We highlighted last month how International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) President, Sean O’Brien’s Republican National Convention (RNC) Speech can be used by class-oriented trade unionists to organize around building an anti-monopoly party. Unfortunately, United Auto Workers (UAW) President, Shaun Fein’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) doesn’t give us the same opportunities.
At a time when labor militancy is on the rise, Fain has continued the path of labor misleaders falling in line behind the Democratic Party. Where O’Brien went into enemy territory to give the closest thing to a class-based speech a Business Unionist can give at the RNC, Fain, while also using the language of class, showed up to play fealty to Democratic Presidential Nominee, Kamala Harris. Harris, who in her only chance to back up her pro-worker rhetoric with action, went missing in action when she had the opportunity to use her power as Vice President to override the Senate Parliamentarian’s blocking of increasing the federal minimum wage in 2021. A move that contradicts Fain’s claim that Kamala Harris is a “fighter for the working class.”
What these speeches make clear is that when push comes to shove, the misleaders of labor will fall in line with the Democrats rather than see the workers’ fight all the way through. One noticeable example was the silence of the majority of labor “leaders” as the Biden Administration brought the hammer down on railroad workers as they were about to go on strike over disastrously dangerous working conditions, increasing the possibility of a major accident like the East Palestine, OH derailment in February of last year.
While much of the substance behind O’Brien’s and Fain’s speeches is true, their coddling of the two parties of monopoly capital shows the rank-and-file members that they are not prepared for the fight against what Shawn Fain calls corporate greed. In reality, the fight is against monopoly capitalism, and their financial backers, the system which pits workers against ever-increasing profits. Without a full-on struggle via anti-monopoly labor, the working class as a whole, will continue to fall behind.
We cannot agree more with Shawn Fain when he said, “We need a defender of the working class in the White House, someone who is one of us, and someone who knows how to fight.” The only way to do this is the building of a Party built out of an anti-monopoly coalition led by a class-oriented trade union movement. Hitching our wagons to either Party owned and operated by our bosses is not a path forward for an offensive fight from labor, we need our own Party that unites all the truly progressive forces in the US.
While it is too late to build an anti-monopoly coalition to affect the 2024 National elections, now is the time to start the struggle. Workers who are not regularly active politically are more engaged, now is the time to reach them. All class-oriented trade unionists need to heed this call and start pressuring your unions to steer resources away from political campaigns and toward organizing the unorganized. Step up, stand up, and organize the rank-and-file of your locals. Join the campaign started by Railroad Workers United in the struggle for nationalization of the railroads. Come, join LUEL and lead the fight, we have nothing to lose but our chains!
