obama/Biden/Harris party does recognize they have a problem with working people, but I'll assert that what they'll mostly have on offer will be empty gestures in that direction, rather than the studied benign neglect of the recent past that led to Trump and MAGA trying to occupy that class political space.
When 1 in 3 workers were unionized, there were strong employer associations that bargained with unions, either through sectoral bargaining or through pattern bargaining. Besides in construction and a few other areas of the economy, there is no longer such bargaining. Now, bargaining is at the tiny bargaining unit level, of individual stores or workplaces. The sectoral or pattern bargaining took wages out of the competition between different employers. Now, trying to bargain a collective agreement, is most often in the context of the competitors being non-union. The incentive to have a non-union plant is supreme for the entrepreneur because they don't want to be the only one paying reasonable wages. As you've said, Hamilton, organizing is the most important project for the working class, and it is enormously difficult, as explained in many of the comments, because of the plant-based structure of collective bargaining. Organizing should be tied to a strategy of trying to assist in re-building employer associations. They are an integral part of sectoral bargaining. The point made about Sweden by Geoffrey G - that being a union member is not controversial and uncontested - is because of the structure of pattern bargaining where virtually everyone is a union member and agreements cover whole industries. I recognize that organizing is the key, but an ancillary is to have employer associations to bargain with so that the bargaining unit is bigger than the individual plant. That type of bargaining depends upon employer associations that are equivalent to the unions.
Two days ago I got the Rail Workers Union weekly email with the story of yet another industry casualty. I'm a little confused, Hamilton, how you could have a piece on the issue of Biden/Harris and the Democrats and their relationship to labor and completely bypass one of the greatest betrayals of workers in recent years ... the shut down of the Rail Workers Strike. That action could have given workers a huge lever for meaningful change.
Biden skipped away from raising the grinding, poverty-level minimum wage because the Senate parliamentarian slapped his fingers: "Now, now, Joey, we have other business to take care of."
And then there was the blather about a public healthcare option that didn't last two minutes past Biden's inauguration.
Both parties betray unions and working people. BOTH PARTIES. ALWAYS.
The Republicans don't give a crap for workers, and neither do the Democrats.
We do not live in a democracy.
The people have no say in their government.
Working people do not count in this nation and criminal economic system.
We need strikes. Lots of strikes. Labor needs to shut down the economy. If the port workers had stayed tough and let the economy grind to a stop (and, yes, refuse to ship weapons off to the genocide...unity, folks) there would have been the chance to make some real change.
The political and economic system is and always has been serious about destroying the working class and workers need to get serious in opposing this poisonous system. Playing nice with the Democrats in hopes of a moldy crumb or two is not the way. Hasn't worked these many decades and won't work in the future.
I remember reading this, Hamilton, just wish mention had been made of the Biden/Democrats' backstabbing betrayal of the rail workers in the recent article. The casualty reports in the RWU weekly reports is a measure of the Democrats' cold indifference to REAL labor defense and advocacy beyond the few months leading up to elections. Making mention of them ... perhaps even an ongoing graphic sidebar to your articles might be a way of shaming the Democrats into action and a scrap of morality.
Who is capital? I am a retired public employee with a pension and other investment income. Am I capital? If a police union negotiates a pay raise who pays for it - working people or capital? If all working people take a second part-time job does that increase the power of working people relative to capital?
An unfortunately cynical yet necessary reminder that the Democrats at the federal level are still the Party of Clinton. Which is to say a kinder, gentler Republican Party. I’m not sure (as a rule) that they’re even as liberal as the old time Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. Which is to say an alternative to the GOP, not a true opposition party.
We have to have to turn the Dems back into an opposition party. And finally shut down private money in campaigns (if possible; probably requires progressive majorities in Congress to deal with SCOTUS because corruption is the law right now per their dictates.)
New organizing is hard work, and can often take years. Too many labor leaders seem to think that it stops with the election. It’s not a new unit until that first contract happens. Bargaining a contract is a different skill (and different structure) than organizing the new unit. We need the nationals to provide bargaining support, organizing training and templates (like how to build a table team, how to build CAT, how to build a comms structure, etc).
Labor also needs to do a better job at political education. I am a member of my staff union and the political organizer for a small education local in the Midwest. (I can honestly say that it has taken *years* for members to begin to think about politics from an organizing perspective, in part because the Nationals and Internationals don’t.). Thinking about politics as more than just a horse race for votes means talking about politics at every member meeting, every member update, aligning political decisions with bargaining priorities AND the local thinking about how they as an institution interact and relate with communities. One of the reasons we have Trump-loving union members (aside from the racism and sexism and Islamophobia) is because union leadership talks a lot about elections and nothing else. This means that union members no longer connect their political identity with their union identity.
Union leaders need to push back, loudly and often, on the idea that the only role a union plays is to bargain a contract that is only focused on financial compensation and to provide representation. So we need stronger internal organizing campaigns as well. And those have to be done at the local level, by local members.
Rank and file also sometimes don’t seem to understand that *they* are the union and that a union is, at least in theory, a democratic institution. Too often I have seen union members complain about the way their union is acting, yet won’t even run for steward. Complaining while not taking action (even if it’s unsuccessful) means you will accept the way things are. I highly recommend checking out Labor Notes for anyone interested in starting down the path of union leadership.
Finally, I just feel it’s critical to reinforce that shifting the expectations that members have around politics takes fucking time and a shit ton of work. Silver bullet solutions do not exist. That also means unions cannot rely on a Sanders-style elected to save us. We have to save ourselves. We have to start November 6 talking about and organizing around our expectations for local and national electeds.
Totally agree with you on all of this. The best unions do constant, nonstop internal organizing to get the members to a place where they understand the political realities and hold the union to a high standard. Most unions do less than this.
The local I work for is the only small local that I know of that has their own political staff (I don’t work for the state union or a National, I work directly for the local. This is unusual). My work is explicitly NOT lobbying, or not lobbying in the traditional sense, nor is it just election turn out. My colleagues at other locals (mostly large locals or state unions) are extremely envious of the work I get to do. Our political work has, in the last couple of years, started to get some positive attention from the Nationals and from other locals. And I say “our work”, because it’s my job to support our membership and make their direction happen, but I absolutely could not do this work if they weren’t demanding the fundamental shift.
(It also helps that the local I work for has been doing Bargaining for the Common Good for well over a decade, and is very, very member led. They identified the need to have their own political staff, to focus on long-term political power building)
And even with all that desire to do things differently it’s taken a good five years to make a shift, and we still have a ways to go.
Thanks to you and your local for the commitment and tenacity.
Honestly I have the best job in the world. And I likely would have left movement work entirely if I hadn’t connected with the local I work for about 10 years ago.
Organizing takes the political will of the top leadership ( not rhetorical pronouncements) to focus the entire union organization from the national to locals on growth. It needs significant resources (greater than it spends on politics as a baseline), and a strategy to build density in industries or scale organizing so it can best change workers lIves in bargaining.
I have worked in/around the labor movement for 25 years, and I agree with everything you say (especially your characterization of my brilliant former colleague Chris Bohner). On a more instrumentalist level, Democrats should not think of union votes along one dimension since the labor movement provides significant field organizing capabilities for Democratic candidates. I canvassed in PA for Barack Obama with members of 1199NY in 2008, and the political organizing work of the Las Vegas HERE local has justly been celebrated. Much of the non-essential staff at my union clients are now deployed to swing states to do political work full-time until the election. Writing off the labor movement would have disastrous electoral consequences for the Democratic party.
Unfortunately, though, the impact of this kind of field work is often overstated (at least in my experience doing electoral work in a swing state over the last ~7 years). There's been lots of empirical work on this - even the best field campaign swings maybe .03 or .05 percent of the electorate. That can matter at times in close races. But I think the underlying hope had been for something much more transformative - that growing union power could break us out of this permanent stalemate of razor thin elections against MAGA candidates and deliver more durable govnering majorities. And THAT will be out of reach until we do the level of organizing that this piece describes, IMO.
I’ve worked in the labor movement since 2008. And I think you’re mostly right about the impact, but only when canvassing follows the traditional pattern and the traditional script. Repeated contacts (same person, talking with the same people) using a model that mirrors traditional organizing conversations (so relational) has the ability to move voters in a more substantial way - as confirmed by the Analyst Institute. But that work has to start before voter mobilization does, and it requires investment (financial and training) to be successful. If you lay that deeper connection groundwork, traditional voter mobilization becomes that much more effective.
And I think it’s important to remember that there are distinct and different universes that are in play here. “Swing voters” (which don’t actually exist - they are not, by and large centrists or independents. Data suggests that what we have traditionally called swing voters are really high frequency, low information that just need a clear narrative focused on their own self-interest, and also has an emotional connection) need repeated communication. Drop off voters (for example someone that votes in only presidential years), need a different conversation, issue voters yet another. Not all canvasses include “swing voters” in their universe.
Additionally, given the low national voter turnout, the harsh reality is that every voter that gets even a cursory conversation from a trusted messenger matters. The work that UNITE HERE has been doing is extremely important, not just in the short-term GOTV impact, but also in integrating rank and file into the political process.
Yes, that all makes a lot of sense! Curious if you have examples of the model you lay out in your first paragraph operating at scale (for instance, is this how Unite Here's program works at this point, in your view?)
I think the quantitative data you want to see about canvass impacts can be be reviewed via the Analyst Institute. The qualitative data is both seen by anyone working on campaigns, and no one will share it with folks we don’t know. Because we have all seen what happens when you do that.
Working America (the AFL canvass), which has been functioning since the mid 2000’s is one example (there are others, and WA is the only labor focused one I know of) of a deep canvass that has repeated contacts. They also layer in non-door knock communication.
UNITE HERE’s program is different. I haven’t worked for them, from what I have seen they are likely working off a similar database to what other locals use, and they seem to prioritize repeated contacts in a set universe.
And no offense, but I don’t know you, so I am not sharing details on strategy and/or tactics.
Totally fair and all helpful and interesting, thank you!
That data is interesting and your and Hamilton's arguments re organizing workers are right on. I was making the much more limited point that I don't think most D candidates and their advisors will be willing to give up free field work that has even a very small impact on close races. Just another factor limiting Ds' willingness to give up on labor because of declining union density.
Yes, that makes sense!!
So, one of the many fascinating experiences of moving as an American to Sweden has been: discovering union membership! Here it's mundane to be in a union. Everyone's doing it. Though that percentage has definitely declined. And the main, working-class union, LO, has half of its members voting far-right now, which somewhat undermines your argument.
In any case, one thing that I see here which seems to make union membership more attractive is that it comes with all sorts of "perks" that have nothing to do with the noble, but abstract goal of reversing the power dynamic between Capital and Labor. For example, I get unemployment insurance through my union. That's how unemployment insurance works here. So that creates huge "lock-in." Also, I get amazing discounts on home insurance, mortgage rates, and even holidays through my union. So even for the normies who don't plan on striking anytime soon and maybe are a little ambivalent about that whole aspect of things, you still want to get your membership, if only for the perks!
Why don't American unions double down on this? Being in a union could be like being a member of AAA!
Most big American unions do have some stuff like this just fyi. Like you get big discounts on air travel, hotels and random stuff (and sometimes more meaningful stuff like that). Also, in my most cases health insurance comes through a union and that's the big "lock in" which many people see as a bad thing
I could see union-provided health insurance as a bad thing, but only insofar as we should have publicly funded single payer healthcare.
re: "In the 1950s, one in ten American workers was a union member, and today, one in ten American workers is a union member." -- should that first "one" be a different number?
Damn it. One in THREE. Fixed, thanks.
Correct take, thank you.
"The first and most profound mistake that this viewpoint makes is that it regards voters as working for political parties and not vice versa."
I know this isn't the point of this article, but I really appreciate this sentiment. I think a lot of people who are lost in the K Hive have lost sight of this very important fact.
I agree with what you have written but have very little hope in it changing unless there is wholesale change in the labor movement structure and leadership. I’m not talking about the AFL-CIO rather the International Unions and the Local Unions. Starting with mandatory retirement at age 65. Cut out nepotism. Require a dedicated percentage of resources spent on organizing. If a local is too small to make a difference the $ should be pooled. Unions have many issues the least are the Democrats. They need progressive leadership not care takers and bankers.
I really like this and your other assessments. What kind of push back do you see to the idea that we need to greatly expand our organizing? I know 40 or 50 years ago George Meanie was essentially telling the unorganized to go to hell. But nowadays what's the major malfunction?
Seems easy to increase organizing budgets. Harder to create salting programs, but achievable i think.
I don't get why anyone at the top of the AFLCIO or big internationals would resist the idea.
"The first and most profound mistake that this viewpoint makes is that it regards voters as working for political parties and not vice versa." The present "punch Left" season is a perfect time to point out that this is exactly how the Democratic Party regards the electorate. They are able to do so because this is not a democratic political and party regime. The Democrats' attitude is an admission of this as fact. It is a fact that includes the Democratic Party's "internal life", absolutely undemocratic.
The result is that Hamilton's argument revolves around am unresolvable contradiction. Trade union power depends upon an increase in union density, but the trade unions cannot advance in this and other respects autonomously from the conditions of the political regime. There is a relative dependency here, and the fact must be admitted that even "the most pro-union administration" since, one supposes, LBJ, has not been enough to reverse a decline in union density. Likewise the prospects for a "trifecta" are dim, where even in this case a 50/50 Senate would be likely the case again, and we can already see the next Joe Manchin Senatorial poobah insert themselves to veto anything progressive. That is how it has always worked in the US Senate, and it is what makes this a profoundly reactionary, antidemocratic institution. 51/49? Cough up two self-important poobahs to block things.
So if the Democratic Party cannot expect to reap the benefits of pro-union policies because the labor movement cannot realize greater union density, this latter condition itself may be because the Democratic Party is not PRO-UNION ENOUGH. In particular, they are not ACTIVELY pro-union. If they were, Biden wouldn't have forced the railway workers to accept a contract they rejected. There are many other ways the Democrats could tip the scales for the labor movement. But they don't, because they are not now nor ever will be a labor party, as "I am a capitalist" Kamala Harris proudly announced on Steven Colbert's show recently.
Leftists, there is no alternative to working for real regime change. Why leave that to the Far Right? The "leakage" of union members is not simply to the GOP, but to Trump and MAGA! "Backward" workers naturally see only backward "alternatives", and MAGA is a "real" alternative, since they promise political regime change. That's what workers of all sorts want, and that is precisely what the labor Left and the progressive Left as a whole have failed to offer. MAGA workers is a failure of the Left.
tl;dr
Here is an example of how the Left abandons the "alternative regime change" space, in favor of propping up the Democratic Party and general political regime, to self-proclaimed "New Right" wiseguys drafting behind MAGA: (from americancompass.org)
https://www.understandingamerica.co/p/why-shouldnt-dock-workers-earn-more
https://americancompass.org/the-new-right-and-the-fed/
The Left has no real practical position on the Federal Reserve, for example. I guess the Left thinks the Fed is good as it is. But the Fed can precipitate a recession, and that can't be good for union density. And we all know - do we? - that it was the Volcker Fed, put in place by the Democrat Jimmy Carter, that launched the destruction of the old trade union movement, results we live with today.
Ah, but that was a "different" Democratic Party - or was it? It is true that the Obama/Biden/Harris party does recognize they have a problem with working people, but I'll assert that what they'll mostly have on offer will be empty gestures in that direction, rather than the studied benign neglect of the recent past that led to Trump and MAGA trying to occupy that class political space.
When 1 in 3 workers were unionized, there were strong employer associations that bargained with unions, either through sectoral bargaining or through pattern bargaining. Besides in construction and a few other areas of the economy, there is no longer such bargaining. Now, bargaining is at the tiny bargaining unit level, of individual stores or workplaces. The sectoral or pattern bargaining took wages out of the competition between different employers. Now, trying to bargain a collective agreement, is most often in the context of the competitors being non-union. The incentive to have a non-union plant is supreme for the entrepreneur because they don't want to be the only one paying reasonable wages. As you've said, Hamilton, organizing is the most important project for the working class, and it is enormously difficult, as explained in many of the comments, because of the plant-based structure of collective bargaining. Organizing should be tied to a strategy of trying to assist in re-building employer associations. They are an integral part of sectoral bargaining. The point made about Sweden by Geoffrey G - that being a union member is not controversial and uncontested - is because of the structure of pattern bargaining where virtually everyone is a union member and agreements cover whole industries. I recognize that organizing is the key, but an ancillary is to have employer associations to bargain with so that the bargaining unit is bigger than the individual plant. That type of bargaining depends upon employer associations that are equivalent to the unions.
Two days ago I got the Rail Workers Union weekly email with the story of yet another industry casualty. I'm a little confused, Hamilton, how you could have a piece on the issue of Biden/Harris and the Democrats and their relationship to labor and completely bypass one of the greatest betrayals of workers in recent years ... the shut down of the Rail Workers Strike. That action could have given workers a huge lever for meaningful change.
Biden skipped away from raising the grinding, poverty-level minimum wage because the Senate parliamentarian slapped his fingers: "Now, now, Joey, we have other business to take care of."
And then there was the blather about a public healthcare option that didn't last two minutes past Biden's inauguration.
Both parties betray unions and working people. BOTH PARTIES. ALWAYS.
Just review the reality of the bipartisan capture of Wall Street as revealed in the Princeton Study ("Study: US is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy" https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
The Republicans don't give a crap for workers, and neither do the Democrats.
We do not live in a democracy.
The people have no say in their government.
Working people do not count in this nation and criminal economic system.
We need strikes. Lots of strikes. Labor needs to shut down the economy. If the port workers had stayed tough and let the economy grind to a stop (and, yes, refuse to ship weapons off to the genocide...unity, folks) there would have been the chance to make some real change.
The political and economic system is and always has been serious about destroying the working class and workers need to get serious in opposing this poisonous system. Playing nice with the Democrats in hopes of a moldy crumb or two is not the way. Hasn't worked these many decades and won't work in the future.
Here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/01/joe-biden-rail-strike-labor-unions
I remember reading this, Hamilton, just wish mention had been made of the Biden/Democrats' backstabbing betrayal of the rail workers in the recent article. The casualty reports in the RWU weekly reports is a measure of the Democrats' cold indifference to REAL labor defense and advocacy beyond the few months leading up to elections. Making mention of them ... perhaps even an ongoing graphic sidebar to your articles might be a way of shaming the Democrats into action and a scrap of morality.
What, if anything, do public sector unions have to do with the power of working people relative to capital?
Public sector workers are workers who are paid money which they live on.
Who is capital? I am a retired public employee with a pension and other investment income. Am I capital? If a police union negotiates a pay raise who pays for it - working people or capital? If all working people take a second part-time job does that increase the power of working people relative to capital?
well said -- if workers have workplace power, it will translate into political power, as the two are inter-related.
An unfortunately cynical yet necessary reminder that the Democrats at the federal level are still the Party of Clinton. Which is to say a kinder, gentler Republican Party. I’m not sure (as a rule) that they’re even as liberal as the old time Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. Which is to say an alternative to the GOP, not a true opposition party.
We have to have to turn the Dems back into an opposition party. And finally shut down private money in campaigns (if possible; probably requires progressive majorities in Congress to deal with SCOTUS because corruption is the law right now per their dictates.)